Where does right and wrong come from. What makes one choice better than another choice? Many religious people fear that without the guidance of an omnipotent deity that all morality would go away. They fear that without God that society would deteriorate into a Darwinian "survival of the fittest" ethic where the strong males kill the other males so they can breed more females. They fear that the reality based world has no answers to where right and wrong come from.
Morality is important to a society. It serves to be a guide in determining what laws of society are fair and just. We all know that murder is wrong, but why is it wrong? In the religious world they have an answer, "Because God says so!" But in the reality based world we also know murder is wrong. But because we are the Church of Reality we have to have a reason to explain why, and that reason has to be objective and not just someone's opinion or some vague explanation that can't be proven. We are a reality based religion and we are therefore subject to Scrutiny. But fortunately, we have an answer.
Our morality goes back to our root axiom - the pursuit of the understanding of reality by humans has value. We have supported this root axiom by showing that this is necessary for the human race to continue to exist. A moral system is the agreement of a society as to what is right and wrong. You therefore need to have a society for a moral system to exist. If we become extinct then our morality goes extinct with us. Morality therefore must lead to survival.
If morality depends on survival and Survival depends on Positive Evolution, and positive evolution depends on the continued progress humanity understanding reality, then right and wrong, morality, is a function of what helps humanity evolve forward. Morality is about what helps humanity understand reality better tomorrow than we do today.
So the reason murder is wrong is because if we go around killing each other then we won't be able to cooperate and build space telescopes so that we can pear back to the beginning of time. We won't be able to contemplate contemplation if people are running around stealing all our stuff.
In order to evolve forward we need a safe stable society where people can work together to expand the Tree of Knowledge. In order to do that we need schools, roads, power, clean air and water, good governments, just laws, world peace, and a fair and cooperative environment where we all can thrive in. These core beliefs of the Church of Reality lead to a basis for morality that is more accurate than that of deity based belief systems. People converting to a realist perspective need not worry that right and wrong are going away.
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