On Morality

Forgive me if I'm jumping off topic, I've just been thinking about this for a while and I decided to put it up. Please continue talking about Love. I know Kay had a few things she wanted to post about it. But I'm just going to put this up. Grant actually brought it to my mind when he talked about my materialistic views on love. Well here's my materialistic view on morals. I have a question for everyone: What stops you from stealing something. Is it conscience? Is it the possibility of punishment? Is it the wrath of God almighty? What is it. If you said any of those above choices let me give you my opinion. What is a conscience? I think its something in your mind which makes you feel regret when you do something you feel is wrong. Having a conscience makes us think about all kinds of things and feel pain because we dont like it or it goes against our ideas of what the world should be. A conscience was ingrained in us by our parents when they taught us to do things which were right and which were wrong. What is right and what is wrong was determined by our society so in essence your conscience of right and wrong was also determined by society. Society says it is wrong to steal something. So when you do you feel as though you have committed some misdeed. Society has brainwashed us into thinking a certain way. Something that is wrong is something which harms or takes away from another person. Society, time and again, has drummed the message that if you steal you are bad and if you are bad you will be punished. This is not really the case. Sometimes you can rationalize past what society says and remove that twinge of conscience. But even then you may still be punished. Punishment and the fear of punishment keeps people in line. Suppose that there was no punishment for what you did? What would you do? Would you give free reign to your passion? Answer honestly. Punishment and conscience are tools which society uses to tame our baser instincts. As for fear of the wrath of God, well, what can I say, fear is useful in many forms. How pleasant it must be to live in that fantasy of eternal life after death. How useful God has been to the human race, pushing them to great limits. I ask you, if you dont fear punishment and divine retribution, what's stopping you from committing a crime? Alright, let me ask this: Is murder wrong? Is killing a vast number of sparrows which would consume your crop, if your a farmer, wrong? Of course not, you'll increase the profits of your crop for next year. Is killing a human being wrong? depends on what they're doing. If they're stealing from you is it right to kill them? No, because thats taking the law into your own hands. If theyre trying to kill you THEN is it alright to kill them? Absolutley. All I can say is this: Murder is not wrong. Murder is natural. The only thing that is unnatural is the society which has imposed laws to inhibit us. When a group of wildabeast saw a group of baby lions unatended, they mauled them to death to prevent them from growing up and becoming future predators. This is the perfect justification that murder is perfectly alright. The only punishment for it would be the punishment inflicted by society. And maybe the punishment of your ingrained conscience. So where do morals come from? They come from the society we are raised in. Some people value human life, others value God and life after death, but very few value death itself, the most natural occurence of all because not only do we fear death because we dont understand it, we fear death because we cant escape it and we dont understand it. Dont know what that had to do with my overrall point but I just found it interesting.