Thus I Wrote

We build on the past
We turn commandments into laws
We build organisation and process
To protect rights and give cause

What’s wrong and what’s right
Is no absolute thing
Because we grow and evolve
And reflect what change will bring

What’s wrong and what’s right
Is guided by what’s effective
In achieving the best for you
And the best for the collective

We all bow to the collective
To the secular unseen hand
To the arbiter of who’s effective
Of who falls and who stands

I thought that we lived by God’s law,
Then Nietzsche said He was dead.
“We’ve been alone since the Big Bang”,
Stephen Hawking said.

Without a guiding supernatural law,
Man worked out how to survive.
He created his own morals and laws,
To control instinctual drives.

Indeed man may have invented God,
To enforce change and social control.
Societies use Him when He’s useful
But leave Him when He has no role

Man created a way to live,
Using virtue for co-operation.
Being good brings society acceptance,
Being bad brings isolation.

But good and bad are not universal,
They’re determined by what’s effective.
For the growth and the survival,
Of the individual and the collective.

Man is a calculating animal,
Judging punishment and reward.
He learns what’s effective,
For success in his own regard

Society hides the calculation,
It sounds too selfish and raw.
But balance is achieved in the collective,
Reciprocity is good for us all

So the collective knowledge of man,
Created by years of sacrifice and pain.
Is the true light of the world,
To ensure darkness never reigns.