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Morals and Ethics.

Here is one thing that I feel everyoneshould know but very very few people do.

• A Moral choice is a gut instinct.
• An Ethical choice is one that you reason and consider.

Some of the comments I have received on the Blog talk about Morality when in fact they mean Ethics. Your morality is the way you feel instinctively about a situation. Your ethics are the way you feel when you stop and think about a situation. The former can change, but only slowly. It is mostly formed through upbringing and for many people it is a blocker in changing their minds on something they have been ‘brainwashed’ into feeling. The latter can change rapidly and fluidly as a situation evolves if the mind is open to such change.

As a simple example one may think that morally it is wrong to hurt someone but ethically one may decide to hurt another in order to prevent a greater evil.

Religion in general, in the way it is practiced, through constant reinforcement of ideas with scriptural reading and prayer and sermon, attempts to get at our basest instincts and reprogram them to behave in the way that is acceptable to the ‘church’. Secondarily it tries to make us think in ways that makes our Ethical processes respond in the same way. But at ALL times it requires unthinking obedience. In fact it tries very hard to devolve us to creatures of morality and not creatures of ethics.

One of the most joyous things about being a human (let’s ignore for a moment that I do not believe in free-will as most people would consider it) is that you can THINK. You can make your own mind up about something. Religion would actually like to take that away from you. It wants to program you to respond in the accepted way to every stimulus you ever receive. It wants your gut instinct to override your faculties of reason and rationale. But just in case it’ll also blackmail you into preventing any non-accepted rationalisation being acceptable to yourself! After all, you’ll burn in hell forever.

So let’s get this straight once and for all. If you want to talk about instinctive reactions then talk of morality. If you want to talk about rational decision making then talk of ethics. Do NOT confuse the two. Humanism is at its root a morality. Utilitarianism, as I will discuss shortly, can be both. Atheism is a choice born of rationalisation and therefore is an Ethical choice. Once a person reaches a point of Ethical Atheism then they can acheive Moral Atheism but anyone programmed to Moral Atheism cannot be an Ethical Atheist because they have not considered the arguments and made a choice.

I am Ethically an Atheist because I came to this view over many years of considerate thought. I am slowly becoming a Moral Atheist because by living this way by instincts gradually become reprogrammed by my Ethics.