When author James Luce was a boy, his father once summarized his moral philosophy of life in one sentence: Your rights end at the tip of my nose. Many years later, after embarking on his own voyage of reflection, Luce finally understood his father's words. In Chasing Davis, he shares a set of unique ethical tools and blueprints that can be conceived and implemented by either societies or individuals, ultimately creating a moral life solely guided by logic and science rather than superstition or belief in divine guidance. Luce believes it is time for a new genesis of moral living. He relies on several decades of research and contemplation as well as ancient and newly acquired wisdom as he carefully examines the difference between good and evil, the importance of self-awareness, and the reasons that morality is not dependent upon the existence of any god. Seekers of the truth and new ideas will learn the meaning and consequences of perception, as well as how to train ourselves to think more productively and morally and why laws, government, and religions are symptoms of our immorality. Chasing Davis provides a practical, objective set of behavioral and cognitive guidelines that will help anyone live a moral life, regardless of individual cultural, religious, or philosophic antecedents

Chasing Davis

An Atheist's Guide to Morality Using Logic and ScienceBy James Luce

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 James Luce
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4697-3230-5

Contents

Chapter One Statement of Purpose...............................................................1Chapter Two DAVIS..............................................................................13Chapter Three The Meaning and Consequences of .................................................27Chapter Four Belief, Faith, and Religion.......................................................165Chapter Five History, Law, and Government......................................................225Chapter 6 Science and the Scientific Method....................................................315Chapter Seven Atheism..........................................................................355Chapter 8 Ethics and Morals and the Five P Principle...........................................364Chapter Nine Living Morally and Behaving Ethically Using Logic and Science.....................396Chapter Ten The Ten T Theorem and the Conclusion...............................................526Appendices......................................................................................532Index...........................................................................................641

Chapter One

Statement of Purpose

Our Destination

This book is a voyage of discovery. We will navigate through the "reefs" of our individual minds and our collective human cultures; we will search through time for what we have lost and what we may yet recover; and we will explore our present and sail on to see what our possible collective futures may hold.

Our ultimate destination is a rational basis for ethical behavior and a generic, cross-cultural toolbox for building a moral life, a box buried in the sand where X marks the spot. There we will discover why and how to live a moral life in a universe devoid of gods or divine guidance.

We will take a few steps away from that cluttered and clotted wall of our blurred, everyday existence so that we are able, with a little objective distance, to perceive the orderly mosaic of life affixed to that wall, an ordered kaleidoscope that is our actual reality as opposed to our seemingly random place in space.

We will travel outward around the world and through the possibly infinite universe in order to see the larger perspective that forms the majestic vista just beyond that same existential wall; we will see from this point of view that the wall is not an unbroken barrier but offers an elusive gateway.

We will travel in time, inward through that same gateway, to better understand how we, our parents, and our distant ancestors have formed those beliefs that have led to our behaviors and to the way we live today.

Finally, we will travel into our futures with a toolbox in one hand and blueprints in the other to build an "ethical house" where we can all dwell together without violence, hatred, or greed. That is not to say this metaphoric house will be full of nothing but happy people, but it will be a house where we can pursue happiness without having to constantly look over our shoulders to see who is about to stick a knife in our backs.

After reading this book, you will understand

• why morality is not dependant on the existence of any god;

• why the answer to the question, "Does life have any meaning?" is neither "yes" nor "no";

• why the question "If everything is the result of immutable prior events, how can there be free will?" is totally irrelevant to the "why" of living a moral life; and

• why only our species, of all the thousands, engages in war, torture, child abuse, corruption of our environment, and all the other cruel and crazy activities that dominate the daily news.

You will have learned

• how your brain actually receives, processes, utilizes, and remembers sensory input, and how with this awareness you may better understand how you form beliefs, why you behave the way you do, and how you can train yourself to think more productively and morally;

• how logic and science, properly balanced, provide a practical, universal, and solid foundation for living a moral life; and

• how law, government, and religion are symptoms of our immorality rather than any basis on which to build moral lives.

You will have in hand

• a clear, practical, and universally applicable set of behavioral and cognitive guidelines for living a moral life and assisting others in doing so;

• a useful methodology by which you may analyze the myriad, complex dilemmas we encounter each day to determine what the moral response to and resolution thereof is; and

• knowledge about what you may do as an individual to start the process of restoring sanity to an insane world and why the process will require generations, not fleeting moments, to put into final effect.

A New Approach

Given the abdication of church and state in the twentieth century in both setting the criteria for and being an example of the moral life, it is time for a new genesis of moral living. It is time for the creation of a new set of ethical tools and a new moral toolbox to carry them in so they are always handy when needed. This book offers one such new beginning.

When I was ten or eleven years old, my father once summarized his moral philosophy of life in one sentence: "Your rights end at the tip of my nose." It required many more years of listening to him, learning from others, and thinking about the underpinnings of this statement to bring me to the point where I fully understood what he was saying. When the underlying meaning of each word in my father's summary is expanded, as they will be in this book, a universally acceptable, adaptable set of moral "rules" can be conceived and acted upon in any society by any individual using his or her customized tools, utilizing them with his or her own uniquely wired brain.

This book and its proposals are premised on the reality and utility of evolutionary logic and long-established scientific fact. Within this reality there is no need to propose the existence of any divine, omnipotent creator or any inflexible universal truths. All divine revelations and unquestioned beliefs are subjected to endless, pointless debate. They lack utility, because in the final analysis they are simply an unreliable crutch we use to hobble through our broken dreams and twisted cultures. They are not directed toward living a better life but are there to make life less painful. It is the difference between taking an aspirin and not having a headache in the first place.

This book provides a set of mental tools with which each person can build his or her own, personal moral structure but always using those tools while following the blueprints and building restrictions provided in subsequent chapters. You might well ask how or why logic and science are any better than divine revelation or philosophical speculation at providing a basis for moral living, and you would be asking a good question. Every logical argument must have one or more stated "assumption." Assumptions are made without proof. That is their very nature. Assumptions always form the basis for logical inquiry into reality. Scientists call assumptions hypotheses. Testing and experimentation determine whether there is objective evidence to either support or refute the hypothesis. A true scientist is just as pleased by evidence that the...