Question: how many of your actions can be attributed to character - and how many to mores?  Mores - customary anticipated behavior - come into existence over time and are always influenced by outside cultural forces.  Ian Xel Lungold - a modern scholar of the Mayan Calendars (there are two) - points to the Gregorian Calendar (1582) as one of the chief causes of a dim spiritual consciousness in the West (although almost all global business is conducted under this calendar).  

The Gregorian Calendar measures the motion of a small planet - earth - around a small star - our sun.  A civilization’s consciousness, says Lungold, “is centered on its means of calculating time and place,” aka, it’s calendar.  The Muslims have their calendar.  The Chinese have their calendar.  The Egyptians and Greeks had their calendars.  And each of those civilization’s consciousness was centered on their calendars. 

In the West, the Gregorian Calendar (after Pope Gregory) centers our consciousness - which is centered on time and place - which significantly influences our behavior.  And as Lungold points out, “our consciousness is centered on the physical motion of a small planet circling a small physical star.”  There's not a single spiritual - or metaphysical - or even slightly numinous aspect to this physical phenomena.  

Yet most modern scholars and theologians and all the educational institutions use the Gregorian Calendar to make determinations of everything relevant to civilization.  Theologians use this calendar - albeit with great difficulty - to make determinations about when the world will end (there have been hundreds of predictions since 1582).  “Our civilization’s consciousness is focused on the motion of one physical object circling another physical object...Our whole concept of time is based on the motion of physical things moving through space...Our whole civilization's consciousness is focused on the physical,” says Lungold. 

Which explains the giving of physical THINGS at Christmas [time].  It explains why so many people commit suicide at this [time of year] because the calendar has rolled them around to this date and suddenly their consciousness begins to put them outside the exciting physical happenings, of which they can't financially participate.

So much of Western religion is focused on physical rewards.  Do this and that and get this.  People are drawn to a physical heaven (images of human-like angels flying around an old man with flowing white hair sitting on a big golden chair), to the notion of hell (images of people suffering unendurable torment), to the notion of paradise (waterfalls, green pastures, formerly ferocious beasts lying around, a basket overflowing with food, etc.), to the notion of endless life, perfect health, wealth beyond imagination (streets paved with gold; an image that drove the Gold Rush of 1849), etc., because that's what they hear in church and read about in "the good book."  There's a moral certainty that they're right, they're the chosen, and the rest of the world is wrong.

One French writer said that all Western religions - without exception - were offering up “physical rewards... Religion is all about men and the rewards they get, and has almost nothing to do with God or anything metaphysical.”  And as Lungold points out, a lot of others (the infidels) have to suffer death or go through some never-ending torment (burning in hell forever and ever) for the faithful, the chosen, to get their physical payoffs. 

Based on the definition that ethical behavior benefits EVERYONE, we can quickly see that all the offerings of Western religion are NOT ethical.  They benefit only the “chosen.”  And it’s men who determine who are the chosen and who are not.  We can also see how easy it was for the Christian Puritans to slaughter the Pequots (1637) for their land.  They were certain, morally certain, “God had given them the land, and that the Indians had no right to it any longer."  How easy it was for Washington and Jefferson and Jackson and others to order the slaughter of the “heathen savages” for their own formidable estates.  The Indians were in opposition to the very "Plan of God."

Here’s a quote from a letter from George Washington, who was to become the first president of the United States to James Duane - September 7, 1783.

“I am clear in my opinion, that policy and economy point very strongly to the expediency of being upon good terms with the Indians, and the propriety of purchasing their lands in preference to attempting to drive them by force of arms out of their Country; which...is like driving out the wild Beasts of ye forest...when the gradual extension of our settlements will as certainly cause the savage, as the wolf, to retire; both being beasts of prey, tho’ they differ in shape” (our italics).

