Way to contradict yourself you fucking sand nigger. Go die in a fire.

I also noticed that I attributed a quote (the ‘Machiavelli’ one above) to you, when it had actually been posted by ‘OldNick’; sorry, silly me.

Reasonable people can agree that killing is wrong, but those same reasonable people might also agree that it is not wrong if in the course of self defense you happen to kill someone who is attacking you and your children. That is a simple example but there are millions more for other “morals”.

By the way, you conveniently avoid dealing with bad moral teachings in the Bible and other religious texts. Why don’t you follow them all as mandated by God? How is it you can read them and inherently recognize that some of them are completely immoral and should be disregarded?

From what I have thus far observed of the actual science that has been done regarding this very subject, I have to say that it is not terribly impressive. The basic gist of the arguments that are put forth are that it is in the interests of individuals to obey certain rules of behaviour not because, for example, it is inherently wrong to kill, but because such action(s) that are deemed to be immoral are immoral precisely because there are :
a. No advantages to be gained for the individual who might wish to misbehave in such a manner.
b. It is anti-social, and therefore counter-productive, to social cohesion.
c. Unethical behaviour is deleterious to one’s reputation.

There are other reasons, but the point that needs to be stressed is that there are NO over-arching reasons to behave ethically if one can, for example, get away with murder. In other words, as you so rightly point out, ‘this leaves ethics a bit weak when it comes to condemning Machiavelli’ and THAT is the whole problem with secular, situational ‘ethics’; i.e. there is no point at which one can truly distinguish between right and wrong. It is all ‘relative’, within ‘context’, and ‘open to interpretation’. What kind of (bizarre, in my opinion) ethical system is this, where correct behaviour is determined by to what extent one can get away with bad behaviour?

Truly moral (or ethical, if you prefer) people behave the way they do not because it somehow – and selfishly – enhances their standing among their community, or because it makes them feel good about themselves, or enhances the propagation of their ‘genes’, but because they have a true conviction and commitment to rising above their lower, base instincts. We are not mindless animals or drones, forever condemned to act only out of selfish self-interest, but, I would hope, able to transcend our ‘programming’. Humans are better than animals to the extent that we have free will and can do what is right based upon a higher morality than the vulgar, and patently obscene and immoral, Social Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ tripe that is being condoned and promoted by sociopaths convinced there is no higher reality other than what is in front of their own stupid nose.

Scary to say the least.