I believe gods and souls are superfluous to the scientific description of the world. Things do get trickier, however, when you begin to try to talk about ethics without a god in the background as lawgiver and enforcer. If there are no supernatural consequences of, for example, lying, then the ethical consequences, if any, have to be something that happens in our world. Hence the question: what happens when you tell a lie?

I want to believe that honesty is important, and it is critical to the rest of my project, but I'm not sure that any of the existing arguments for a secular ethics are really convincing.

Really, look around. For those who can get away with it, dishonesty is quite profitable and not entirely maligned: the consequences are either positive or not terribly negative. One would have to argue for consequences significantly worse than profitability to claim that dishonesty is really wrong. In other words, without god, the defense has to fall back on self-interest in some way, and the evidence seems to be that in the balance, self-interest is often served better by lying than by honesty.

And if my dishonesty is actually promoting the well-being of my family and friends, then why not lie? Why not break the laws and sell drugs that kill the consumers if it means nice clothes and a good car, a more comfortable life for your children? Why not lie to get in public housing, or on welfare, or on state insurance coverage? Why not cook the corporation's books and raid the pension funds? Why not use your power to get the army to invade Iraq, if your family and friends will profit? Certainly people get hurt or killed by some of these lies and actions, but they won't be anyone close to you, any of the people you care about. And it's their job to protect their interests, not yours.

The Godfather earns our respect, because he takes good care of his family, and a hundred other movies portray the glamourous side of wrongdoing. The myth of the "safe automobile" allows oil and auto executives to reap profits off of the deaths of thousands. It is more important to keep people in their jobs than it is to eliminate or regulate the tobacco industry, even after their lies (leading to more deaths) have been exposed. Advertising is considered a respectable business.

We are all, in various degrees, complicit with this trend. In our culture, the negative consequences of lying can be difficult to discern.