1st Reading - In the Hebrew Bible, in 1st Kings, an angel of God spoke to the prophet Elijah. He said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by" Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice." (1 Kings 19:11-12, NRSV)

2nd Reading - In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus said: "Do not judge, so that you may not judged. For with the judgment you make you shall be judge, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye.'" (Matthew 7:1-5, NRSV)

How did human beings learn to be moral? Was morality something that was handed down by God to man in some miraculous revelation or series of revelations? Although I may believe in a general sense in most of the Ten Commandments, I personally don't believe the commandments were the literal word of God. And I don't think most Unitarian Universalists do either. But where then does morality come from? And how do we know what is good and what is bad or evil? If we study world cultures and religions, we know that what may be good in one place may not necessarily be considered good in another.

And to make it all the more complicated, we also wonder about free will. How much of what we do is freely chosen anyway? Can we choose to be good or bad? Or is it all determined by our genes and our environment. These are the BIG questions that people have grappled for ages.

I don't know how you grew up, but I grew up with fairly strict parents when it came to morality. They taught me very early that it was wrong to lie, cheat and steal. I remember taking a little doll's comb from a store when I was around four. It was tiny and I thought no one would miss it. But my mother saw the comb in my hand as we left the store and made me put it back. Although she didn't spank me or say much, I knew she was very angry with me and I never forgot that scene. The rule was very clear: "Do not steal!" And it was also clear that my mother believed in free will. Although I might want something very badly, that I had a choice and that I had better make the right one. To this day, I have trouble taking a paper clip from someone else's desk!

My parents also taught me that it was important to be kind and considerate toward others. Politeness rated highly in our family. I saw my folks being kind and generous with their friends. They loved to have couples over for dinner on a Saturday night, to talk and have a good time. Mom was outgoing and sociable even toward strangers in a store or a restaurant. By her behavior I learned another, unspoken lesson: that the world was a good place and most people were good and trustworthy. Thus I also learned to trust the world.

Last Sunday was Earth Day and I talked in my sermon about the morality of greed versus giving. I talked about the lack of moral maturity of many of our political leaders and CEO's who put their own personal profits and gain above the common good. I contrasted that to the virtue and moral maturity of altruistic folks. These are the ones who want to stop and reverse over-consumption and global warming. I purposely drew a picture of extremes... pitting the good against the bad.

This is often what politics does. We're encouraged to think, "Our side is all good and the other is all bad." This is also what religion at its worst does, too, particularly religions that teach an absolute morality, a black and white morality. Such fundamentalist religions also teach that there are two types of people, the ones who are good and pure and the ones who are evil. Absolute religions spawn absolute enemies.

The truth is more like what Jesus was saying: that all of us, even the most self-righteous among us, are a mixture of good and bad. None of us are perfect and we all do things we are (or should be) ashamed of. I am reluctant to characterize a whole person as good or bad, for even the worst of us may have redeeming features. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote in Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792 that "No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, which is the good he seeks."

I think I can safely claim that Unitarian Universalists don't believe the devil exists. But do we believe in pure evil as an independent force in the world? I would argue against that as well. There are people who do evil deeds... very evil deeds, but are they the personification of evil?

We may have a hard time dealing with events such as the murderous rampage at Virginia Tech a couple of weeks ago. But it became clear from all the news and all the discussions about this case that Seung-Hui Cho was not born evil. He was a severely disturbed young man who had too easy access to guns. And it's also clear that human behavior is awfully complex and almost impossible to predict with certainty. Talk show hosts and newscasters raised all sorts of interesting questions: Do we lock up all the people who we think may commit a crime? Where are the rights of the mentally ill? Do they generally get adequate treatment or are they just heavily medicated?

Here's another twist. Some acts (like massacres) are clearly wrong and repulsive to most people. But another truth is that in matters of morality things aren't always so clear-cut. There are often grey areas in the middle... subtleties that are missed by what is called binary thinking. It's not always "either/or." Sometimes there's the excluded middle. Life is more complicated than many fundamentalist preachers and teachers would have us believe.

One thing that's good in my opinion about a liberal religion like Unitarian Universalism. is that it encourages us to look at the complexities... to be open-minded about the many possibilities of human behavior.

Of course, that's also what upsets the fundamentalists and causes them to accuse us liberals and free thinkers of moral relativism or worse...of encouraging immorality. Those who know us know that isn't true. We pride ourselves on being very principled people who care about kindness and justice. We care about individuals and we care about the Earth Community as a whole. Liberalism and freethinking doesn't lead to moral decay and chaos. And I'll try to show you that there's a reasonable middle ground between absolute morality and lawless hedonism.

Let's go back to the moral law again stealing. It's clearly stated in the Ten Commandments. "Thou shalt not steal!" Pretty unambiguous and straight forward, yes? I learned pretty quickly that taking that little toy comb at the store was wrong. I took something valuable (although admittedly not very valuable) from the shop owner.

But what about the famous moral dilemma of a desperately poor person stealing a loaf of bread in order to feed himself and stay alive? Isn't that less bad, less of a sin (if you use "sin" language)? It's understandable and almost excusable. The law may not see it that way, but most people would. And a judge might even dismiss such a thief with a warning. Furthermore, most people would have more sympathy if the thief wasn't stealing for himself, but for his starving family. We make our moral judgments not based on reason alone, but also on emotions. One such emotion is empathy for someone who is suffering.

