What do I know?
Minutes ago, the sun was glaring at me through the lens of a
blue sky, but I watched the clouds roll over the top of the surrounding peaks
and avalanche down the empty slopes toward me. I shuffled my feet and staggered
toward the nearest tree cover, just as the wind began to throw hail into my
eyes. I sat behind the tree, patiently awaiting the passing storm. After only
five minutes or so, the ground was covered with a quarter-inch layer of what
looks like nickel sized clumps of sea-salt. As the rays of sun reach around the
trees base, these clumps of hail melted into the late Spring soil, promising
lush vegetation for the coming months.
Now, however, I lower my baseball cap over my eyes and lay
my head against the pillowtop stone surface, with my feet sloping down the
mountainside and the breeze sifting through the meadow. My binoculars hang by
their string from my wrist and follow gravity toward the bottom of the valley,
but the pull of the long day summons my eyelids to their closing, and a calm
dream replaces the world I live in with the world that lives in me.
As I wake, I clumsily trek back down the mountain,
momentarily losing my way and stumbling into a rocky creek bed. “Wake up and
watch your step,” I mutter to myself. My voice is the only audible human voice
I have heard over the course of the last three days, and I’m beginning to
cherish my input.
I am tired, so I sleep. I am hungry, so I eat. I am thirsty,
so I drink. But if there is work to be done, I cannot sleep. If there is no more
food, I cannot eat. If there is no stream, I cannot drink. Sometimes this world
avails me with what I need to be comfortable, sometimes it does not. What it
never fails in, however, is honesty. As the eagle does not lament the passing
of the gopher, nor does a flame the burning of a cedar tree, nor does the heat
mourn the shriveling grass in late August, nor shall this world be burdened by
the passing of my final breath. It giveth as it taketh away. The good does not
hide the bad, instead the good coexists with the bad.
I do not know how the sun came to be, nor the eagle, nor the
flame. Was it chance? Maybe. I hope that is not the case, nor will I live as
though it is. For I know that the sun questions not its shine, the eagle likely
questions not its flight, and the flame questions not its burning. No, these
things only are. They are as they are. Therefore, no time shall I waste amongst
them confused as to my place within their existence. I just am as well—I find
no virtue in claiming to be as I am not. I find no virtue in self-invention,
self-discovery, but only self-fulfillment.
What
burden we carry! The burden of self-realization, the burden of self-pity, the
burden of self-hatred, the burden of self-love. It could be said that all
seasons of the earth can be found within the self. What burden is the self! Do
the trees of the earth refuse to sway with the winters wind? Do the birds of the sky refuse to hunt for the sake of fast?
Do the trees wither and die for fear of the future? Does the tide rest after a
long, hard day? Does it refuse the order of the moon?
It
is not that I cannot exist in this place, instead it is that I have found
myself with a choice to either succumb to Nature’s Law or Man’s Law, assuming
that, because they are known, they are all that can be true. But if Nature’s
Law is that which exists without man, then Natural Law requires not that I
perceive it or perceive at all. It does not lie to me when it strikes me with
beauty or slays me with brutality. If it holds nothing back from my perception
of it and requires not my perception of it to still act truthfully, then I can
learn to apply the principal of perception to Man’s Law as well. In this case,
the Law of Man, with war, theft, sexual deviance, and even deceit, evidences
its intent with alarming transparency. It has the capacity to be as beautiful
or as ruthless as Nature’s Law, which tells me I may have created a false
distinction between the two forms of Law. Thus, Man’s Law acts homogeneously
with Nature’s Law. Evidently, they are one and the same.
To
this I propose, that while humanity may not willingly admit to the truth of
Nature’s Law as it applies to man, it is observably true that mankind is bound
to the Laws of Nature. While evidence shows this to be true, humankind tells a
lie: some humans are good, some are bad. But to be a human is neither righteous
nor unrighteous if the only laws to which we are bound are the Laws of Nature.
No more are we good or evil than the lion who kills the cubs of another pride.
If, by the Laws of Nature, we conduct ourselves, our recognizing of a potential
to overcome the constraints of Natural Law with the attainment of righteousness
means either that we recognize another law which governs goodness and badness,
or we lie that goodness and badness truly exist.
What is a world without good and evil? Of course, it is a
world without evil, but it then must also be a world without good; for one
cannot exist without the other. Therefore, concepts of good and evil within
human societies transcend Natural Law, despite our proclivity to reflect
Natural Laws in our communal and individual actions. The best evidence that our ponderings of ethics
are an anomaly is that we ponder ethics. The moment that we question whether
what we do is right or wrong is the very moment we should question whether our
place in the universe is by chance, or if we are in fact governed by another, transcendental law, which the law's of man and nature cannot achieve.
