What are "ethics"?

Is it possible to conceive of a system of ethics that doesn't involve a concept of a Higher Power whose rules should be obeyed?

Given that the world's two most populous nations ( India and China ) do not espouse Christianity, is a world-wide system of ethics possible - or desirable?

I would say that ethical conduct is always relative to your situation. To have a hard an fast rule book for the world seems a little over zealous. Better to have a set of ethical guidelines that do not have to be followed to the letter. As long as the spirit of the guideline is adhered to, we will be okay.

I'm not really sure where religion comes in to this, i'm guessing you were thinking of something like the ten commandments from God. In this sense the commandments are backed up by the threat of god punishing you. But i don't think we could swing that across the whole world.

Instead it might make sense to set some universal guidelines for sentient life, in whatever form, to follow. Enforcement may be a big problem, so education could well lead to a common world understanding.

I can't however see this world pulling as one until we realise that there is some other life out there in the universe, and by that time it may be too late

Dan, with reference to the non-universality of Christianity; my thinking was that the caste system in India is 'unethical', to most of us who live in Western society, Christian or not. China, with its view that abortion is an acceptable way of limiting population growth, with its apparent disregard for Human Rights as specified by the U.N. , the shooting of dissident students in Tianamen Square, seems to have a completely different approach to the value of human life from that which is generally accepted in Western society.
Which takes me back to my second question. Given that most of India is pantheistic and the popular belief systems in China (Confucianism and Taoism) are more philosophies than religions, is it the lack of an omnipotent deity which prevents them from acceptance of Western style ethics?
But then again, who are we to dictate to other societies how they should think and act? Isn't that, ermmmm.....unethical?

Nations and religions are managed - to divide people - they themselves have a different set of ethics than they impose on their people. Who are these cretins who destroyed Brotherhood. Who is a Jew - few know.

Here is the Table of Contents for a book just being completed this morning. The book is titled Religion and Social Engineering (with a focus on the Reformation).

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

CHAPTER ONE: Before the Deluge(s):

SHINTO SHAMANS:
NOAH’S FLOOD:
ATLANTIS and SOUTH AMERICA:
ETRUSCAN INFLUENCES:
ANCIENT NAVIGATION:
METALS WERE FORMED TO ‘CELTS’:
PHOENICIAN BROTHERHOOD:

CHAPTER TWO: Technology was Lost:

“TOUCHSTONE
"HAM AND THE GOAT OF MENDES
THE PILLARS OF
Morphology and Dissemination: Eye of the Sun
THE GRAVEN IMAGE
FINDING ANOTHER WAY TO GOVERN:

CHAPTER THREE: The End of History and the Last Man:

The State Has Succeeded in Social Engineering:
The Beast With Red Cheeks:
Fukayama and ‘Absolute Religions’:
Pablum, Priestly Kings, and Propaganda:
Does Society Need a St. Bernard?

CHAPTER FOUR: Mass and the Mystic Monk:

MASS – Irish for ‘Buttocks’:
THALAMI:
THIRD EYE:
The Use and Abuse of Mysticism in the Song of Songs:
The Occultation or Usurpation of Religion and the Zohar:
Elephantine Mercenary Jews or Hyksos Overlords of Egypt?
Women’s Intuition:

CHAPTER FIVE: Templars to Temujin:

Templar ‘Octopussy’:
Secret Societies:
Knowledge is Power and Corrupts:
Temujin Could Tell us a lot:
AUGSBURG and the Reformation:
ADOLF HITLER and L. RON HUBBARD:

CHAPTER SIX: Roman Empire or Pauline Christianity:

Robert Eisenman’s James:
PAUL/SAUL and more MYTHMAKING:
CLEOPATRA and SIMON MAGUS:
PLATO and the Nobles (BEES):
WHEN DID TEMPLES COME INDOORS? CHURCHIANS!

CHAPTER SEVEN: Protestants – ‘Methinks they did Protest too much.’:

Don’t Worry – Be Happy:
Wine Merchant and Whiner?
Inquisitions and Total Control of Knowledge:
MORE SAINT BERNARD and INQUISTIONS:
Fundamentalists, Foundations and Fealty:
“CAUSES OF THE REFORMATION
True Believers and Their Deities:
Merovingian Machinations (Again!):
When God Becomes a Drug:
Cleansing the Temple – Jesus v. Money-changers:

CHAPTER EIGHT: Jesuits – Technocrats and Social Engineers:

THOMAS AQUINAS:
Ignatius Loyola – Luciferian or Heliopolitan:
IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA:
The Black Pope Today:
Jacobin and Jacobite, Johannite or WHAT?!
The Destruction of Ethics:
Cathars Were Ex-communicated - Hitler Wasn’t!
The Handlers of Hitler and Weishaupt:
Revenge of the Templars?

CHAPTER NINE: The Illuminati – Weishaupt and Beyond:

THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN: PRINCIPLES AND PLANS FOR HARMONY!
COUNCIL OF PEACE AND LOVE (SHALOM):
Beyond Atom-Mysticism:
The Hegemony and Hibernian Mysteries:
Thomas Carlyle:
CECIL RHODES:
THE NEW WORLD ORDER
More Rothschilds:

CHAPTER TEN: Rothschilds and Rockefeller:

Wishful Thinking:
Wolf’s Head and Skull & Bones:
Hitler and the Hapsburgs – The Spear of Longinus:
Lionel de Rothschild and Bismarck:
Rothschild versus Lincoln:
“TRANSFORMATION OF THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION

Much though I appreciate your need to display your erudition at every possible opportunity, I fail to see what a list of a Table of Contents of an as-yet unpublished book contributes to the topic I raised.

