An Amoral Universe.

The pervasive idea that good things happen (or should happen) to good people, and that bad things happen to bad people, and that "you get what you deserve" haunts our society and our minds like an old superstition.

I lived in the US for years before I really understood how pervasive this idea is. It is an idea that leads to the conclusion. “Unfortunate things happen to bad people probably because they deserve it.” “God is punishing them.” Basic Calvinism. It seems to me to be irrational and unkind and based in fear.

The idea was used to justify the worst aspects of Capitalism, the colonial adventures of the west during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, and the current elitist world-view that supports our ongoing petrochemical-nuclear military-industrial addiction.

Closer to home, the idea that good things happen to good people and bad things to bad people becomes a source of disempowerment and confusion. It derives from a singular and simplistic view that makes people feel guilty for the circumstances of their life. And it is an aberration of the law of attraction because it denies socio-political realities.

The fact is, the universe, or “God”, is amoral. We attribute human qualities of volition and morality to it (to him, or her) - perhaps because we are sentimental.

Humans are volitional and moral, and as humans CAN choose how we live. If we choose to live an ethical life it is not because we are afraid of divine retribution, but because it helps us become accountable. That in itself has value. In fact, it makes morality possibility - a morality not based on fear or compulsion, but based on conscious intention, a desire to be accountable, and an intrinsic desire (and capacity) to love.