can people be good without god?

[hayateNPD]

sabay rant, hehe. okidoki.

hahaha.. yun nman tlga true eh.... bahala sila dyan...

 

[puyasbuto]

oo naman pwede kang maging mabuting tao may relihiyon ka man or wala.

gumawa na lang tayo ng mabuti dahil yon ang tama, hindi dahil gusto nating mapunta sa langit pag natigok tayo..

BTW im catholic, hindi nga lang ako palasimba. i dont read bible, i rarely read science books. ..

wag na tayong magdebate kasi wala namang nananalo sa internet..

 

[viva_la_vida]

Simple lang naman ang sinabi ko: kung ang tao nga na di na humihingi ng kamatayan bilang parusa sa pinakamabigat na kasalanang kayang gawin ng isang kriminal na tao, paano pa ang diyos na sinasabi mo na nilalarawan pa man din ng banal na aklat mo na god of mercy. There is something deeply flawed in man's conception of such deity if even he can exceed the moral status of such puny god. But of course all this talk about god's attributes are moot and academic in the face of the simple fact that he does not exist.

Relative po ang justice at law. Nabubuhay tayo sa pinakamapayapang yugto sa kasaysayan ng mundo kaya karamihan ng mga bansa sa mundo nag-abolish na ng capital punishment nila. Pero marami pa ring bansa sa kasalukuyan ang may death penalty laws dahil kailangan nila un.

Kamatayan ang kaparusahan sa kasalanan ayon sa Biblia. Bakit? Nilikha ng Diyos ang tao ayon sa wangis Niya (hindi sa literal na paraan dahil wala namang pisikal na anyo ang Diyos; espirito Siya). Nilikha ng Diyos ang tao na puro, malinis, walang kasalanan katulad Niya. Pero dumating sa punto na hindi lang nagkaroon ng bahid at dungis ang tao na nilikha ng Diyos, kundi nagpakarumi-rumi pa siya. Ibinaon mismo ng tao sa putikan ang buong sarili niya. May bahagi sa Biblia na sinasabing lahat ng tao sa panahong un ay puro makasalanan, iilan lang ang matuwid. Offensive sa Diyos ang kasalanan dahil wala Siyang nilikhang masama at marumi. Dahil dito, dumating din sa punto na nagsisi ang Diyos na nilikha pa Niya ang tao kaya nilipol Niya ang mga ito. Kaya mararahas ang mga batas ng Diyos sa Old Testament dahil puro masasama ang mga tao noon. Panahon un ng barbarismo. Angkop ang mga Old Testament laws para sa kapanahunang iyon. Pero binigyan pa rin ng Diyos ang tao ng pagkakataong magbago. Pero patuloy pa rin ang mga ito sa mga lumang gawain nila. Walang pagbabago. Kaya dumating sa punto na sinugo ng Diyos ang Bugtong Niyang Anak upang Siyang maging pantubos sa kasalanan ng mundo.

Mismong Diyos na ang tumubos sa kasalanan ng tao. Lahat ng tao, believers, gentiles at heathens, ay tinubos ng Diyos sa kasalanan. Hindi hiningi ng tao pero ginawa ng Diyos. Un ang tinatawag na "redemption." Diyos rin ang magliligtas pero ang "salvation" ay naka-base pa rin sau kung gusto mong maligtas. Redemption of sin through Christ's death ang patunay ng infinite love at mercy ng Diyos pero makatarungan din Siya kaya may kaparusahan ang kasalanan at gantimpala ang kabutihan.

Wala ka namang dapat ikabahala kung alam mo sa sarili mong mabuti kang tao. Walang mabuting taong hahayaan ng Diyos mapunta sa impyerno. At kung nasa side ka ng justice, hindi mo na dapat kwestyunin pa kung bakit may hell. Gaya ng sabi ko, nilikha ang impyerno para sa mga taong wala ng pag-asang magbago o ayaw na talagang magbago. Heaven at hell ang ultimate justice.

 

[Stormer0628]

Relative po ang justice at law. Nabubuhay tayo sa pinakamapayapang yugto sa kasaysayan ng mundo kaya karamihan ng mga bansa sa mundo nag-abolish na ng capital punishment nila. Pero marami pa ring bansa sa kasalukuyan ang may death penalty laws dahil kailangan nila un.

