I watched one episode of a TV series the other day called THE FINAL CONFLICT by Gene Rodenberry. A woman was placed on trial for slaughtering an innocent family. She claimed she was innocent of all charges against her because she couldn't have known an innocent family would be a part of the collateral damage, since that wasn't her concern. Instead, and most importantly, her concern was to just follow orders and destroy her target as every good little soldier was supposed to do. But as the prosecution pointed out, following orders without question requires one to first give up their own freewill choice, and giving up one's freewill is the most immoral thing a person could ever do. Many people condemn Hitler for the atrocities that he committed against the Jews, but Hitler did not personally commit any crimes against humanity, instead it was the people under him that voluntarily sacrificed their own freewill choice in order to be able to blindly follow Hitler's orders without empathy or regard for the consequences of their actions. Without a voluntary following, Hitler could issue all the orders he wanted to, but they would have had no effect. No, what Hitler needed was blind-faith followers, people willing to give up their free will. Morality by authority therefore becomes the measure of the ability for one to follow the leader, which, considering past history, could hardly be considered a moral trait.

Many religious type people choose to believe that a moral system can only be moral if it has some type of great, all-powerful authority to stand behind the system with a whip in one hand and a rod in the other. But that is not a moral system, that is a tyranny. These religious people want non-religious people to accept as fact that morals cannot be something that they can choose of their own freewill because they arrogantly believe that there exists an absolute standard that all other moral systems must be judged by. What makes an authority, an authority to begin with? Authority is merely whomever a person has agreed to call an authority. No one is born an authority and anyone can become an authority. Morality by authority therefore becomes "might makes right", which, considering past history, could hardly be considered a moral triat.

Governments are ultimately the ones designated by society to enforce the agreed upon moral system, yet no existing political might can force anyone to be moral. Although governments can force someone to put on an act of being moral, there is a difference between acting moral and being moral. When we are acting under duress or fear, we are acting to survive, not because we believe in the rightness of the standard. Religion also has political might through the sheer number of people who believe in it, because religion is just another form of government. The difference between politics and religion is that religion uses social and psychological force (ie -- believe or go to Hell) instead of using a military or a police regiment to force individuals to be pretend to act moral.

It is far easier to make-believe in an absolute standard of morality then to have to philosophize and debate with yourself over every moral dilemma that comes up. Religion is simply the most common way many people take the easy way out of having to make difficult moral decisions. Anyone can understand a long list of rules because no thinking is required and that is just what religion does...hands you a list of do's and dont's and says, "follow this without question". They don't have to worry about whether or not they make the right decision or not because it isn't their decision anyways, it was God's or Allah's or whomever. Therefore these people act like they do not have to be held responsible or feel guilty for any bad actions they take because they were just following God's orders like a good little religious person should do. This is dangerous kind of thinking because it denies the authority of reason, leaving their followers with no basis for determining what is right or wrong except for someone else's reasoning (like that of a Priest, Pastor, Reverend, dogma, or a denomination).

Morality cannot depend on an authority for what would the authority depend on for its definition of morality? Individuals can be influenced by their religious beliefs but ultimately it is they who personally decide what is right and wrong after reflection on ideas from many sources. Obviously then, Webster's got the defintion for morality wrong.

Without a God (or a Buddha or an Allah or a Joseph Smith or a policeman or whatever make-believe authority you want to dream up) to direct one's moral interests, many Atheists turn to the most obvious interest, that of self-interest and empathy. Do not underestimate these two things as a source of many moral laws -- most people have an unsuppressed empathy for others, therefore they can relate to the pain that they would inflict on others if they were to rob, rape, or kill other humans beings. Since most people do not want to be robbed, raped, killed, or feel pain, they agree on laws to make such behavior illegal.

NOTE: self-interest is NOT the same thing as selfish-interest. Many people, especially Christians, seem to misunderstand this vital point.

Self-interest means not putting myself first, but rather starting with myself first. It means that whatever I do, I must have concern for my own welfare before I even start to have concern for others or anything else. Now why is that? Because if I want to be a lovable person, then I must first start by learning to love myself. If I want to help feed the poor, then I must first be in a condition where I have enough resources to keep myself alive before I can hand out any reasonable excess.

An example of the value of self-interest is while being seated in an aircraft awaiting departure, the stewardess will instruct all the parents that, in case of an emergancy, to put their own oxygen masks on before they put them on thier own children. These instructions go against the motherly or fatherly instinct, but it is self-interested and life-saving advice -- if I don't have sufficient resources to take care of myself, how can I be in a position to help someone else (especially people I am supposed to have more resources then, such as my children). Only when I tend to my own interests and my own welfare first, then, and only then, can I be in a position to help others. Even if I see someone else in need, I am not obligated to help them unless I am in a position to help them. After that, I am as free to help others in any way I see fit. Otherwise, it would mean I would be unqualified for the job as well as possibly being a hypocrite.

