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+---
+title: "Small Acts of Murder: Shame, Religion, and What We Owe Each Other"
+description: "Thoughts on regret, murder as a spectrum of harm to quality of life, and arriving at a moral philosophy."
+date: 2026-10-10
+tags:
+  - Atheism
+  - Life
+  - Moral Philosophy
+  - Religion
+synopsis: "Thoughts on regret, murder as a spectrum of harm to quality of life, and arriving at a moral philosophy."
+imageURL: /img/remorse-albert-sterner.webp
+imageAlt: "Remorse, by Albert Sterner. An illustration of a figure collapsed on a bed with their face in the pillow."
+---
+Years ago, I broke up with someone abruptly. She and my friend were over. The
+two began arguing. Upset, she ran outside into the rain. My friend commented
+that she was being ridiculous, that I should break up with her. I'm not usually
+so impressionable as to take such an action based on an offhand comment, but I
+had been feeling a little uncomfortable in this new relationship. While she was
+pleasant, kind, and beautiful, the relationship had mostly been physical and I
+was troubled that she hadn't told me much about herself—although I had been
+asking. I was young and new to relationships, with all of the anxiety that
+accompanies inexperience. I found her standing at the end of the street,
+crying. If this happened today, I'd say something reassuring. I'd comfort her,
+bring her inside, and explain how I had been feeling at a better time. Instead,
+I looked into her tearful eyes and ended it then and there. I was young,
+inexperienced, and scared. I really just wanted to get to know her better.
+Instead I hurt her in a cruel way. By entering into a relationship, she
+entrusted me with the power to hurt her. I abused that trust. To this day I
+burn with shame when thinking back on the memory.
+
+I tend to think of murder as a spectrum upon which loss of life is the extreme
+end. Economic slavery imposed by capitalism demands large amounts of time from
+finite lives to enrich a wealthy few. Systemic bigotry erodes quality of life
+every day. Individual actions turn small moments into unhappy memories. Life
+can be impacted in innumerable ways both systemic and interpersonal—beyond
+simply cutting it short, the extreme end of a spectrum of harm. Especially to a
+materialist, this view lends a new gravity to harms of all sizes. Each action
+or inaction that causes pain to another represents a permanent mar on another's
+experience, a sliver of one precious existence worsened or ruined. No matter
+how trifling, each represents an injury to life itself.
+
+I don't believe in objective morality, either. In the view of this atheist and
+anti-theist, the universe is indifferent to suffering. There's no "good book"
+with all the answers. This being the case, morality becomes a logical exercise:
+if we hold every sentient life as precious and irreplaceble, how do we model
+our behaviors and our society so as to maximize the quality of each?
+Unfortunately, grappling with this question is the work of a lifetime.
+
+I was raised to believe that morality came from a book. God doesn't want us
+drinking coffee, hence drinking coffee is immoral. Most religions cover the
+basics—plus a few wacky and harmful inclusions—but the topic of morality is too
+complex for any tome to do justice. Further, religion fails to offer a sound
+logical framework for thinking about morality. As a result, followers think
+they're doing fine if they're following at least most of the instructions, and
+in some popular traditions there's repentance to boot. This doesn't tend to
+work out very well
+[even in the short-term](https://www.azquotes.com/quote/702126), but when the
+scales fall from the eyes of the faithful and they break free of magical
+thinking, they are left morally adrift: with no way of considering how they
+ought to interact with others beside their personal feelings.
+
+Developing a personal moral philosophy is not a simple matter. None of the
+great philosophers seem to have arrived at a complete answer, so what hope has
+the average person when they discover their entire worldview was bunk? Many
+important conversations were skipped in favor of indoctrination, so those freed
+from the mental shackles of religion find themselves behind their secular peers
+in terms of moral development and understanding. Couple that with years spent
+living in a reactionary environment, and it makes for a lot of catching up to
+do while also trying to survive in a capitalist society barely less indifferent
+to sentient life than the vacuum of space.
+
+Despite all of this, I sometimes find the recollection of the suffering I've
+caused difficult to bear. It is some comfort to know that, like most, I never
+meant to cause harm. Most of us do our worst when we think we're in the right,
+don't know better, or simply aren't thinking at all. But the tragedy of harm is
+its irrevocability. Just as the ways I have been hurt live on in me, I can
+never erase the painful memories I've caused.
+
+If we owe each other one thing and nothing else, it is to respect each-other's
+time, both in quantity and quality. We're not born knowing how. It takes a
+lifetime of listening, learning, experience, and practice—hurting others all
+the while. Even with every effort, fallablility is simply part of the human
+condition. One of the few sound pieces of advice I received as a Mormon child
+was to consider scenarios that ask you to make a moral decision, and decide now
+what you will do when they occur. It may not be so easy to choose in the
+moment, so make the decision before it becomes difficult. This system isn't
+perfect, but you can certainly consider the kind of person you want to be and
+how you want to affect others. Hopefully you get it right. Hopefully, with
+time, your ideals become instinct. Hopefully, you maintain the cognitive flexibility such that they are never rendered immutable.
+
+Perhaps, as
+[terror management theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory)
+would have it, this way of entwining morality with mortality itself is a means
+of assuaging death anxiety. Maybe the idea is that, if we must walk into
+oblivion, we should do it hand in hand with smiles on our faces, rather than
+pecking at each others eyes like hens in a battery cage. Surely, as nature
+demands that we spend our lives scraping for its necessities while it awaits
+our demise like a circling vulture, our principal aim ought to be to free
+ourselves from this cruel status quo? To make possible the full development of
+our personalities? To experience, together, the fullness of what it is to be
+conscious in freedom from want and suffering? Why shouldn't life itself be at
+the root of our thinking around morality? After all, we owe each other
+everything. From the earth that made our existence a possibility, the bees that
+pollinate our food, the person who laundered the linens we were born on, who
+introduced our parents, who stitched our shoes, who taught us to read, who
+shared our first kiss… our obligation to everything and everyone around us is
+infinite. The idea that any sentient being is beneath moral consideration must
+be put to rest. We owe each other—and we each are owed—everything!
+
+In light of this overwhelming debt, the preciousness of sentient life,
+sometimes I don't know what to do with the weight of my shame. Although I have
+no children, I often recall a quote by Mitch Albom on parenthood:
+
+> All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine
+> glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a
+> few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.
+
+This idea can surely be extended to encompass all human relationships, given
+adequate time. Maybe it is the best we can do to take our guilt, with both
+sorrow and gratitude, as a pattern for our own pair of white gloves to help us
+handle the lives about us with due care. Since my life has become more stable I
+have had the time and headspace to consider the past. I find myself hoping that
+the most I have left with others are fingerprints, that the pain I have caused
+is mostly a small part of a larger happy memory. When I consider the type of
+person I'd like to be, it is one who shares in the sorrow he causes. I can take
+solace in the fact that I am at least this.
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