Kamatayan ang kaparusahan sa kasalanan ayon sa Biblia. Bakit? Nilikha ng Diyos ang tao ayon sa wangis Niya (hindi sa literal na paraan dahil wala namang pisikal na anyo ang Diyos; espirito Siya). Nilikha ng Diyos ang tao na puro, malinis, walang kasalanan katulad Niya. Pero dumating sa punto na hindi lang nagkaroon ng bahid at dungis ang tao na nilikha ng Diyos, kundi nagpakarumi-rumi pa siya. Ibinaon mismo ng tao sa putikan ang buong sarili niya. May bahagi sa Biblia na sinasabing lahat ng tao sa panahong un ay puro makasalanan, iilan lang ang matuwid. Offensive sa Diyos ang kasalanan dahil wala Siyang nilikhang masama at marumi. Dahil dito, dumating din sa punto na nagsisi ang Diyos na nilikha pa Niya ang tao kaya nilipol Niya ang mga ito. Kaya mararahas ang mga batas ng Diyos sa Old Testament dahil puro masasama ang mga tao noon. Panahon un ng barbarismo. Angkop ang mga Old Testament laws para sa kapanahunang iyon. Pero binigyan pa rin ng Diyos ang tao ng pagkakataong magbago. Pero patuloy pa rin ang mga ito sa mga lumang gawain nila. Walang pagbabago. Kaya dumating sa punto na sinugo ng Diyos ang Bugtong Niyang Anak upang Siyang maging pantubos sa kasalanan ng mundo.

Mismong Diyos na ang tumubos sa kasalanan ng tao. Lahat ng tao, believers, gentiles at heathens, ay tinubos ng Diyos sa kasalanan. Hindi hiningi ng tao pero ginawa ng Diyos. Un ang tinatawag na "redemption." Diyos rin ang magliligtas pero ang "salvation" ay naka-base pa rin sau kung gusto mong maligtas. Redemption of sin through Christ's death ang patunay ng infinite love at mercy ng Diyos pero makatarungan din Siya kaya may kaparusahan ang kasalanan at gantimpala ang kabutihan.

Wala ka namang dapat ikabahala kung alam mo sa sarili mong mabuti kang tao. Walang mabuting taong hahayaan ng Diyos mapunta sa impyerno. At kung nasa side ka ng justice, hindi mo na dapat kwestyunin pa kung bakit may hell. Gaya ng sabi ko, nilikha ang impyerno para sa mga taong wala ng pag-asang magbago o ayaw na talagang magbago. Heaven at hell ang ultimate justice.

Law and justice relative? Are life and death relative...?

 

[markthelover]

Lahat ng kautusan ng pagiging mabuti ay galing sa Diyos..
Papaano ka magiging mabuti kung di mo alam ang mabuti???

So, kung walang Diyos paano mo malalaman na mabuti o masama ang iyong ginagawa???

 

[Stormer0628]

Lahat ng kautusan ng pagiging mabuti ay galing sa Diyos..
Papaano ka magiging mabuti kung di mo alam ang mabuti???

So, kung walang Diyos paano mo malalaman na mabuti o masama ang iyong ginagawa???

Ha???

Wala pa si Yahweh at Hesus mo ay may konsepto na ng morality sa Eastern philosophies. Ang golden mean ni hesus ay galing sa Asia, kay Confucius ng China. At nauna ng ilang libong taon si Confucius kay Hesus. Higit pa riyan: ang christianity, judaism, at islam ay galing lamang sa pinagtagpi-tagping sistema ng mga mitolohiya at relihiyon na ilang libong taong nauna sa kanila. Ilang mga tribo sa Amazon at Africa ay namuhay ng may matibay na sistema ng tama at mali. Kinailangan ba nila ang Hesus at Yahweh...?

 

[viva_la_vida]

Hindi mo binasa ung post ko dahil nasa previous post ko na ang sagot sa tanong mong yan.

 

[Payaso Knives]

oo naman...napakaraming tao sa mundo na hindi kilala ang ibat ibang god ng tao...pero nakakagawa sila ng mabuti at nananatili din silang mabuti

 

[Stormer0628]

Hindi mo binasa ung post ko dahil nasa previous post ko na ang sagot sa tanong mong yan.

