In some previous blog entries, I described my concept of Spiritual Orientation. But it occurred to me later that I was assuming that most of my readers have a morality similar to my own. But that does not explain so much of human behavior throughout history.

Take a look at this illustration:

http://www.consciousnessparadigm.com/7-levels-of-consciousness/

Strictly speaking, there is no designation of “good” or “evil” here, though obviously good people would be mainly in the top three levels, while evil people would be in the lowest three. I myself would be in the Pluralistic level, even while knowing that I should be even higher. Imagine what our world would be like if the vast majority of humanity were in the Transcendent level!

Here are other versions of that concept:

These versions imply that anyone can reach the uppermost level, though sheer effort of will. I think that is a better way of expressing the matter.

Another concept I find helpful is the Bell Curve, which is described here:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bell-curve.asp

A bell curve is a common type of distribution for a variable, also known as the normal distribution. The term “bell curve” originates from the fact that the graph used to depict a normal distribution consists of a symmetrical bell-shaped curve.

 

The highest point on the curve, or the top of the bell, represents the most probable event in a series of data (its mean, mode, and median in this case), while all other possible occurrences are symmetrically distributed around the mean, creating a downward-sloping curve on each side of the peak. The width of the bell curve is described by its standard deviation.

I have made my own version of a Bell Curve to represent my view of humanity and their moral values, or lack thereof:

As the illustration shows, only a minority of people are truly good and very rarely do we find anyone that is extremely good. As far as I can tell, the only people I know to be truly Godly would be Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood fame and the musical Copus family of 2002 new age fame. Rogers was universally loved even by people who were not as good as him because his spirit was so incredibly pure. And no, that had nothing to do with his religion, though there is no doubt his Spiritual Orientation was Christian. (Shocking fact: He was ordained a Presbyterian minister before going into television.)

Conversely, evil people are rare also and there are very few that are so evil that they have no sense of morals at all. That would apply to serial murderers like Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy. Likewise, some dictators like Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Pol Pot were Satanic.

The vast majority of people have NEUTRAL morality (not to be confused with having a neutral Spiritual Orientation, though they are related). They do not have a strong internal motivation to be good or evil, but simply conform to the standards of their prevailing culture for social purposes. That’s why when you have a government that is run by evil people, the people in general appear evil too. To change the people, you must change the government, which is why the tyrannies of Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan had to be overthrown at the end of World War II. And also why we must be vigilant at preventing an evil leader from rising to power in the first place. I’M LOOKING AT YOU, TRUMP SUPPORTERS! I consider you and your leader to be evil or at best neutral. There is nothing good about you degenerate hypocrites!