We get too close to the fire.
We skate out onto the thin ice.
We plant potatoes when the moon is full and see how they grow.
We eat raw chicken.
We try putting the cart before the horse,
and put a dead fish in the ground beneath the corn seeds.
We get an idea, and give it a try, taste it, test it, and if it works, fine!
If not, we try to think of what to change, or to substitute, or of another way to do things.
We are more cautious, now, about what we put in our mouths to taste, but that is still essentially what we do.
A scientist might say we form a hypothesis, a supposition, a what-if? Then we try that.
The fundamental logic of science is to doubt whatever proposition is made, not because we want to be contrary,
but to learn just how good the idea is. A really good idea will stand up to scrutiny,
and what we want are really good ideas.
Another way of saying that is to say that every hypothesis is tested by asking what would make the proposition false. Will the idea work under high pressures, at low temperatures, if oxygen is present, if . . . if . . . if. . . . What is left is durable: nobody has a better idea, but if they do, we will try that, too. We say the most durable theories are "true".
Does the same process work with what we believe to be good?
It is obvious that, left to ourselves, we are scattershot about what is good and what is bad.
Slavery flourishes, here, and now and then. Some eat pork, and some eat psychedelic mushrooms.
Some will not drink coffee, and some mutilate young women. Some practice polygamy, and some practice chastity.
Since not everyone can be right, traditional religions told us what to do, and when we asked why,
they said God had passed the word along: it is one thing if Charlie says not to eat pork, and another if God says so.
Authority! Not just Charlie, not just Dad and Grandpa, nor the Grand Masons, but God!
To say God demands or opposes something is to cite the biggest authority figure we can imagine.
That's a pretty good authority! Quit bickering: you'll go to hell if you mess with the neighbor's wife.
That is why a number of very bright people have suggested that if there is no god, then anything is permissable.
Who is going to decide what is right and wrong if we do not have a word from God?
Us? Yes. Us!! God is the only alien we know. Else it is up to us.
How can that work?
It is obvious that there is no absolute consensus about what is good.
The good people in the State of Texas are quite convinced that the death penalty is a very good thing.
Other good people in other places think executions are deplorable, if not even damnable.
(Religious language has some very good terms!)
People do not agree whether abortion is ever right.
War seems to be easier for some to resort to than for others.
So we pretty much try everything: taste it, so to speak.
Most societies learn something, doing that: lots of things are similar, almost everywhere.
We generally agree: don't lie, don't steal, don't eat things that make you loony!
Stick together as a group. Cooperate. Take care of the kids.
As we do when we want to know what is true, we doubt every proposal for how to behave
until common sense shows that what works better than anything else we know.
The only difference between a religious society and a non-religious society, when it comes to ethics,
is not what we imagine, or try, but how or why we settle upon what we decide to do.
Most religious societies clinch the argument by citing an authority: God.
Most non-religious societies settle on what to do by deciding for themselves.
One might call it "experience", or preference.
The difference is not obvious. Let us take something simple: children ought to be protected!
Not everyone believes that. Almost everyone, but not everyone; not even all mothers and fathers.
But most do. It might become a family, and a clan characteristic.
In a religious society, it will not take long before someone argues that God says we have to protect children.
It is the logic of God-language that such talk is a way of saying, "Absulutely so!"
In a non-religious society, the ultimate argument is, "All of us say so!" Or, "The majority of us say so!"
Both groups are saying the same thing. The authorities they cite are different.
God is the authority for one; We, the People, is the authority for the other.
Both may agree by a three to one margin.
Religious societies do not agree on what is good or bad anymore than non-religious people do.
Just look around! Even within the same family of religions, there are huge differences,
about as large as the differences between different religious traditions.
Crying wolf about what will happen if God is not cited as the ultimate authority is simply absurd.
People do not long tolerate behavior they find dangerous to their group, or community, or nation.
They very quickly start to regulate what they think will produce the safest place, or the happiest one.
They are often wrongheaded, of course, but so are religious groups.
We do not permit everything. We might try almost everything, but we do not allow everything.
We propose what we think will work better, and try it.
It might be comfortable to be able to claim an alien authority,
but there isn't one. We have to use our brains.
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