[Vision2020] Human Hubris & Joan's Agony

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

All:

I tried my best to ignore this question.  The answer I think most likely is 
the truth has in the past sometimes led to the stake.  But now that we are such 
a modern and enlightened culture I need not worry?  Ha, ha, ha!

Joan wrote:

So, tell me, what's always and everywhere good?  And what's always and 
everywhere evil?  
And why?
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I will try to be concise.

Consider that the universe is likely populated by numerous species of 
intelligent beings on a variety of planets, deriving the energy that sustains life 
from stars of one sort or another, unless you can offer some other source of 
energy that may allow life to evolve on planets or in space, in what is otherwise 
a very, very cold, empty universe, who find within their cultural worlds 
numerous versions of Ethics.  Consider the unlikely theoretical scenario presented 
below, useful for illuminating my answer regarding the universality of Ethics 
as being embodied in the structure of the universe in a manner that mandates 
there are ultimate standards of "good" and "evil," that all of these life 
forms share in common that are always and forever.

What would happen if all the stars heating and supplying energy to all these 
intelligent life forms went supernova, destroying these life forms totally?  
Skip the possibility some life forms may be so far from such a massive 
explosion that they survive, just for the sake of my point, please.

Would the universe cry out in despair?  Would any Mind remain to feel 
compassion, to feel the unthinkable sense of loss, to provide an ultimate foundation 
to the high and mighty sense of righteousness and judgment, the logical 
Ethical principles we think so "ultimate," that fuel our sense of right and wrong?

I say probably no.  The universe would not blink, except for the time it 
takes for these supernovas to flare out.

Maybe life would evolve again, but in the meantime, Ethics as we know it 
would not exist.  Therefore there is nothing always and everywhere good, and 
always and everywhere evil, in any sense mandated by the structure of the universe, 
unless you can convincingly demonstrate that the universe always and 
everywhere contains life forms with common Ethical standards.  Ethics exists inside 
the nervous systems of evolved life forms, and no where else, therefore take 
away these nervous systems, and no Ethics exist.

In short, Joan, people invent God or Gods or Goddesses (amazing how sexual 
politics invades human spirituality, a human reproductive oriented obsession no 
doubt connected to our primitive state of moral evolution) in part to provide 
an ultimate foundation in the structure of the universe for what many suspect, 
but do not admit to themselves very often, in part because of the cold dark 
loneliness they do not want to face, and because of the punishment that may be 
inflicted for removing the veil from our illusions, that we as life forms are 
alone in the universe, and our Ethics, in its various forms, has only the 
trembling and fearful, doubtful and confused, or arrogant and dogmatic, human 
heart to either affirm or destroy it (despite the logic that may be employed to 
"prove" otherwise), and it can be destroyed easily by the cleverness of reason, 
or by the violence of our fellow humans.

Ted Moffett
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