10000000%

Very on point, especially on the religious buffet and Spinoza; I also like the moral flywheel imagery of self-first, then others.

I do believe despite our need to help ourselves we are inherently moral. The lack of complete understanding that there is more that exists outside of and past our own lives is what causes us to think in a zero-sum way, making us focus on either the self of the other, when they are in fact one in the same. It's more mindset and philosophy that get us to that level of enlightenment, but that is obviously held back (though, sometimes propelled) primarily by our own egos and immediate physical needs.

Amen.

Immorality and evil is subjective, so yes, you are correct. All humans act in a way they believe is good, whether most agree or not is up to everyone else. Dictating what is right and wrong is exactly what gets us to a point of corruption down the line, because now you have a "moral high ground" to defend any action. If you reject having a higher king you give yourself agency to parse and decide for yourself what is right and wrong. That can be scary, but ultimately what an individual and human collective decides is right and wrong should be up to them.

History also shows that if something is seen as wrong, it will be attacked, and whatever leads to the best outcome for all will typically win out. Nazism, for example, was set to fail because it's ideological and philosophical foundation is more harmful than helpful for humanity as a whole and was acted out on a zero-sum basis. The values in religion are beautiful because they paint the incentives of cooperation in a digestible way, but they innately exist and don't require a "God" to be true. Humans created that higher class to justify their control over others at scale.

I also think God is a fine thing to believe in; it's most definitely better than the state, politics, materialism, what have you. Whatever encourages unity and cooperation is cool with me; religion just has traits and a history that show it's a corruptable solution.

I'm not familiar with his ideas on it; do you have a good reference?

I can agree with the experience point but not entirely with the "what" vs "whom" point. I would argue that the "whom" is the universe, and we each exist essentialy as a "emotions" or "thoughts" of that universe (as a rough comparison). Just like we have our own emotions and thoughts (along with actions, etc., which is where the comparison gets more abstract) that make us who we are, we exist as the same thing in relation to the universe. The galaxies, stars, planets, etc. all serve relatively as "organs", "appendages", and the rest of our "body" that don't necessarily have consciousness, but are essential to "our" existence. The morality arises from the fact that we don't want to harm "ourselves" and ultimately want to maximize the "self," but as an imperfect entity, the best that can be done is always to try and iterate on that idea and understanding of what is "right" and "wrong," just as humans do and have done ("ourselves" and "self" here meaning the universe, or more broadly "God").

The "whom" that is looked up to would also have to know where it came from and exist as an absolute, final "truth" in order to actually claim it has some sort of objective moral framework, which simply can't be done, at least at the human level of understanding. I see morality as more of a dynamic system of growth that has some broadly accepted foundations, but it's not absolute. In line with this, I don't claim that the universe is itself a final truth, rather that it is a perfectly imperfect entity that is part of a greater whole, just like humans, and so on ad infinitum.

Agreed! Seeing that nothing matters or can be determined to be 100% true is oddly an incredibly freeing frame, and trying to add some level of greater understanding restricts us from being maximally "free" to experience and iterate. We don't know and probably can't know why life, or anything in general, exists, so might as well try to make the best of it and leave it better than we found it.