Humans are strange animals; they yearn freedom and look for leaders, they praise peace and dream heroic battles, they often talk about being one with nature and kill for sport, even their games are like little battles with one side defeating the other.
It is sad that there is such atavic resistance to becoming vegetarian, to curtail military spending, to allow freedom of movement of people, to abolish the concept of “illegal immigrant” and “foreigner”, to ensure basic human rights for all, to protect natural environments and biodiversity.
We have just one life to live, and must live it sharing this little insignificant, but beautiful, little blue dot tucked away in some corner of the universe.
"Sharing" is the key word. Humans have the capacity to imagine the suffering, the pain of others. "Compassion" comes from Latin: to suffer with. This awareness should be the key to a morality that does not rely on religious teachings, but should come from within each of us. Morality that should come from not wanting others to suffer, because we feel their suffering.
And we share this universe not just with other humans, but with all creatures and living things. We humans are capable of extending our compassion to all forms of life, be it a cat, a dog, a mouse, a flower, a tree. So we must share in their suffering, and in so doing want to limit it.
It will take a great upheaval, individual and social, to turn around thousands of years of untold suffering that we have wrought on others, to create a world where we each strive to minimize the pain around us.
Godlessness is not immorality; on the contrary, it is the highest form of ethics for it is the need to live a just life simply because one knows that is the way it should be; not because there is fear of punishment.
If God were omniscient, that is knew and knows everything, when God created humans God must have known that many would be born blind, would suffer, would be tortured, be crippled, be orphaned, be abused, be raped, die of hunger, mourn loved ones and suffer all the ills that afflict humans daily.
Some say that it is mankind's fault; evil exists because of their sins. But God knew of the suffering that would exist. If God were benevolent, all loving, wouldn't God have spared this suffering by not letting it exist? Wouldn't God have spared the suffering by not creating such a cruel and uncaring universe? If you had a child you loved her, if she wanted to cross the street, wouldn't you stop her if you knew that the traffic could cause her to be hit by a car? Would a judge consider you sane if you pleaded that “you wanted her to express her free will”?
And if God really had to create such imperfect beings as humans couldn't God, if God really were all powerful, have created a world where the consequences of mistakes and evil were not so drastic? Where animals, cubs, and children die by the millions daily: where hunger, starvation, predation, sickness and disease did not exist. And where is God's benevolence when not only do all creatures suffer for the supposed sins of some ancestor that they have never met nor know, but that humans are to suffer for eternity. If someone steals a watch most of us would consider it cruel and unjust to punish the person with imprisonment for life; wouldn't it be even infinitely more unjust and cruel to inflict prison for eternity?
To those who bandy the words “freedom of religion” should be the first to practice it and not impose their religious views on children. If religion were really free it would be something that someone would be able to evaluate and choose when they have attained the age of reason.
Humans need to feel part of a group: a nation, a team, an army, a religion or a language. We believe that we are whatever we belong to. So instead of creating our identity by striving to fulfill our dreams, by creating, by sharing, we often look for someone to invest us of an identity: be it a basketball team, a military uniform, a flag or an anthem. It would just be pitiful if it were not also dangerous. Dangerous because political leaders use this basic need to their own end. Too many politicians, presidents, kings, monarchs, senators think, and convince others, that their office entitles them to wield power rather than serve the people; they think they can rule when instead they should govern. Govern comes from Greek: to steer. They should help steer a course which is best for the ship; not out of self interest but out of duty. A duty they owe to all, and not a means to attain privileges.
Any form of government should have means of checking its influence, controlling its actions and limiting its power.
We all should have a right to obtain credit for what we create, for our activity when it benefits others; but when the credit is wealth it comes at a price. Accumulated wealth comes at a cost to others; the gain comes at a loss. And the staggering wealth of the few is necessarily the incredible poverty of many. We must question the morality of the rich, and especially of the structures created to funnel the world's riches to them.
Difference in intelligence, however one defines it, or differences in strength do not imply differences in feeling pain, hunger, loneliness, frustration, and fear. Yet we continue to kill sentient beings, oblivious to their suffering, for food, sport, entertainment or sheer sadism. What is a bullfight but a spectacle in sadism. And we turn away from spectacles of animals slain in slaughter houses, yet we do not turn away the plate that contains their flesh. We experiment on them, citing a higher cause: ourselves. Yet just as we put a moral limit on experimenting with humans, but must find methods to perform experiments that do not entail harm, we should put a moral limit on experiments on animals, and search for other ways to perform beneficial experiments.
We have managed to build rockets, skyscrapers, television, satellites and microprocessors, yet we still knock on wood, have palm readers, pray to spirits, read horoscopes and go to faith healers. There is cause to worry about a race of beings that considers itself the epitome of creation yet remains shackled to behavior of its primate origin. A human that holds a machine gun but is the same brute as his ancestor holding a club is far more dangerous and deadly.
We usually think of rights as something intrinsic, God-given some would say. But that opens the way to equating “rights” with “might”. If we could stand the concept of rights on its head maybe we could conceive a greater justice. Rights viewed as the obligations of others to respect them could then be viewed on a broader scale: rights of a child to education would mean that society must provide for schooling. Rights of an animal would mean that humans should keep from killing it for their own satisfaction. Rights of the environment would mean that we all must keep from damaging or polluting it. And so on.