As an exvangelical, I have an extensive and well thought-out answer to this question! https://twitter.com/abandonedameric/status/1252491078839734272

Once I stopped believing in the existence hell, I also, of necessity, stopped believing in the guarantee of heaven -- since they were part of the same belief system told to me by people who no longer had any credibility.

So, over the next several years, I thought through everything I had ever been taught about morality, ethics, divine reward/punishment, etc. If there is no God judging what we do, then why do -- or don't do -- anything at all?

One of the things I found rather quickly is that I had a conscience, and did not WANT to do things that violated it. In fact, having a personal conscience that conflicted with the morality of the evangelical church was part of why I stopped believing.

So, in a universe with no judge, why do anything at all? Because we want to. And, what I wanted to do, left entirely to my own devices, was a bunch of... well, lefty stuff. You know, make the world more fair and just and kind and all that.

I mean, it's not the ONLY thing I want to do. I want to do some fairly hedonistic things as well. Like, I couldn't sleep and I'm drinking a big ole' mug of cider which, uh, supports our local cidery, so there's that.

So, the question, "why NOT be a cheater and a liar and a person who exploits other people with sadistic cruelty? Why NOT be a DJT?" in my case is answered in a very simple gut-level way: because I don't want to.

I mean, if I could switch places with DJT -- okay, I totally would, because I would drive that hideous body around undoing the damage -- but I don't actually ENVY him. I don't actually want his life.

And it's not that I don't want money, fame, etc. I would totally take Stephen King's life, for example. But he got rich by 1. writing and 2. getting lucky, not, as far as I can tell, by cheating or exploiting anybody.

But, then again, he's a white man, so he's never had a system that was working against him, either.

The thing is, I'm not sure being a cheating jerk actually pays off unless you're already set up in a certain position in life. I don't think you can swindle people on a huge scale like DJT has done unless you start out with a big pot of money.

I have watched, for example, Republican small business owners who clearly believe that emulating a certain "ruthless businessman" aesthetic is the way to get ahead, and they failed more often than the hippies.

So, weirdly, I think the idea "oh, I could be successful if only I were willing to lie and cheat to get ahead" is really just a different version of the "anybody can be successful if they just work hard" myth.

Both of them obscure the way success, especially at the higher levels, is usually a marker of the class you were born into, rather than a pure result of your life choices.

Already rich cheaters get further ahead by cheating and then use the money to rig the system even MORE in their favor. Was I ever in a position to cheat that way? Not really. It's hard to imagine what kind of cheating even WOULD have paid off in my life.

Now, when it gets to "ethics of Julie" there is at least one tricky part: vengeance. I don't have any faith in supernatural forces of vengeance, but sometimes I want it real bad anyway. Real bad. I want to be Dark Willow.

If I had the power to use magic to flay Certain Individuals alive while they begged for mercy, yeah, I'm not proud, I'd do it. But only because I ALSO think getting rid of these Certain Individuals would also improve the world.

Vengeance is like rage or hatred -- it's not good, but it might not always be bad, either. We're told it's bad, but, I think the people doing the telling clearly engage in it, so all they want to do is keep YOU from dreaming of vengeance.

And whenever anybody out there who has an impulse to be good, and sees the bad people literally getting away with murder, and wonders "why do I do it?" I want to tell them: if you can't cling to hope, cling to vengeance.

Ultimately -- if there's no point in being good -- there's no point in being bad, either.

If there's one thing in life where I actually am fairly ruthless, it's this: do the math, go with the evidence.

What approach is LIKELY to have the outcome you want?

And, if you literally don't know, then go with your best guess and have faith that if nothing matters, nothing matters, and if anything DOES matter, well, then, you did what you THOUGHT would matter.

So I'll just leave you with this little song from a Disney movie that actually expresses my own ethical position fairly well. G'night.