When It Hits the Fan/Morals and law

When there is no order, no one to enforce laws and no barrier to personal action it is then up to everyone what path to fallow. One becomes sole responsible for how to act and behave, not strictly to others but to oneself and it will intimately depend on ones capability to cope with the choices made.

Faith and religion

In a survival situation, one can be put in situations that will shake if not completely redefine ones vision of the world. Humanity when in dire situations has shown to ultimately preferred to explain, blame or justify actions and events as externalities, nature, gods, demons, anything that shifts blame, shame or responsibility away from itself, religion can be a strength or a weakness depending on the situation, but faith in a greater plan, in higher intervention, has historically be demonstrated as a force that permits us to go further and cope with unbearable events, for better or worst.

Faith is a type of self suggestion, mind over matter, it can be used like self-hypnosis to suppress pain, increase motivation and indeed enable oneself to perform, focus, act and cope in any situation.

Most mainstream religious beliefs will hopefully also come with a heightened sense of morality and will include a degree of self responsibility for behaviors in relation to the divine. But ultimately religion is not the guarantee or generator of good morals, but a way to share a common ground and a choice on how to cope with reality and part of ones identity.

Morals

Let us start by defining what morals are, for instance in regards to ethics, that sometimes is considered a synonym. In a emergency situation there are no ethical dilemmas, in regards to the sense of impropriety, all is superseded by survival, but that does not mean that one should become amoral.

Morals have and will continue to have importance in any situational of human existence, at least in any situation that is not death threatening. Of course that those that put morals aside could have a better chance of survival, but morals, ultimately have value and is are an intrinsic part of what makes us human. Since the field of moral choices that can occur is so vast, this section should be dedicated to hypothetical situations and as a reflection on the value and cost of maintaining the high moral ground.