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Alright, I'm going to need a bunch of input over the next week or so. I have a paper due and I don't know when or what the topic is yet. Well, I know that it's due next week, but I don't know if it's Tuesday or Thursday. Anyway, it has to be 5 pages, double-spaced and all of that goodness. If someone hands me a topic, I can write 5 pages easy. But such is not the case.

I have to talk about morals, ethics, and such. I could ramble on about how you can't have free will and fate. Or I could write about the many, many bonds between morality and religion, and how both evolved. That's right, I used 'evolved' and 'religion' in the same sentence.

Now, I usually don't like talking about religion, politics, or anything controversial. But I have to put my ideas somewhere.

Religion is the basis for the most basic of morals. In christianity, just read the ten commandments. Every religion or teaching out there has some interpretation of these laws. Even so, people who do not believe in God, or any supreme being, are still very capable of being decent human beings, if not better. Are all religious people good? No. Are all atheists evil? No. I have met people from both sides of that issue, and I can honestly say that not one group as a whole is good or evil.

Are morals programmed into our genetics? Is our process of determining right from wrong embedded into our DNA? If so, does that mean our manner of choosing also originates from our DNA? And if that is true, are we merely puppets acting out a part written by our parents, their grandparents, and so on? If the choices we make are based on chemical reactions within our brain, then we really don't have free will. But before we get to that last part, let's analyze some of the previous questions.

Where do morals come from? Some might argue that we pick them up as we mature from an infant to a toddler. Others might say that we are constantly changing our perception of what is acceptable and what is not, even if we are middle-aged. But, if a child is given the most basic of necessities (milk, water, food, and a diaper change), what will that child amount to as an individual in society? Will he understand that killing is unacceptable? Will he know to scratch someone's back if that person scratches his? How much will he understand?

Yes, I am interested in getting answers to these questions. I'd like to think that I have an unnatural ability to place myself in someone else's shoes and understand why they think a certain way, or why they do certain things. With the answers, I'll be able to know people better than they know themselves.

{Added on around 12:31AM}

Oh, if you want some insight on why I switched majors out of Electrical Engineering, here is a testimonial from another who got out of engineering.