Morality is easy

I think there is an unspoken attitude in the protestant tradition that living a moral life is essentially easy. This may sound strange, but what I mean by it is that a protestant assumes there is no skill, no learned aspect to leading a moral existence. All that is needed is that you make the choice to live morally, and then stick by that decision, mainly through strength of character or self-oppression.
This attitude leads to some unfortunate effects in north european moral life. Firstly, it fosters arrogance on the part of the morally enlightened individual. There will be a tendency to look down upon those who live less morally conscious life, as all that would be needed to turn this practise around would be the choice to do so. Sometimes this could also lead to erroneous moral prerogatives as one would be inclined to think that ones life is eminently moral and can get no better.
Another consequence of this way of thinking is that it may result in the fear and thus loathing of morally superiour ways of life. In stead of admiring those that are capable following a better moral path, one hates him or her to guard off ones own guilty conscience. Since most people like to view themselves as moral individuals, any morality that does not concur with the way they are living must be seen as wrong, or their own life would be wrong.
This could be a way of explaining why many people in this part of the world despises vegetarians for example. There is no room for thinking that what you do yourself is wrong without it incurring guilt. The perspective of moral skill makes this way of thinking possible. Living a morally perfect life takes large amounts of positive energy, not just self-restraint. It demands that you set aside part of your life for this purpose. Morals, thinking about them and working with your personality to approach them, must be prioritized alongside such things as your job for example. This is how Jesus and Buddha became great, they devoted their entire life to morality and thought.
In other words; when you live your life in a way that is wrong according to what you see as morally good, it means that you are unable to, in this point in time, live morally better. You should still aspire to get better, thinking that shifting to a morally conscious way of life is like turning a switch is dangerous, not only in the ways described above, but also to yourself. It may lead to depression or even madness or suicide.
One can and should allways strive to get better, but this should be done in a constructive and positive manner, much like practising on an instrument for example, not through self-punishment and self-hate.

Good and evil in nature

Of all the views concerning nature and morality I have come across, the view that nature as a whole is morally neutral seems to be the most common. Some thinkers have held that nature is either good or bad. These last two views seems to antiquated today.
When it comes to individuals in nature, the dominating opinion also seems to be that animals and plants cannot be subjected to moral judgements. The argument is usually that these animals or plants are simply following their nature and thus can not be said to be either good nor evil.
I can agree with this to a certain point. As a species, you can not say that wolves are evil because they kill sheep. That makes wolves an enemy of sheep and the sheepfarmer, but not objectively evil. The wolf must kill to survive. Killing is natural to a wolf. So when a wolf kills, it is not an act of murder, but an act of necessity.
But, this does not account for individual differences between animals within the same species. For example, we have heard tales of man killing tigers in India. Tigers as a species does not hunt humans as a rule, they generally keep away from humans as most predators do. Still sometimes, for reasons unknown single tigers go amok and turn into veritable serial killers. All killings of humans performed by tigers can be ascribed to just a few individuals each killing many.
I would state that such tigers are evil, as opposed to a normal tiger that kills only to eat, and only it's natural game. These few tigers are partly responsible for the emnity between man and those beasts. Explanations abound as to why these killings may be seen as justified, like men killing tiger cubs and the like. That may well be, but such explanations are to be found about human serial killers as well, and accepting their actions on these grounds would be absurd. Having a good reason generally does not excuse murder.

"Emotions are alien to me; I am a scientist" -Mr. Spock