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Most Christian and other apologists freely and
disrespectfully criticize secular people for assuming a right to think for
ourselves, and, while slandering us as 'infidels', refer to us as 'amoral'
while intending that to be a derogatory term. Of course it must be true
that, if morality is a strictly religious word with only religious
meanings about religious interests, then we secular people are 'amoral'.
Most secular people also refer to themselves as 'amoral', but does that
make us 'immoral' and, if it does, are we all then 'evil'? This is about
the reasoning behind that.
The idea behind what parades as 'morality' is to support an
organization's control over behavior by instilling fear with coercion.
Morality gets defined as the quality of, or a system of, accordance with
ideas and standards of right or good conduct, generally as defined in
religion by one or the other of the various gods. I would suggest that the
religious concept called "morality" is generally contrived by playing with
words and meanings, in a game known as ‘semantics’.
Along with this word, as a necessary part of the game, we
learn about concepts known by the names "good" and "evil", which relate
not to human interests, but those of the organizations supporting the gods
of their choice and invention. Ethics, on the other hand, as practiced,
refers more to a secular approach, as in: "A set of principles, or a
theory, of right conduct." Ethics, really, is about our public face, and
morality about our private. Most dictionaries, of course, being influenced
by their originators’ indoctrinated prejudices, include the term
‘morality’ somewhere in their definitions of ethics as a matter of course.
Inherent to our understanding of both terms is the idea of
coercion, that human beings must be ‘made’ to behave in certain ways, even
if the expected behaviors differ almost laughably from one place to
another, or even in various circumstances and environments at the same
places. In most cases, however, they refer to ideals referenced by the
terms ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and incremented on scales graduated by terms like
‘better’, ‘worse’ and ‘bad’.
While ethics generally applies to legal and contractual
matters, morality is left to priestly devising of rules to be imposed in
regard to deportment that too often has little to do with our actual
behavior, and which intercedes in private matters that too often end up
going against our own best interests. They often do, in fact, influence
interests that would never arise had they never been drawn to public
attention.
By ‘good’, we refer to various objects, events, or
activities approved of by the gods, or that appeal to our senses in some
way. ‘Good’, for example, is a condition of food when we like it: It is
good because of taste or texture, or that it seems unspoiled, and fills
our stomachs in a very friendly way.
We willingly overlook its contribution to our
obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, or loss of sanity. ‘Evil’, on
the other hand, gets applied to whatever makes us feel frightened,
offended or simply insecure. The gods will not approve of them because
they distract us from constant mindfulness about our religious beliefs.
They fly over our heads and drop fecal matter onto us, or pop into our
dreams at night. They live under our beds, or in our cellars, overhead in
our attics or the haymows in our barns, and only appear when we’ve failed
to pay them attention. They hide behind drawn shades in our neighbors'
houses, where we just know they are doing things that are none of our
damned business. Such things are evil, scary, bad, and so they are
immoral.
Nobody agrees on a definition of morality that goes outside
their world views. The reason is, there is no such thing. As practiced,
morality is a human construct, by which any particular artificial
standards of behavior are formed into ‘ideals’ to be imposed upon all
individuals regardless of their natural sensibilities.
As practiced, moral conceptions are power servers, designed
to offend ‘them’ while preventing ‘them’ from offending ‘us’. Morality
gets contrived as a result of the supposition that Nature has not provided
us with the sense to act in support of our own best interests. The gods
get called upon to enforce it, because there is no other way to justify
the kind of coercion necessary to impose one person’s, or one group’s,
biases, perversions and preferences onto all the others to whom they get
exposed.
Can humanity be capable to devise an ethical system based
on reality as found in Nature and not contrived from whole cloth? To know
the answer to that, we must arrive at an understanding of why, and if, we
need to devise moral and ethical systems in the first place. Should the
two terms be applied separately, or ought they to be seen as interactive
and closely related? Should what is defined by law, in other words, and
applies to the standards by which we arrive at agreements, be
differentiated from the way we go about our normal, informal daily lives?
Does that mean ethics takes precedence over morality? No.
In reality, they apply to different spheres of human interaction. The
closest anyone has come to a 1workable
definition of 'morality'/'morals'/'mores' that does not usurp the
definitions of 'ethics' is to identify morals as some combination of
'ethics' and 'priorities'. Morality ought to solely reference the ways we
interact with others informally (while reserving 'ethics' for formal
considerations). The best source of ideals would be in accordance with
whatever promotes our individual welfare and that of the group with whom
we interact and, for our group, its welfare and that of those groups with
which it interacts.