Kung para akin man to naka-address, yep, binasa ko ang post mo. Ang post ko bago ito ay para sa nagpost sa taas ng naturang reply ko.

I do not subscribe to all that thing about the authority of any god in this world in matters of human relations (morality, for example) and that is just that. At sa palagay ko naman ay di mo na kelangan ng pananaw ko sa naturang usapin. Kung hindi man, nagkalat ang mga post at nariyan ang google na nagpapaliwanag sa posisyon naming may parehong paniniwala.

 

[ronell10]

Lahat ng kautusan ng pagiging mabuti ay galing sa Diyos..
Papaano ka magiging mabuti kung di mo alam ang mabuti???

So, kung walang Diyos paano mo malalaman na mabuti o masama ang iyong ginagawa???

ano ginagawa ng mga batas naten?

ano ginagawa ng GMRC na subject sa school?

ang aso nga hindi basta basta nangangagat ng tao unless maprovoke mo sya... at wala syang religion or god, so mas matalino pa ang aso sayo kasi mas alam nya ang tama at mali?

 

[manfred]

This is a good thread to spam similar arguments. It only ends believing what you believe.. though we can share & compare ideas.
Sometimes I feel like leaving T&B but maybe when losing interest to a dull thread topic, so I cant blame a topic like these.(english dis time not tagalig)

 

[Stormer0628]

This is a good thread to spam similar arguments. It only ends believing what you believe.. though we can share & compare ideas.
Sometimes I feel like leaving T&B but maybe when losing interest to a dull thread topic, so I cant blame a topic like these.(english dis time not tagalig)

trouble starts for forums like this when adherents of a certain ism (christian, atheists, moslems, etc.) mistake this as a place to convert or sway people to their own beliefs. it is safe to assume everybody is guilty of this one time or another, consciously or subconsciously, so one must be patient with oneself and others and be wary of such mentality and approach.

 

[Dreamer]

Ravi Zacharias at The Louisiana Governor's Prayer Breakfast
Society is governed by politics. Politics is rooted in law. Law must be safely rooted in good moral reasoning.
It was a tremendous honor to speak at the 51st Annual Louisiana Governor's Prayer Breakfast in Baton Rouge this morning. Thanks to Gov. Bobby Jindal and the leadership committee for their gracious hospitality!
You can watch an update here: http://????????1ytCa4s
http://rzim.org/blog/live-stream-51st-annual-louisiana-governors-prayer-breakfast

 

[Stormer0628]

if that is what you think, then so be it.
but god who flood the earth and wiped out mankind and just let a few people lived is good?
or first born child should be sacrificed to god is good?
or can I change the question, is god good?

if you mean by the question "is god good" to be the same as the question "is god moral?" then the answer is no—god is not moral. why? because strictly speaking, the issue of morality only matters if the being concerned is assailed, faced by a moral dilemma—of a moral choice. The moral is the chosen, not simply the obeyed. Since we assume god cannot do no wrong, then it follows that he obeys—that he follows—some automatic code of some sort that is akin to how a robot functions. A robot is amoral. Thus, looked this way, god is amoral. Is he also a robot? That, for you my friends, is to answer....

 

[fpgonzales]

Parang logic po iyan…

Halimbawa po alin mang appliances o mga gadgets ay maganda sa ating mga paningin.
Pero wala ring halaga ang mga ito at wala ring magagawang mabuti kung walang kuryente o power.

Ang ibig ko pong sabihin any action does have source o pinagmumulan ng pagkilos.
Parang mga bagay ang lahat ay may origin, physical, emotional or spiritual.

Ang buong mundo po ay na-iimpluwensyahan o pinakikilos ng dalawang makapangyarihan pwersa ang "good" and "evil".

Hindi kona po iexplain kung saan nagmumula ang dalawang force na binanggit ko, alam na po siguro iyan ng taong may sapat na pag-iisip.

Ang sabi po ng Manlilikha na makapangyarihan sa lahat "Ngayon likhain natin ang tao ayon sa Ating wangis".
Ang Manlilikha na makapangyarihan sa lahat po ang "good" na tinutukoy ko.

Sa normal po na kalikasan ang sabi po ay "kung ano ang puno ay sya rin ang bunga".

Kaya't ang nilikha ng Makapangyarihan sa lahat lalo na't sa Kanyang wangis which HE is "good" because HE is a Holy God, ito ay tiyak na makakagawa ng mabuti at iyan ay ang tao.

