“A spirit of license makes a man refuse to commit himself to any standards. The right time is the way he sets his watch. The yardstick has the number of inches that he wills it to have. Liberty becomes license, and unbounded license leads to unbounded tyranny. When society reaches this stage, and there is no standard of right and wrong outside of the individual himself, then the individual is defenseless against the onslaught of cruder and more violent men who proclaim their own subjective sense of values. Once my idea of morality is just as good as your idea of morality, then the morality that is going to prevail is the morality that is stronger.”
“Even though Christ Himself would not deliver us from the power of the Totalitarian State, as He did not deliver Himself, we must see His purpose in it all. Maybe his children are being persecuted by the world in order that they might withdraw themselves from the world. Maybe His most violent enemies may be doing His work negatively, for it could be the mission of totalitarianism to preside over the liquidation of a modern world that became indifferent to God and His moral laws.”
“The Sun would have wasted its life but for the evolution of life on earth. The one who gives should be grateful to the one who receives.”
“There is no right or wrong, only what we believe is more right or more wrong”
“Our Blessed Lord left the world without leaving any written message. His doctrine was Himself. Ideal and History were identified in Him. The truth that all other ethical teachers proclaimed, and the light that they gave to the world, was not IN them, but OUTSIDE them. Our Divine Lord, however, identified Divine Wisdom with Himself. It was the first time in history that it was ever done, and it has never been done since.”
“Morality comes from religion? There are no Baptist babies or Catholic babies or Muslim babies. Religion is imposed on children by adults and society, and morality is an evolutionary adaptation. Period.”
“The supernatural worldview is causing a great number of otherwise intelligent people to cling to a collection of atavistic concepts that have not, and never will serve humanity in any ultimately beneficial way. Any benefits that spirituality ostensibly provides to its adherents, can be found equally in the worldview of philosophy and ethics, communities of other kinds, and so on. It s a myth that the only morality, hope, purpose and comfort to be found, resides only in the supernatural.”
“So how does God affect justice in this life/economy/reality? A lightening bolt, an angel of death, or by the hand of a human being? ~R. Alan Woods [2012]”
“Not only are animals unable to avail themselves of language to assert their own rights, but many fewer humans have a clear sense of kinship with animals than have a clear sense of kinship with other humans. Among beings with subjective states of awareness, animals are the untouchable caste, those whom human others would rather not acknowledge, let alone render assistance.”
“To be charitable, one may admit that the religious often seem unaware of how insulting their main proposition actually is. Exchange views with a believer even for a short time, and let us make the assumption that this is a mild and decent believer who does not open the bidding by telling you that your unbelief will endanger your soul and condemn you to hell. It will not be long until you are politely asked how you can possibly know right from wrong. Without holy awe, what is to prevent you form resorting to theft, murder, rape, and perjury? It will sometimes be conceded that non-believers have led ethical lives, and it will also be conceded (as it had better be) that many believers have been responsible for terrible crimes. Nonetheless, the working assumption is that we should have no moral compass if we were not somehow in thrall to an unalterable and unchallengeable celestial dictatorship. What a repulsive idea!”
“The popular concept–that we should each determine our own morality–is based on the belief that the spiritual realm is nothing at all like the rest of the world. Does anyone really believe that? For many years after each of the morning and evening Sunday services I remained in the auditorium for another hour to field questions. Hundreds of people stayed for the give-and-take discussions. One of the most frequent statements I heard was that Every person has to define right and wrong for him- or herself. I always responded to the speakers by asking, Is there anyone in the world right now doing things you believe they should stop doing no matter what they personally believe about the correctness of their behavior? They would invariable say, Yes, of course. Then I would ask, “Doesn’t that mean that you do believe there is some kind of moral reality that is there that is not defined by us, that must be abided by regardless of what a person feels or thinks? Almost always, the response to that question was silence, either a thoughtful or a grumpy one.”
“Humans do not simply, innocently, and honestly disagree with each other about the good, the just, the right, the principles and applications of moral distinction and valuation, for they are already caught, like it or not, in a complex dynamic of each other’s desires, recognition, power, and comparisons which not only relativizes moral distinctions and valuations, but makes them a constant and dangerous source of discord.”
“Any society s upper-crust is riddled with immorality, how else d you think they keep their power? Reputation is king of the public sphere, not private. It is dethroned by public acts.”
“In ambiguous situations, it s a good bet that the crowd will generally stick together – and be wrong.”
“We must remember that possession of physical beauty can easily weaken the moral faculty.”
“To be ethical is to endeavor to find one s proper place in the larger scheme of things rather than to seek to assert human superiority over the natural world.”
“Oh no!’ replies Monsieur Tuvache indignantly. ‘We’re not murderers, you know. You have to understand that’s prohibited. We supply what is needed but people do the deed themselves. It’s their affair. We are just here to offer a service by selling quality products,’ continues the shopkeeper, leading the customer towards the checkout.”