In the book The Science of Good and Evil, psychologist and social historian Michael Shermer helps us understand where these moral sentiments come from. He's also an agnostic who takes God as the source of human morality out of the picture. Not that religion isn't important, he says. Many people believe that the Bible or other holy scripture is the word of God handed down to a prophet and believe therefore that moral laws are divine revelations. Religion has been the source of moral teachings and historically it's been the primary way that human beings have passed on values for at least 10,000 years.

Unfortunately, in the case of the Bible, many of these codified moral laws date back 4,000 years to an agrarian and patriarchal society and are woefully inadequate for our modern age. So even if you did believe in the Bible's divine revelations as absolute truth, you'd have a hard time adapting them and living by them today. Unitarian Universalists luckily don't have that problem.

But if not from a God or other divinity, where does our moral sentiment come from? Michael Shermer looks to the science of human evolution for the answers. Even the higher primates, the great apes, learned that cooperation in families and small groups benefited everyone in the group and helped everyone to survive and thrive. Cooperative groups reproduced at a greater rate, raised youngsters more successfully and grew in numbers. Evolution favored those whose larger brains made them more social and cooperative. And scientists discovered that the "feel good" hormone oxytocin causes apes (and presumably people) to be more trusting and trustworthy.

Even within primitive human societies, the Golden Rule was as an obvious rule to live by. Among the hunter-gatherers, people learned that sharing the meat equally among all families in the village benefited the whole. Even the families of the unsuccessful hunters got their fair share. It was a form of early socialism.

Yet aggressive and warfare also existed among us and our primate cousins from the dawn of time. Jane Goodall in her study of chimpanzees observed murderous tribal warfare among them. Thankfully it's rare, but it exists. Shermer wrote that the primary reason for warfare is a shortage of resources needed for survival. Thus it makes evolutionary sense to be aggressive when group survival is threatened by starvation.

This simple lesson about primate... and human nature... can be applied to modern times when warfare has far greater consequence. If everyone everywhere has access to fresh water and food and dry land on which to build homes and villages and cities, then warfare may in fact cease. A clash of religious ideology may be merely the excuse (or at least a secondary reason) for such conflict. Again, human behavior is unpredictable, spurred by many complex causes. But I think it's a pretty safe bet that more evenly shared resources would reduce warfare.

Let's go back to the question about an alternative to absolute, black and white morality. There does exist an approach, a more flexible and realistic approach, which Shermer calls "provisional ethics." Provisional ethics provides a reasonable middle ground and a universal philosophy that transcends culture and circumstances. By extending the Golden Rule, it may be possible to work out a system that is applicable for most people in most circumstances most of the time. It is also objective, in the sense that morality is independent of the individual.

Yet provisional ethics also relies on our innate moral sense, our intuitions and social emotions which developed over the millennium. It trusts human beings to think and feel for themselves. The more religious among us may say this is the "still small voice" with which God which spoke to Elijah after the wind, earthquake and fire. The more secular among us may say this is the "still small voice" of the human conscience.

Remember that the Golden Rule is pretty universal. It's the primary moral sentiment. But if you're in doubt about how to apply the Golden Rule, just rely on the following four simple principles as Shermer presents them.

First, if you're uncertain of how your actions will affect another, there's the Ask First Principle. The moral doer (you, or instance) should simply ask the moral recipient (your spouse or partner, for instance), "Is this action I'm considering moral or immoral?" Or some such variation, like "How would you feel if I asked someone else out on a date? Would this be wrong? Would it hurt you?" I think it's obvious the answer you would get. Jealousy is a perfectly normal human reaction when love is involved.

The second principle of provisional ethics is the Happiness Principle. The Happiness Principle states that a higher moral principle is to always seek happiness with someone else's happiness in mind, and never seek happiness when it leads to someone else's unhappiness.

The third principle is the Liberty Principle, which focuses more on right and wrong on a social and political level. The Liberty Principle states that it is a higher moral principle to always seek liberty with someone else's liberty in mind and to never seek liberty when it leads to someone else's loss of liberty. The liberty principle is grounded in history and anchored in modern enlightenment values.

The fourth principle is the Moderation Principle - extremism is no virtue and moderation is no vice. The Moderation Principle states that when innocent people die, extremism in the defense of anything is no virtue, and moderation in the protection of everything is no vice. This is a lesson we're learning all too well around the world, where extremism fuels terror and war.

When you think about it, these four principles are deceivingly simple, but not always easy to apply. We "get" them, but we are not necessarily good at using them. In the end we are complex human beings, with all the blessings and all the curses that come with that. We have drives and emotions that are both social and anti-social, cooperative and aggressive. We are products of our genes and our social environment. Some things about each of us are determined; some things are subject to free will.

But I think the principles of provisional ethics can help guide us. We can use them on a personal level to develop a finer moral sensibility. And hopefully some day humanity will learn to apply them on a social, political and global level as well. The sciences, such as social psychology, will help light the way.

I still believe that the majority of people don't want war and don't lust for revenge. I still trust that... on the whole... people want to lead peaceful, honest, productive lives surrounded by family and friends.

And I pray that the Creative and Loving Spirit of the Universe help us flawed, imperfect human beings bring about a world where such liberty and happiness is possible for everyone.

Amen and blessed be.

Jane Goodall with Phillip Berman, Reason for Hope; A Spiritual Journey. New York: Warner Books, 1999.

Michael Shermer, The Science of Good & Evil; Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2004.