Ngunit ang anumang likhain ni "evil" kahit pa na ito ay may sariling pag-iisip.
Kailan man ay hindi ito gagawa ng mabuti, dahil wala iyon sa kanyang natural na kalikasan.

Halimbawa po ng mga nuklear, nilikha po ito para pumuksa. At kailan man hinding-hindi ito makakagawa ng mabuti sa sinomang tatamaan nito.

Ganun paman ang "evil" man po ay nagpapakita parin ng kabutihan, sa pamamagitan ng kanyang pagmamalasakit sa kauring "evil" iyon po ay dahil maging ang mga "evil" ay mga nilalang rin ng Manlilikha na makapangyarihan sa lahat kaya't may manifestation parin ng "good".

In short there is no good if without Almighty Holy God… the only cause of all good deeds or actions!

 

[Stormer0628]

There are more than enough evidence cited already that shows men, not just from history but even today, are capable of being good without any god(s)—are actually living even now without any gods in their lives—so this issue is rendered moot and academic many times over, except for those who not only insist on ignoring the facts of reality, but worse, also think that they could impose or dictate on reality and the stark evidence staring them in the face.

“Normal” people will admit to their errors when they see that their assumptions are proven wrong. But then again, people who have grown thick in the dogma and doctrine of their faith are anything but “normal.” Einstein did not believe that black holes exist, even if it was his very own formulas that suggested them. But when black holes were finally confirmed, the man was quick to revise his belief. Think about that.

 

[blackbords]

oo nman....

 

[viva_la_vida]

It's never really THAT hard to be a good person in this day and age, especially when we are living in the most peaceful and moral period in human history where you have certain rules and laws that you have to abide by, and set of norms that you are expected to comply with, not to mention the priviledge of having at least a basic education and the overreaching influence of the internet where anyone can draw his morals from. The question is not if you can be moral without god but rather, where your morality came from. And the fact that there is no record of human culture enough to predate religion means that any theory proposed about morality predating religion is baseless and just a mere presumptuous conjecture. Religion is as old as the emergence of the first modern humans. And there has never been a human society or civilization without a religion or a category equivalent to the supernatural so it's safe to say our morality came from religion, or, at least, was largely influenced by or derived from it. Even secular humanism (which is just a secularization of Christian morality) was derived from Christianity no matter how humanists try to deny it.

 

[dhanzboy]

CHRISTIAN:
I don't want to kill because god is watching me and told me not to.

HUMANIST:
I don't want to kill because it is wrong.

 

[Stormer0628]

It's never really THAT hard to be a good person in this day and age, especially when we are living in the most peaceful and moral period in human history where you have certain rules and laws that you have to abide by, and set of norms that you are expected to comply with, not to mention the priviledge of having at least a basic education and the overreaching influence of the internet where anyone can draw his morals from. The question is not if you can be moral without god but rather, where your morality came from. And the fact that there is no record of human culture enough to predate religion means that any theory proposed about morality predating religion is baseless and just a mere presumptuous conjecture. Religion is as old as the emergence of the first modern humans. And there has never been a human society or civilization without a religion or a category equivalent to the supernatural so it's safe to say our morality came from religion, or, at least, was largely influenced by or derived from it. Even secular humanism (which is just a secularization of Christian morality) was derived from Christianity no matter how humanists try to deny it.

I think that I will never see a reasoning for the existence of morality more twisted than this. The statements made so many layers of questionable claims that I honestly do not know where to begin.

Adherents of Christianity claim that theirs is a “revealed” religion—that God himself “revealed” said religion to man. The trouble is that the revelation, judging by the events after the act, appears not very well done: for although a book said to have been dictated or inspired by God so man might know his will made its appearance, yet mankind has been in some doubt as to what God meant when he said it ever since. Evidently, God's way of making himself known by a revelation is not above criticism. There seems a want of sense in giving man a revelation he could not understand. It is like lecturing in Greek to an audience that understands nothing but Dutch.

