P/P Photoweek: Dipper Falls, Trajectories (VIII.25.08)

ON THE NECESSARY SEPARATION
OF ETHICS FROM RELIGION

One of the great fundamental insights upon which the US
Constitution is based is not just the idea of the balance of
power, derived from Roman law, but also, and of equal
importance and significance, the strict separation of religion
and state. It seems to me, that clear thinking and a new set
of moral problems which confronts the world as a whole now
demand that in a similar way ethics be separated from religion.
Why, you ask? Because, in view here explored, in the theater
of moral debate, both our shared intelligence and common
humanity ask that we check our cloaks of sectarian beliefs
at the door.

For with moral questions—and this is in my view beyond
all doubt—if there is to be meaningful dialogue, just as in a
republic no one may claim to be above or outside the rule
of law, in the critical discussions of dialogue there may be
no claim made to absolute authority. So how then are we
to decide what is good, right and just? Well, I would say by
placing calmly and with great respect the arguments, the
evidence, the facts, and the competing theories on either
side of the scales of Truth. And then weighing their relative
merits and defects. For if we really consider this process
carefully, what is truly sacred is the motionless, neutral center
upon which the fair, unbiased balance of the scale depends.

In this way, as new ethical imperatives become established
and codified as part of the main body of accepted law, we may
come to see that it is this movement of coming to ethical truth
together voluntarily itself by means of reason and intelligence—
and not by any external, coercive force of King, or mere President,
or Pope, or God—in which we can quite rightly and whole-heartedly
put our trust.

Camp Lost & Found,
Eagle Cap Wilderness,
Oregon, VIII.17.2008