I think the book is an attempt to redefine morality as we know it, through an amalgum of religious idealism? Perhaps I'm totally off?

At any rate, Robert, while we appreciate your input, I think we'd love your opinions, rather than the writings of someone else. Unless it's your book?

Ethics and morality are different subjects, Rune. Perhaps it would be more useful to define a universal set of morals. I myself have many different sets of ethics - there's the ethics I use in social contact, those that apply to my schooling, and the standardized code of ethics laid down from the College of Massage Therapists of Ontario that defines the way I must keep my practice. Morals, however, in my opinion, are what circumscribe ALL of my actions - such as I have no desire to kill someone, or rape is immoral to me. I think that ethics are fluid and changeable, while morals should not be.

But again, that's an opinion. Jewish ethics say not to eat pig. Christian ethics say to observe Lent. CMTO ethics say that we are not psychiatrists to our clients. But human morals are the basis for much of our laws and regulations.

Knowledge based on the bibliography of the intellect is a poor reference.
Personal experience and the ability to help others find the best way to discover the meaning of life is a process that is individual and universal.
Even in the teaching that I am involved in there is not always a universal acceptance of its reality nor its Truth.
Universal Truth is not intellectual truth nor the truth of another (truth in duality).
Each person has unique imprints of knowledge and experience and in each society there are various points of reference.

All religions, philosophies, rules and boundaries that are conceived of as being for the greater good of society are generated by interpretations of the nature of humanity and its relationship to the surroundings.
For all of the writings of the intellect, in all of the written truths, any explaination of reality cannot contain the essence of the Human nor its world.
Scripture (The writings of Sages, Prophets, Philosophers) can only point the way towards something that is within each person and within the world which is only an extension of the beliefs of that person.
Life is for discovery and there are fast ways and slow ways.
For all the collections of the descriptions of what the world is, they become useless if you accumulate all that is described and then die without having crossed the boundaries of mortality through the experience of what others prescribe as the Truth.

All rules are best intentions built of limitation in thought and perspective of the world and what is in it.
Once one has found universal truth there is no need to make a rule. You will always act according to the need and purpose of the manifest reality. Always in accord with Humanities greatest desires.

Find that one thing and know it and there is no problem and no need for a solution. Only understanding and Truth in all things.

from Robert's TOC, who's Fukayama and what are the ‘Absolute Religions’?

Dear Guest

Fukayama was a Department of Policy bureaucrat for the US. He has moved up the ladder BIG TIME since he wrote The End of History and the Last Man which documents all religions (major ones) are useful tools for his social engineer brethren. He calls them 'absolute religions'. They are absolutely controlled and manipulated.

You fail to see the connection - well others clearly see the connection. The questions you raise are superficial parts of the game which is played by the controlling social engineers.

Dear E

It is clear (if you read the post) that this is my book and thus my thoughts.

I think it sounds like a fascinating book, Robert

ExodusNights, that was my point, that an pertinent excerpt from Chapter 8 of the book, The Destruction of Ethics, would have contributed more than the list with which we were presented.
You seem to be saying, and forgive me if I've misunderstood you, that morals , the choices between 'right' and 'wrong' behaviour, are small and personal challenges that we meet on a daily basis, while you describe ethics as fluid and changeable. Yet my dictionary describes ethics as "relating to morals, treating of moral questions; morally correct", in which case the words are synonymous I think; certainly, I tend to use them interchangably.
And I do take RB's point about social engineering, believing that all forms of organised religion fall into that category. Their obsession with human sexuality is the most flagrant example.

You are right, Rune, ethics and morals are intertwined. Perhaps a good definition is that ethics is a codifying and clarifying of morals - ethics is therefore a list of morally inspired rules or regulations? I think, however, that everyone will have their own definitions, all equally correct.

Interesting, how near universally, modern organised religion condemns sexuality as the grossest debauchery known to man.

Dear R.

Congratulations on your book, then. Our point was solely that a table of contents, while interesting, is hardly indicative of your more applicable thoughts or opinions.

I would be more than happy to read your book, however, when it is published.

My first hard copy book addresses the roots of religion and the false histories we have been fed. It is titled Diverse Druids and of the ten people who I know that have read and reviewed it - 8 gave it five stars and one gave it four stars. There are 14 others now available on World-Mysteries and soon on Amazon as e-books. The book that I put the TOC up on this site for is one I could make available on World-Mysteries too - but I think I will wait a while before adding it to their offering. I have a dozen other books to send to publishers in the next year or so.

There will be an ad campaign on google soon and a page on booksandauthors along with a listing in radioguests. The radio will be where the promtion really starts. I expect it will be a year beefore I get any real play that will lead to major results and the inevitable regressive and repressive acts of the paradigm that has NO ethics and is into CONTROL.

Rajesh, do I think making guns is more ethical than using them? Certainly not! But India and China are both nations with nuclear capacity and they are NOT in the West.........
Lysistrata, we need you now!

I am not denying un-ethics in India and China.
I am just saying un-ethics is not specific to India and China (and their religions/philosophies), it is all over the world.

If one part of the world can be ethical, then the rest also can. It is all the same people.

Rajesh, my understanding of ethics differs from both of your definitions. For me, ethics is about how one should or ought to live ones life.

To make my statement more clear:

It is the conflict between "What you are" and "what you ought to" is the cause of failure of any system of ethics.

All social rules exist as "what you ought to" in individual minds.