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I recently happened upon a question posed to a group of us that asked:

"What I fail to understand is that if there is no personal reincarnation, thus no Karmic retribution or reward, and without the promise of Heaven or the threat of Hell, what does it matter to me in the long run to behave ethically during this lifetime?"

A good question indeed and one I have discussed with others at some length.  What is implied by the question is the position of the nihilist, which essentially contends that there is nothing but the here and now; there is no other life for a given individual and there is nothing more to our makeup other than this apparent flesh.  If that is indeed true, what reason would there be for me not to kill my neighbor and have my way with his rather fetching daughter?

What purpose would ethics serve in such a reality?  What incentive?  None that I can see.  In the world of the pure materialist, nihilism becomes the unavoidable conclusion.  With that there is no reason I should not kill and screw my way through life, taking what I want and destroying that which gets in my way.

One might even accept this as a possible truth, were it not for one thing: it goes against the force of LIFE itself a force that is absolutely universal in all living things found on this world of ours.  No sane and rational man can deny the force of life - the will to continue itself against all countervailing factors.  This suggests something either beyond meat or inherent to it, though I am doubtful of the latter in the sense that that is all there is to it.  Either way, however, the universal desire of life to continue and propagate itself lies in diametric opposition to the unavoidable result of nihilism, which is the utter destruction of all human life until the last man is left standing, alone, dick in hand and thumb up butt because there is nobody left to rape, rob, beat, or murder. 

The very fact that all things want to live implies the right to defend those lives.  This right to defend one's claim to life, equal to the claims of all others, leads to the basic principles of just and proper human behavior which underpin all ethics and drive all ethical considerations.

The reason that ethics exist and are legitimate is rooted in the purest pragmatism: we all want to live and none wish to have their claims (rights) to life violated.  Most of us also hold  the means of defending those rights, i.e. the inborn ability to devise or otherwise acquire the means of destroying those who trespass against the birthright to endeavor to continue one's existence.  Because peaceable coexistence is, for the most part, the best way of  attaining the goal of passing from one day into the next unfettered by the trespasses of others, it follows that the adoption of and the adherence to a system of ethics that enables and encourages "proper" behavior is itself just and proper.  It is pragmatism itself.

That so stern a drive is placed upon the continuance of life from within one's very fabric points to something far greater than flesh alone, for it begs the question of source.  It does not seem logically consistent in even the smallest measure to conclude that life = meat and nothing beyond that.  The notion that we come into the world, grow, live, die, and were at all turns nothing more than the sum of the atoms that made up our bodies seems as ridiculous as the assumptions that the materialist/socialist mindset uses to justify vomiting forth such obviously self-contradicting nonsense. 

In fact, the very question as captioned above reveals the inherently nihilistic nature of the socialist/materialist/communist philosophies and their attendant political positions.  The inherent nihilism of those positions lies in diametric opposition to the "moral" talking points such as "class struggle" and so forth.  These are the inconsistencies that the materialist tyrant conveniently ignores as he rants and spews forth his litany of trite, tired, boring, and clapped-out one-size-fits-all drivel.  If life is so strongly inhered with the will to continue and propagate, one must ask "whence originates such single minded drive?"  Inanimate atoms?

It is the contradiction of this sort that needs to be discovered by each individual through adept analysis (with perhaps some help in some cases) and exposed by courageous hearts so that it may at least be said that the world has been offered a greater truth.  As to whether they will choose it, that is a question for another day.

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.