MORAL IMPERATIVES DO NOT HAVE TO COME FROM OUTSIDE (AND MAN AS A “SPECIAL” BEING)

It was once thought that what differentiated man from animals was his ability to make tools. It turns out that many animals, from monkeys to seagulls, make tools. But we’re the only ones with language, right? Not really, animals also have their own languages. But only humans work together cooperatively, right? Again, no. With apologies to the author of Genesis, even knowing of right from wrong is not exclusive to mankind. Even animals know it. The shark and the cleaner wrasse make peace; the shark gets cleaned, the wrasse gets fed, and the wrasse doesn’t get eaten, even when he’s in the mouth of the shark, even when his service is over. One assumes there is not a shark commandment in the shark bible which insists upon this; it’s simply in the interest of both parties to cooperate. Very moving footage was once taken which showed an entire herd of elephants coming to the assistance of a baby elephant stuck in the mud. I would hope our sense of right and wrong is at least as good as an elephant’s. There are more examples:

Bats regularly regurgitate blood and donate it to other members of their group who have failed to feed that night, ensuring they do not starve. Monkeys give alarm calls to warn fellow monkeys of the presence of predators, even though in doing so they attract attention to themselves, increasing their personal chance of being attacked. Cooperatives help protect the young of prairie dogs, hyenas, elephants and giraffes, ants and bees, and the list goes on.

I try to believe that Man is capable of being at least as good at heart as a bat, without having to rely on the word of someone else about their interpretation of a ‘vision’ to know what's right.

We’re the only bipeds, though, right? Monkeys, chimpanzees and lemurs are all able to walk upright, but seem to prefer not to do so. Proponents of this argument often seem to forget that birds are bipedal. Our ability to change our environment isn’t unique either, and probably didn’t start with humans. Check out the bower bird or weaver birds.

All told, the more we know about animals the less "special" we ourselves appear, and the less likely it seems that knowing right from wrong is in any way "human."

There are millions of people on Earth who don’t believe in heaven as a place of reward or hell as a place of punishment, and who don’t believe in karma or dharma, yet they behave well anyway. This is because we KNOW right from wrong without the intervention of an outside agency. If the best guidance you can offer a child for doing what’s right is based on the fact that hellacious punishment will follow if they don’t, you need to try harder. Certain things are bad for you. Certain things are bad for your community. Certain things are bad for the human race. It may not seem like these things are bad at the time, which is why we must think these things through together. And we do so, in the form of purely secular law.

I find it alarming that some people want to be called “God-fearing.” If God is just, then surely only the evil need fear him, right? If your only reason for obedience to your God is fear, then you are very unfortunate, indeed, and should probably mend your ways. If God is good, then surely he wants us to love and praise Him, not fear Him. A good child may fear punishment, but a truly good child deserves reward. The one only knows what he should NOT do, the other knows what he SHOULD do. Which child would you rather claim as your own?