Ethics

You sort of went back and forth during that post, let me see if I can summarize what I got:
Point 1: It takes time for ethics to develop.
Point 2: It is impossible to develop ethics in a single lifetime.
Point 3: We should base our ethics off what people did before, somewhat insinuating the bible here.

Ok, to address these, Point 1, I agree. Ethics are a human concern and something that adjusts with the changing zeitgeist (German for spirit of the times, great word for this type of discussion). We learn from the mistakes that came before and we derive our ethics and morality in the hopes of making the world better.

Point 2: Erm? I'm going to come back to the changing zeitgeist here. We do form our morality and ethics within our lives, we kind of have to. Will these be the ethics of societys forever? I certainly hope not, we punish non-violent offenders, oppress minoritys (both racial and financial) and execute our criminals. Our prison system is a nightmare. I could go on for a while, but you get my point; our system leaves much to be desired. This doesn't mean we're not ethical, it means that (hopefully) we're trying to find a better system of rules. This brings me to...

Point 3: No. Ish. We base our ethics on things that came before, but we do it by 1. going with our evolved sense of empathy and 2. by learning from example and experience. We most certainly do not take our ethics from the bible. Now I'm trying to avoid strawmaning you here, so feel free to correct me if that last sentence is not what you were trying to say.

I agree with your last statement "Our generation feeds off the previous generations and pours into the next generation" fully. That is exactly what we do, and exactly why the ethics of the bible no longer apply. The we learn and we get better. The spread of information technology has done amazing things for the acceleration of this process, and acting like some teaching from 2000 years ago where a guy repeated some wisdom that had already been long formulated (I can't remember if I've mentioned Jainism to you before, but...check it out, they scooped most of Jesus' moral teachings by a few thousand years) is still groundbreakingly relevant today is...shortsighted to say the least.
A discussion of ethics begins with considering who benefits. I believe that it must be grounded in the desire to increase the sum total of human happiness (I'm not a strict utilitarian, but they got some stuff right). I know that if it is set up to "honor god" or to "do what god wants us to" that it is a system ripe for exploitation by someone who will tell you they know the mind of something that is unknowable. If religion is not evil for anything else, it is for setting up this doorway to the exploitation of it's adherents.

It's late so I'll stop here and let you reply. I'll probably put something up to briefly address your other post as well.