Can one have self-interest without being selfish? Selfish-interest means putting yourself first to the exclusion of others because selfish means to have "a concern for one's own welfare at the expense of or in disregard of others". Being selfish means I hate you (or at least display hateful behavior towards you), I am always more important than you, my needs are always greater than yours, or that I'm always "number one". On the other hand, self-interest dictates that you put yourself first, but it doesn't dictate that you put others last or exclude them. That would be falling back on the definition of selfish-interest again instead of staying self-interested.

"What happens when the desires of self interest conflict with the desires of others?"

Use your imagination then

What about pornography? As I have said, do not underestimate self-interest and empathy as a source of many laws and moral systems, and I see nothing painful about pornography performed under free will conditions.

Likewise, homosexuality harms no one. What two consenting adults do to each other is their own personal business and their natural born right. Some people may object, citing the spread of AIDS and STDs, but you must remember that the drive for the pleasure of sex is strong and it is natural and very normal to have that drive. That drive is so strong in some people, that they are willing to take the risk of getting a disease to obtain it. That is OK as long as they take a conscience risk and not an unnecessary risk. Many things we do in life are willfully risky such as driving a car, or parachuting, or becoming a soldier of war, heck! even taking a walk down the stree and if we can do these things without a guilty, conscience, then we can do these other things as well.

Now child pornography is another matter because we aren't talking about consenting sex between two people anymore, but rather exploitation of another human being, and I can understand the pain that child pornographers could inflict on children by exploiting them.

Of course, that doesn't mean I am against birth-control or abortion, since no one has a right to bring a child into this world, that is not wanted, needed, or loved by that world. Think of all the pain that living in a dsyfunctional family can be like when caused by some individuals that have an unwanted or irresponsible pregnancy.

Are we able observe an "inherent morality" in nature as some people believe exists? For example, some people think that they can see morality in nesting birds assuring the survival of their young or in a pack of wolves cooperating in a hunt, but does that also mean that we see morality assuring survival when black-widows murder and eat their husbands after sex or when we see African lions run like chickens when their leader is attacked or when we South American starving male mosquitoes pose as females (ie -- transvestites) in order to attract males that have food?

Is humankind superior to the animals because he has built-in qualities of morality such as charity, compassion, self-sacrifice, and service beyond what is normally required as some also believe? What if you went to the store to buy a gallon of water. Say that you know that the water normally only costs 25 cents a gallon because you often go there to get some. This time something is different. What is it? When you return home you pick up a paper and read that due to the earthquake in your city yesterday, SOME merchants said that they were afraid that there might be a shortage of water as a result, and even though the authorities assured the public that this was not so, the merchants decided to charge $1.25 a gallon instead of 25 cents anyways. This is not against the law to do in this country, and the merchants argued that this was a part of what exercising their freedom under the supply and demand principle for pricing means. You look down at your gallon of water and notice a tag that says "One gallon, $1.25". Then you look down at your receipt: 25 cents! What is the morally proper thing to do and why? Where does charity, compassion, self-sacrifice, and service beyond what is normally required fit into this picture and then ask yourself These questions:

• How do you feel about the owners of the shop? Do you feel they are good, honest people or are they bad, dishonest people or are you not sure?
• Would the missing dollar make any difference to their business? If you aren't sure, then tell me how valuable do you think one dollar would be to them if you gave it to them as a gift.
• How would you feel about returning or not returning the dollar?
• How much trouble or sacrifice would you need to make to return the dollar? Would it cost you 50 cents in gas to return it or would you have to buy a $2000 plane ticket to China to return it?

Religious beliefs are a very immoral and dangerous threat to mankind because most religious beliefs assume holy sanctification ("a people set apart for me" as one Bible puts it) that will eventually attract violent, unstable people looking for a means to justify their madness. When one believes that they are part of an elite religious group, they will naturally start to first discriminate and then ultimately exterminate all those who pose a danger to their their dogmatic viewpoints, for any opposing viewpoint MUST ultimately be perceived as a challenge to the right of their deity's claim as the one and only God. I sadly envision a future for my children where the next World War is a Bosnian-like attempt by proponents of opposing religious factions to ethnically cleanse the planet of those unfortunates unlucky enough to be born in a region where they worship a "false god".

• Morality is not a blindly followed list of absolute rules written by someone else, but is the result of the considerate evaluation of every situation on a case-by-case basis.
• Morality knows in order to be eligible to unhypocritically demonstrate concern for others it must first be able to demonstrate a concern for its own welfare.
• Morality will set an excellent example for others to freely follow instead of arrongantly asserting its viewpoints onto another.
• Morality prematurely judges no one but takes the time to evaluate intentions based on an unrepressed empathy for the harm it can cause others by its own actions.

Much of what I am about to discuss is typical not only of the type of thinking taught by Christianity in general, but in one way or another, it is also typical of the type of thinking taught by the vast majority of other religions. Now the comments by these people are not representative of all of Christianity, but there will be at least one comment here that is representative of at least one Christian sect in the world.