What was it God revealed to man? Certainly he did not reveal science. The whole structure of physical science was built up very gradually and tentatively by man. He did not teach man geology, or astronomy, or chemistry, or biology. He did not teach him how to overcome disease, or its nature and cure. He did not teach him agriculture, or how to develop a wild grass into a life-nourishing wheat. He did not teach man how to drain a marsh or how to dig a canal so that it might carry water where it was needed. He did not teach him arithmetic or mathematics. He taught him none of the arts and sciences. Man had no revelation that taught him how to build the steam engine, or the airplane, or the submarine, the telegraph or the wireless. All these and a thousand other things which we regard as indispensable, and without which civilization would be impossible, man had to discover for himself. There is not a Christian parson who would today say that God gave these things to man.

The last statement, perhaps, is not quite true. We should not ignore the fact that many in the clergy will be quick to say that God gave everything to man inasmuch as he let him find them out. But at any rate, none of these things named is said to have been revealed to man. He had to discover or invent the lot. And in inventing them or discovering them he behaved just as he might have behaved had he never heard of God at all.

What was there left for God to give man?

It is said he gave him morality.

He gave man the ten commandments. He told him he must not steal, he must not commit murder, he must not bear false witness; he told children they must honor their fathers and mothers, but somehow he forgot the very necessary lesson that parents ought also to honor their children. He was also quick to add the command that people ought to honor him—and he was more insistent upon that than anything else. Not to honor him was the one unforgivable crime. But—and this is the important thing—while there is no need for an inspired arithmetic or an inspired geometry, while there is no inspired chemistry or geology, there had to be, apparently, an inspired morality, because without God moral laws would be without authority, and decency would disappear from human society.

Now that, put bluntly, lies behind the common statement that morality depends upon religious belief. It is not always put quite so plainly as I have put it—very absurd things are seldom put plainly—but it is put very plainly by the man in the street and by the professional evangelist. It is also put in another way by those people who delight in telling us what blackguards they were till Christ got hold of them, and it is put in expensive volumes in which Christian writers and preachers wrap up the statement in such a way that to the unwary, it looks as though there must be something in it, and at least it is sufficiently unintelligible to look as though it were good, sound theological philosophy.

Is the theory inherently credible? Consider what it means.

Are we to believe that if we had never received a revelation from God, or even if there were no belief in God, a mother would never have learned to love her child, men and women would never have loved each other, men would never have placed any value upon honesty or truthfulness or loyalty? After all, we have seen an animal mother caring for its young, even to the extent of risking its life for it. We have seen animals defend each other from a common enemy and join together in running down prey for a common meal. There is a courting time for animals, there is a mating time, and there is a time however brief when the animal family of male, female, and young exist. All this happened to the animals without God. Why should man have to receive a revelation before he could reach the moral stage of the higher animal life?

Broadly, then, the assertion that morality would never have existed for human beings without belief in a God or without a revelation from God is equal to saying that worse than animals, man alone should have never discovered the value of being honest and truthful or loyal. He would not even have had such terms as “good” and “bad” in his vocabulary, for the use of those words implies moral judgment, and there would have been no such thing—at least, so we are told.

I am putting the issue very plainly, because it is only by avoiding plain speech that the Christian can “get away” with his monstrous and foolish propositions. I am saying in plain words what has been said by thousands upon thousands of preachers since Paul laid down the principle that if there was no resurrection from the dead, “let's eat and drink for to-morrow we die.”

Sometimes the theory I have been stating is put in a way that throws a flood of light on the orthodox conception of morality. It is so glaringly absurd to say that without religion man would not know right from wrong, that it is given a very slight covering in the expression, “destroy religion and you remove all moral restraints.”

Restraints! That expression is indeed a revelation. To the orthodox Christian, morality stands for no more than a series of restraints, and restraints are unpleasant things, because they prevent a man from doing what he would like to do. It is acting in defiance of one's impulses that makes one conscious of “restraints.” A pickpocket in a crowd is restrained by the knowledge that there is a policeman at his elbow. A burglar is restrained from breaking into a house by hearing the footsteps of a policeman. Each refrains from doing as he would like to do because he is conscious of restraints. It may be God; it may be a policeman. God is an unsleeping policeman—I do not say an unbribable one, because the amount of money given to his representatives every year—the churches that are built or endowed in the hopes of “getting right with God”—totals a very considerable sum.

