Before the scientific revolution began to erode God out of the thinking of the majority of citizens in the West, even if people hadn’t been able to grasp why bad things sometimes happened in the world or why bad people sometimes got ahead in spite of, and even because of, the suffering they inflicted on others, people could still believe God had reasons and the code of right and wrong still held. God was watching. Matters would be sorted out in time. The liars, manipulators, thieves, bullies, and killers would get their just deserts in time. We just had to be patient and have faith. The people, in large majority, believed the authorities’ official spiel.

But World War I was just too big. With the scale of the destruction, the pathetic reasons given to justify it, and the amorality of Science gnawing at their belief systems, more and more people began to suspect and fear that, just as Science had said, there was no God, the Bible was a collection of myths, their leaders were a bunch of deluded incompetents, and the old moral system was a sham. And then, things got worse.

   

        British Army bulldozer burying bodies at Bergen-Belsen (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

                                                       

   

           British soldiers forcing German guards to load bodies (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Following the First World War, to exacerbate the moral confusion and despair, the man-made horrors of the twentieth century began to mount. They are so many and so ugly. The Russian Revolution and Civil War. The worldwide Depression. World War II, six times as destructive as World War I. Hitler’s camps. Stalin’s camps. And on and on. But we don’t need to describe any more. The point is that these were the actions of a species that had gained great physical power at the same time as it lost its moral compass or, more plainly, its ability to handle that power responsibly.

The big question, “What is right?” keeps echoing in an empty hall, and the big fears that go with it have only grown. Where will the code that we need to guide our behaviour in international affairs, business, or even everyday matters come from now?