The great burden of the open and thoughtful atheist or agnostic is an inability to transcend moral relativity (morality governed by culture and circumstance) and establish a credible basis for any moral standard. You can live a primarily moral life as a proclaimed atheist just as well as you can live a predominantly immoral life while staking claim in a religion. Still, there is no philosophically sound argument for an objective morality outside of religion for the following reasons:
1) For right and wrong to exist there must be a governing authority to establish its boundaries outside of subjective interpretation. Even the most rational of human's are subject to biases and moral blind-spots. There must be an established Law, or else no on can be rewarded or punished for their actions with consistency.
2) Natural Law is amoral. Competing acts of nature (a forest fire, the death of vegetation in autumn, beaver dams...) are in constant conflict with one-another. As expressed above, this law is the only observable governing law. Even the most progressive moral societies are bound to the Laws of Nature. But Nature's Law does not require we are monogamous, we treat other's with respect, or we accept deviations from that which is socially abnormal. If we concede to Nature's Law, we concede to amorality.
3) Every principal you carry with you in your life is either dictated by nature, culture, or religion. If you abandon your religion, you act either by culture or nature. As expressed above, cultures, without an objective law, act by nature. Therefore, without an objective moral truth, you are bound to act only by nature.
These points are secularly acknowledged, but are unanswerable. You can claim moral principals are defined by an enlightened society, as many materialist intellectuals do, but this does not account for the philosophical inconsistencies mentioned above; it only disregards them. What enlightenment philosophers feared with the death of God was the death of moral objectivity. For moral objectivity to continue to exist, it must be credible foundationally for the sake of future generations. The present state of humanity is at its most desirable currently, but the moral truths at stake have never been so endangered. With further development of nuclear arms, artificial intelligence, genetic modification, virtual reality, and data infringement, the stakes are at their highest.
You can also claim that you have no interest in whether you are righteous or not, you just do the best you can. This will work for you in your lifetime, but consider this: those of us who have thought most deeply on issues of right and wrong and expressed our respective beliefs publicly and genealogically (through our families and children) are the ones who will have a say in the moral truths of the future. Simply not caring about moral truth, if there is any, is a shallow understanding of your place and responsibility as an individual within societies; especially democratic republics such as ours. It is always worth it, in my opinion, to consider what you believe, how you got there, and how you can best impact future generations positively. In my opinion, there is no excuse for moral complacency.
But, what do I know?
The great burden of the open and thoughtful atheist or agnostic is an inability to transcend moral relativity (morality governed by culture and circumstance) and establish a credible basis for any moral standard. You can live a primarily moral life as a proclaimed atheist just as well as you can live a predominantly immoral life while staking claim in a religion. Still, there is no philosophically sound argument for an objective morality outside of religion for the following reasons:
1) For right and wrong to exist there must be a governing authority to establish its boundaries outside of subjective interpretation. Even the most rational of human's are subject to biases and moral blind-spots. There must be an established Law, or else no on can be rewarded or punished for their actions with consistency.
2) Natural Law is amoral. Competing acts of nature (a forest fire, the death of vegetation in autumn, beaver dams...) are in constant conflict with one-another. As expressed above, this law is the only observable governing law. Even the most progressive moral societies are bound to the Laws of Nature. But Nature's Law does not require we are monogamous, we treat other's with respect, or we accept deviations from that which is socially abnormal. If we concede to Nature's Law, we concede to amorality.
3) Every principal you carry with you in your life is either dictated by nature, culture, or religion. If you abandon your religion, you act either by culture or nature. As expressed above, cultures, without an objective law, act by nature. Therefore, without an objective moral truth, you are bound to act only by nature.
These points are secularly acknowledged, but are unanswerable. You can claim moral principals are defined by an enlightened society, as many materialist intellectuals do, but this does not account for the philosophical inconsistencies mentioned above; it only disregards them. What enlightenment philosophers feared with the death of God was the death of moral objectivity. For moral objectivity to continue to exist, it must be credible foundationally for the sake of future generations. The present state of humanity is at its most desirable currently, but the moral truths at stake have never been so endangered. With further development of nuclear arms, artificial intelligence, genetic modification, virtual reality, and data infringement, the stakes are at their highest.
You can also claim that you have no interest in whether you are righteous or not, you just do the best you can. This will work for you in your lifetime, but consider this: those of us who have thought most deeply on issues of right and wrong and expressed our respective beliefs publicly and genealogically (through our families and children) are the ones who will have a say in the moral truths of the future. Simply not caring about moral truth, if there is any, is a shallow understanding of your place and responsibility as an individual within societies; especially democratic republics such as ours. It is always worth it, in my opinion, to consider what you believe, how you got there, and how you can best impact future generations positively. In my opinion, there is no excuse for moral complacency.
But, what do I know?