From this point of view, what are called moral rules are treated much the same way one may treat the regulation that one must not buy alcohol after a certain hour in the evening. The order is submitted to because of “sanctions” that may be applied if you do not. So to the type of Christian with whom we are dealing, the question of right or wrong is entirely one of coercion from without. If he disobeys he may be punished—if not here, then hereafter. He asks, “Why should a man impose restraints on himself if there is no future life in which to be rewarded or punished? Why not enjoy oneself and be done with it?” On this view, a drunkard may keep sober from Monday morning till Friday night on the promise of a good “drunk” on Saturday. But in the absence of this prospect he may say, paraphrasing St. Paul, “If there be no getting drunk on Saturday, why should we keep sober from Monday to Friday? If there is to be no drunkenness on Saturday, then let us get drunk while we may, for the day cometh when there will be no getting drunk at all.”

But all this is quite wrong. The ordinary man is not conscious of restraint when he behaves himself in a decent manner. A mother is not conscious of restraint when she devotes herself to nursing her sick child, or goes out to work to supply it with food. A man who is left in the house of a friend is not conscious of restraint when he refrains from pocketing the silver, or when he does not steal a purse that has been left on the mantelpiece. A person sent to the bank to cash a check does not feel any restraint because he returns with the money. The man who is conscious of a restraint when he does a decent action is not a “good” man at all. He is a potential criminal who does not commit a crime only because he is afraid of being caught. And when he is caught, the similarity of the Christian frightened into outward decency and the detected pickpocket with the policeman's hand on his shoulder is made the more exact by the cry of, “O Lord be merciful to me a miserable sinner,” in the one case, and “It's a fair cop” in the other.

The religious theory of morality simply will not do. It turns what is fundamentally simple into a “mystery,” and then elevates the mystery into a foolish dogma. It talks at large of the problem of evil, when outside theology no such problem exists. The problem of evil is that of reconciling the existence of wrong with that of an all-wise and all-good God. It is the idea of God that introduces the conundrum. The moral problem is not how does man manage to do wrong, but how does he find out what is right? When a boy is learning to ride a bicycle, the problem is not how to fall off, but how to keep on. We can fall off without any practice. So with so many opportunities of doing the wrong thing, the moral problem is how did man come to hit on the right one, and to make the treading of the right road to some extent automatic?

But in the philosophy of orthodox Christianity, man is a potential criminal, kept from actual criminality only from fear of punishment or the expectation of reward in a future life. If the Christian teacher of morals does not actually mean this when he says that without the belief in God no such thing as “moral values” exists, and that if there is no after-life where rewards and punishments follow, moral practice would not endure, then he is more than mistaken; he is a deliberate liar. Fortunately for the world, Christians, lay and clerical, are better than their creed.

The old and simple issue of the natural versus the supernatural is one of the oldest divisions in human thought, and there is no logical compromise between them. Morality either has its foundations in the natural or in the supernatural. In asserting the first alternative, I do not mean to imply that there is a morality in nature at large. There is not.

Nature takes no more heed of our moral rules and judgments than it does of our tastes in art or literature. A man is not blessed with good health because he is an example of lofty morality, nor is he burdened with disease because he is a criminal in thought and act. Nature is neither moral or immoral. Such terms are applicable only when there is conscious action to a given end. Nature is amoral—that is, it is without morality. The common saying that nature “punishes” us or “rewards” us for this or that is merely a picturesque way of stating certain things—it has no literal relation to actual fact. In nature there are no rewards or punishments, there are only actions and consequences. We benefit if we act in one way; we suffer if we act in another. That is the natural fact; there is no ethical quality in natural happenings. Laws of morals are human creations; they are on all fours with “laws” of science—that is, they are generalizations from experience.

So morality existed in fact long before it was defined or described in theory. Man did not first discover the laws of physiology in order to realize the need for eating or breathing, to digest food or to inhale oxygen. Nor did the rules, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, etc., first make stealing and killing wrong. A moral law makes explicit in theory what is implicit in fact. The fact creates the rule; it is not the rule that creates the fact.

Nonrecognition of this simple truth is mainly responsible for the rubbish that is served up by so many teachers of ethics, and also for the unintelligent attack on ethics by those who, because they are, often enough, dissatisfied with existing standards of moral values, feel justified in denouncing moral values altogether. Moral rules stand to human society pretty well as laws of physiology do to the individual organism.

