Pop star explains secular ethics

The uncomplicated, utterly sensible and short view of secular ethics

Secularists gasp in astonishment when religionists deny any real ethics are possible without the threat of eternity.  One need only look at the bloody history of religion to believe the opposite.  Then it’s the religionists’ turn to be amazed.  What basis could there be for ethics, then?  Let’s ask a pop star…

This is the world we live in
And these are the hands we’re given
Use them and let’s start trying
To make it a place worth living in.
- Phil Collins, Genesis; Land of Confusion

Long books have been written on secular ethics but when you use poetic language, it isn’t really that hard to understand, is it?

Posted by George on 08/14/05 at 10:27 AM
Geeky • observations •

  1. I couldn’t really help but comment on this one.  smile So take it with the love that it was intended… smile

    The problem comes that with all people, if you accept the Judeo-Christian idea that God exists is that we are all imperfect, flawed individuals with a great capacity for evil regardless of which side of the religion fence you sit on.  Just because someone claims to be a Christian doesn’t necissairly mean that evil is now not a part of their nature or is out of their ability to do. 

    On the other side of the fence, ethics seem to be the anomoly rather than the rule.  I’m not going to necissairly believe what Phil Collin’s truth is when I see Sudanese refugees being slaughtered simply because of their belief system, or people be escorted out of the gaza strip by force, or Hutus and Tutzi’s and the Rwanadan ethnic cleansing, or to bring it into the Western world even football holligans deciding their good time is to beat the crap out of somone, or people trampling a baby carriage in Virginia for the sake of a four year old, 50 dollar piece of electronics.  People who make a positive difference in the world are the anomoly; we have a system that, at the end of the day, is infused with people with a thirst for power and are envious and willing to do anything to get what they want. 

    People, unfortunatly, are people whichever god they claim.  The Crusades (atheism’s favorite whipping boy) are filled with people who had ‘noble intentions’ while they made their money or had a quest for land or fame or whatever.  I could fill another post with people who claim faith but have serious flaws *ahem* *Cough* George Bush*cough* *ahem* and would rank up there with the seriously disturbed people of the world.  It’s not people attaching the label of ‘Christianity’ that suddenly brings them into sainthood status, it’s the idea that a perfect God starts to change us where we’re at…and that is a very long process. smile

    —pete

    Posted by Pete J  on  08/19/05  at  11:13 AM

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