The "propriety of purchasing their lands," albeit at a fair price, and upon mutual agreement, which thousands of Indians were willing to discuss, would have been the ethical thing to do.  And Washington here reveals he knew exactly what the ethical thing to do was.  Pay the Indians a fair and ethical price - which would favor both parties.  But, alas, Washington, one of the Founders of the Republic, was clearly one of the chosen.  And the chosen do NOT have to act ethically.  As we read several times in the Bible the order to kill "everything that breathes," the Indians were like the beasts (the unchosen; the Canaanites), “tho’ they differ in shape.”  Men - especially the clergy - revered Washington.  Timothy Dwight - “an unyielding Calvinist clergyman,” according to author Richard Drinnon - was to become the president of Yale College in 1795 - wrote much poetry signalling how “God had worked and would continue to work his miracles upon the new republic."  Here’s a sample of Dwight's poetry:

“Far as the seas, which round thy regions flow;
Through earth’s wide realms thy glory shall extend,
And savage nations at thy sceptre bend
Round the frozen shores thy sons shall sail,
Or stretch their canvas to the Asian gale” (our italics).’’

Dwight fancied himself the New World’s Homer, according to Drinnon.  In America’s first epic poem, The Conquest of Canaan (1785), Dwight compares Washington to Joshua, the ancient Israelite conqueror of the “promised land.”  Washington was “the Saviour [sic] of the Country” (Drinnon’s Facing West).  As Joshua triumphed over the fiendish, wolflike Canaanites with their “childish rage.”  

The killing of Indians was often based on the moral notion that they at any time might resort to “sodomy and other unspeakable acts.”  So killing them off was a sort of nipping the potential 'moral' dilemma in the bud.  Drinnon writes, “America was the last stop on the westward march of empire, in fine, the sole heir apparent of Israel’s mission: ‘to found an empire (‘all the kingdoms of the world’), and to rule the world.”  So moral certainty has ruled America from its first day until today.  As each day reveals new revelations of unethical behavior in governance, policy, treaty violations, etc., as the Republic sinks into history.  “Rome was full of moral certainty, until the day she disappeared.”

Truman was full of moral certainty about dropping the atom bombs on civilians in 1945.  “Millions of lives will be saved.”  However, many generals, including MacArthur vehemently disagreed.  He and Nimitz and many other field commanders believed Japan was within days or weeks of total surrender.  Of course, we’ll never know.

The Nuremberg Trial transcripts have the Nazi officials saying they saw no difference in the behavior of the Nazis toward the Jews and Russians and the Americans toward the Japanese (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) and Germans.  "It was all unethical," (meaning the whole war) said one German general.  "Everyone slaughtered civilians indiscriminately." “Many acts that would be widely condemned as unethical - are NOT prohibited by law - [such as] lying or betraying the confidence of a friend...”  “When you're ordered by a superior to initiate a certain act, you have little choice but to carry it out,” say the Nuremberg transcripts - again and again and again.  

And when Colonel Paul Tibbets was ordered to drop the bomb on Hiroshima, he carried out those orders - even though he would be engaging in a thoroughly unethical act.  "The law does NOT codify ethical ‘norms'" - which of course we don’t believe exist.  There are no ethical norms.  Ethical behavior is spontaneous.  It's applied spontaneously to any and all spontaneous situations.  The initiator knows what is ethical and not ethical because it's innate.  If it favors all, it's ethical behavior.  The fact that it originates from within is why it often demands a great deal of courage to apply.  

The same is true for how we treat wilderness - our attitude toward the flora and fauna that exist there.   Do we see it as some sort of "savage" land full of "smarmy beasts?"  Is it there for us to do as we please with it?  Man knows so little about what takes place in the wild places.  He knows little about the creatures that inhabit them.  He knows next to nothing about what takes place UNDER the ground.  But here’s one thing he does know, that human excrement is highly toxic and potentially harmful to wildlife.   This he's learned in his laboratory.  The conclusion is simple: keep human poop away from wildlife.  And from this simple ethical conclusion comes the Packit Toilet kit.  A product that originated in ethical considerations.  A product that fastens itself to all the forest ethics extant for the last century.