Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists

by Dan Barker

For simplicity, I am using “morality” and “ethics” synonymously in this book, though they are technically not the same. My understanding is that ethics is the study of behavioral values, while morality is a set of values a particular culture chooses. Ethics deals with principles while morality deals with rules. Simplistically stated, ethics asks what is actually good or bad, while morality states what is good or bad. The two words often overlap. For example, if you walk down the middle of the street naked by a schoolyard many cultures will call you immoral, though there is nothing inherently unethical about such an act. Killing a person for no reason other than pleasure is both unethical and immoral. Insulting a prophet may be immoral to a particular group of religious people, but it is not unethical outside of that framework.