The nature of the process by which man becomes a moral animal is given when we say that man is a social animal. Social life is in itself a kind of discipline, a training which fits a man to work with his fellows, to live with them, and to their mutual advantage. There are rules of the social game which the individual must observe if he is to live as a member of the tribe. Man is not usually conscious of the discipline he is undergoing, but neither is any animal conscious of the process of the forces which adapt it to its environment. The moralizing of man is never a conscious process, but it is a recognizable process nonetheless.

It may also be noted that the rules of this social game are enforced with greater strictness in primitive societies than is the case with later ones. It is quite a mistake to think of the live of savages as free, and that of civilized man as being bound down by social and legal rules. Quite the opposite is the case. The life of uncivilized man is bound by customs, by taboos, that leave room for but little initiative, and which to a civilized man would be intolerable.

But from the earliest times there is always going on a discipline that tends to eliminate the ill-adapted to social life. Real participation in social life means more than an abstention from injurious acts, it involves a positive contribution to the life of the whole. A type of behavior that is not in harmony with the general social characteristics of the groups sets up an irritation much as a foreign substances does when introduced to the tissues of an organism. Thus we have, on the one hand, a discipline that forces conformity with the social structure, and on the other hand a revolutionary tendency making for further improvement.

There are still other factors that have to be noted of if we are properly to appreciate the forces that go to mold character and to establish a settled moral code. To a growing extent the environment to which the human being has to adapt himself is one of ideas and ideals. There are certain ideals of truthfulness, loyalty, obedience, kindness, etc., which surround one from the very moment of birth. The society which gives him the language he speaks and the stored-up knowledge it possesses, also provides him with ideals by which he is more or less compelled to guide his life.

There are endless differences in the form of these social ideals, but they are of the same mental texture, from the taboo of the savage to the “old school tie.”

The last phase of this moral adaption is that which takes place between groups. From the limited family group to which moral obligations are due, we advance to the tribe, from thence to the group of tribes that constitute the nation, and then to a stage into which we are now entering that of the relations between nations, a state wherein in its complete form, there is an extension of moral duties to the whole of humanity.

But wherever and whenever we take it, the substance of morality is that of an adaption of feelings and ideas to the human group, and to the animal group so far as they can be said to enter into some form of relationship with us. There is no alteration in the fundamental character of morality. Its keynote is always, as I have said, efficiency, but it is an efficiency, the nature of which is determined by the relations existing between groups of human beings.

If what has been said is rightly apprehended, it will be understood what is meant by saying that moral laws are to the social group exactly what laws of physiology are to the individual organism. There is nothing to cause wonder or mystification about moral laws; they express the physiology of social life. It is these laws that are manifested in practice long before they are expressed in set terms. Human conduct, whether expressed in life or formulated in “laws,” represents the conditions that make social life possible and profitable. It is this recognition that forms the science of morality and the creation of conditions that favor the performance of desirable actions and the development of desirable feelings constitutes the art of morality.

Finally, in the development of morality as elsewhere, nature creates very little that is absolutely new. It works up again what already exists. That is the path of all evolution. Feelings of right and wrong are gradually expanded from the group to the tribe, from the tribe to the nation, and from the nation to the whole of human society. The human environment to which man has to adapt himself becomes even wider. “My neighbor” ceases to express itself in relation to those immediately surrounding me, begins to extend to all with whom I have any relations whatsoever. It is that stage we are now entering, and much of the struggle going on in the world is due to the attempts to adapt the feeling already there to its wider environment. The world is in the pangs of childbirth. Whether civilization will survive those pangs remains to be seen, but the nature of the process is unmistakable to those who understand the past, and are able to apply its lessons to the present and the future.

There is, then, nothing mysterious about the fact of morality. There is no more need for supernaturalism here than there is room for it in any of the arts and sciences. Morality is a natural fact; it is not created by the formulation of “laws”; these only express its existence and our sense of value. The moral feeling creates the moral law; not the other way about. Morality has nothing to do with God; it has nothing to do with a future life. Its sphere of application and operation is in this world; its authority is derived from the common sense of mankind and is born of the necessities of corporate life. In this matter, as in others, man is thrown back upon himself and if the process of development is a slow one there is the comforting reflection that the growth of knowledge and of understanding has placed within our reach the power to make human life a far greater and better thing—but only if we choose to.