It can be historically observed that those individuals who,
for whatever reason, matured with self-awareness intact and who felt free
to pursue their own creative urges have been those who most benefited
themselves and the culture wherein they lived. The opposite occurs where
religiously enforced morality reigns. The development of the United States
provides many fine examples of cultural development as a result of
individual freedom, and also of the decline that has resulted from
theological interference with many aspects of that freedom. Look
historically at the Grecian and Roman cultures, and even farther back at
Mesopotamia and Persia, or at the events that preceded and followed the
Dark Ages in Europe. Are we capable to learn anything, as a culture, from
that?
How can a culture develop in such a way that it spawns the
kind of individual creativity from which it will benefit, and not end up
thwarting it? My belief is that the rise of science ought to have already
provided many insights into natural ways such a culture could come about.
More than that, it would necessarily be one created for that purpose. It
would never arise by accident from the ashes of a preceding culture, nor
from within a culture with which it would end up in (likely deadly)
competition. It appears to be something that would need to be purposefully
devised.
Can a natural conception of morality be devised that is
entirely human in its origination and application, one that relies not on
coercion, but on appeal to our natural instincts and differences? Science
has given mankind insights into the roots of our own natures, wherein we
can take a guilt-free look at our inherent differences without the need to
judge them according to artificial standards, as has been the case so far.
We can know we will be different from each other. We can
expect to be found to be different from each other, even though we may be
siblings, or children of demanding parents. That gives us a basis for
knowing that a so-called universal morality would be more harmful than
beneficial to a culture that seeks to implement it. We would be as bad off
with it, as we are with the false ideals we now seek to enforce, and which
are the reason Americans (of the United States) have the largest prison
population in the world (housing approximately half the total inmate
population on Earth, while our population is only about 1/30!).
Realizing blind and aimless Nature decreed no purpose for
any or all of us, and no gods can be found to be in direct communication
with each and every one of us, we are left to our own reasoning and
devising. The only other choice is to go on as we are, taking someone
else’s word for what is right and wrong, good and bad, evil and saintly,
and handing them the authority of coercion and enforcement. After
thousands of years of practice, it seems we ought to have taken notice
that just does not work: theological interests seek to usurp any kind of
artificial standards by imposing their own decrees upon the rest of their
cultures. We must rescue ourselves from that by seeking the good and
accurate application of science to our millenniums-long puzzle.
Our reasons for good behavior ought best to
 be
our own. We are the individual and cumulative results of natural
evolution, which demonstrates that humanity is at its best when all the
variances are at play and involved in social development, and that
contriving ways to thwart that leads to social decline. Education offers a
better tool than coercion, wherein (rather than by enforcement) our youths
are taught how to follow their natural instincts and common sense and
awareness of cause-and-effect relationships, the benefits of doing so, and
how to understand that constructive acts will always yield greater rewards
than destructive behavior; and, how to recognize the difference
beforehand.
Youths should be taught from early on
how to set goals based on their own talents, interests, and circumstances.
While they'd need nurturant guidance, they need to discover the answers to
particular questions about themselves: What is the self-perceived purpose
of your existence?— Have you formulated long and short-term goals?— How do
they fit in with the people and conditions of your existence?– What is the
best all around way to accomplish them?– Are your answers certain, or are
you contemplating other pursuits?– and what will you and others have to
give up so you can achieve them?
No society that I am aware of has ever been set up with
individual interests in mind, nor in any way to purposefully benefit the
whole as a result of the most possible total, moral freedom of its
members. Morals have always been imposed. There are members of our
cultures who insist that is the way it has to be. Honesty has been sorely
lacking all through history, and all through recent time. Let’s be honest
about this. Let’s put it to the test, and answer once and for all time
whether a scientific culture can, as an entire society, survive without
artificial constraints.
If such a society can be devised in such a way that it can
avoid theological manipulation, and theological interference can be
effectively prevented therein, and it still fails, then the results of
that could more accurately be called ‘scientific’ and we would learn from
it. All we have until now amounts to little more than manipulated opinions
and wishful thinking. If such a society would succeed, it would definitely
be in humankind’s best interests to discover that, and to study and learn
why, and put that knowledge to work all over the world for mankind’s
benefit.
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