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MORALS

“The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be
the hijacking of morality by religion.”--Arthur C Clarke

What are morals?

What are morals and where do they come from? Who has them and how much do they cost? I know there's someone out there selling them because money buys anything. Some swear they have them but their actions demonstrate otherwise. Most morals are for humans and governed, more or less, towards sex and it seems as though government officials are the biggest abusers of them. However, we won't get into that.

I've searched the web for a week now and haven't found a list of the blasted things so I could pick out the ones to write about; what's in vogue and what's no longer required. There aint no such animal. Although I found out animals have them. Bet you didn't know that, did ya? Well keep reading, I'll show you proof where some of our four legged friends have more moral sense than do some of us two legged animals.

Morals or ethics.

Morals and ethics are sometimes, mistakenly used interchangeably. Here is what I found.

Morals: (relating to issues of right and wrong and to how individual people/life forms should behave).

I don't much like this definition, because what's right or wrong for one group is not necessarily correct for another group. We've been warring over this since we crawled out of the trees.

Ethics (a system of moral principles governing the appropriate conduct for a person or a group.)

I'm satisfied with this definition. Ethics are a collection of morals of which a particular group decides are best for them. Our only problem is, we have too many groups, and each group wants everybody to follow their list.

WHO OR WHAT HAS MORALS?

They say (those smart people who figure out all this weird stuff) that all primates have innate morality. I have no doubts about this. Most everything living is born with inherent traits and abilities. Have you ever seen a baby start crying when it hears another baby cry? This is a show of empathy of which could not have been taught to a newborn. Other things are quickly grasped if not already instilled at birth. Sharing one's food or toys with another, is one. They have demonstrated that even rats show these traits.

Morals differ from one group to another in just about all species. For example, consider us humans, since we are the biggest advocates and users of morals. In some groups, it is immoral to beat one's wife or mutilate their children at birth. In another group, it is perfectly okay to stone to death one's wife because she lusted after someone. At one time, dragging your female around by her hair displayed manliness. Today, this happens rarely, is considered immoral, and not nice either. It kind of messes up a hairdo.

Are humans the only animal with morals?

Not by a long shot. Here are some examples of animals displaying morals.

Leopard kills and eats baboon and then shelters the baboon's newborn

Animals displaying empathy. More four legged animals displaying morals. Be sure to watch this one at the end where it shows the contrast of how humans and animals act in similar instances.

Morals for loaners.

One who is alone rarely needs a set of morals. If you are the only one out there, you only have to do what pleases you. But then, how many species out there are loners? They must make contact with another of their species at least once in their lifetime, or they wouldn't last long.

Orangutans are a species that lead solitary lives and only come together to mate. See, I told you sex played a big part in morals. Ah, what a blissful marriage, yet, this is how some of us intelligent apes do it these days. Men have fun then walk away leaving the female or government to raise the offspring. I think we, as a society, are devolving

Some species of insects have found a solution for this. Spiders, damselflies and praying mantises come to mind. The females or these species don't let their partners get away so easily. They make sure he provides for his offspring whether he wants to or not. She takes advantage of her mate at a most vulnerable time. She kills and eats him as they are mating, and sometimes he's so engrossed in his task he doesn't realize she is eating him. Thinking about it, isn't this how some humans take advantage of their mates in these situations? I could site some specifics, but I'll leave that to your imagination.

When morals are ignored.

In some species, it is okay for a male to kill and even eat all the babies in a group when a bigger, stronger, better male takes over a group. However, this doesn't happen after he takes over. Lyons and some monkeys are notorious for this. I think humans stopped doing it when they moved out of the caves. However, it has happened sporadically throughout history and even recently. This points out that, for some, morals were ment to be broken.

The spoils of war go to the victor. Kill everyone, man woman and child. Save only the virgins for your use. This is exactly what some monkey tribes do when a new male takes over a band. They kill every baby they can snatch from its mother and every young male it can catch. I just watched a video of this and it left me weak with disgust. I'm not putting a link to it here. I don't know whether we copied this from our four legged buddies or they copied by observing us. In any case, it's been going on for a long time.

Where and when did morals originate?

I dropped a few hints above, but let me point out it is a wrong concept one has to be religious to have morals. Neither did we derive our morals from the Bible. They were intact long before the Bible was thought up. Religion, did and still does, promote it more than anything else though. So, to all my religious friends, relax, I won't contaminate you with my heathenish morals. My morals are still intact and I think they are higher than when I thought there was a god.

Morals evolved from life forms as they learned how to function as a group from ant and bee societies to elephant and whale herds. Everyone and everything must practice some kind of behavioral system in order for the group to exist peacefully, or not, in our case. Humans haven't yet learned this. We still act like the savages we were when we left Africa the first time. We are still trying to stuff our ways down the throats of others. We, the dominant species on this little speck of the universe, have gotten piggish and inconsiderate of other life forms sharing this space. Well, that's a little off the subject and is fodder for another article.

Here are some videos I hesitated to include in this article. Warning, they are not nice, but they illustrate what I've been ranting about.

Marines  immorally urinating on the dead Human animals displaying their ignorance.

child repeatedly run over by cars. This is really bad, you may not want to watch it. It left me weak and nauseous. These both are examples of our complete lack of or disregard of our morals. There are lots more examples of the same on the internet.

Writing about morals in a short article is far from adequate. It requires at least a book or two. It is an interesting subject though.

Thanks and have a pleasant day. I welcome all comments. Ray