Ethics

Although most people don't want to admit it, ethics are a personal thing, a line which has on one side that which is acceptable and on the other that which is unacceptable. Perhaps you read the first sentence and wonder why I believe that "most people don't want to admit it". Mainly because for most people ethics is not strictly personal, but is taken wholesale from a book. At least that's what they say, while at the same time abiding by their own personal code. In my view, those who say plainly that their ethics are personal are more truthful, or at least aren't deceiving themselves. Now those who claim to follow holy book ethics and actually do it are equally truthful, but my observation has been that most people claim one set of ethics and even judge society by that set, while in reality holding to a completely different ethical set.

A good (if exaggerated) example of this is the movie gangster. Oftentimes the mafioso claim to be Catholics, attend mass, and have religious icons around their homes, yet their lives revolve around crime. Even beyond the egregious example of crime, loyalty and respect are the rules by which they live, not the holy book on the coffee table. Even beyond the fringe and the fictional, how many Christians live by the pacifistic turn the other cheek, love your neighbor ethos of Jesus? Instead, how many of them are actually living by their own framework of right and wrong while paying lip service to Christian ethics.

So what happens when one set of ethics are espoused and another set are acted upon? One result might be guilt. An individual takes action that is in the best interests of their family, nation, business etc but that action is proscribed by their chosen holy book, so they feel bad about it.

Another direction might be the path of absolution. If your deity is one of the more forgiving ones, any action contravening said deity's commandments will be forgiven, so act out with impunity and you'll be welcomed back into the fold. Or you can take solace in your belief that all men are frail and fall short of divine expectations and resign yourself to failure...once again hiding behind absolution.

Why not take an honest, analytic look at the circumstances of life and craft your own ethics? If you going to live by a set of rules, why not a set of rules of your own devising that fit into your own culture, your own uniqueness? Some might say that this would be playing God? That we have no right to set up our own set of rules in competition with those set up by an all-knowing creator. I would answer that if you're not following these rules but looking for loopholes and detours around them, you are doing the same thing. But the greater issue is to question whether these rules have indeed been handed down by a deity at all.