Much as the writings of the Confucianists in China, these documents formed the backbone of moral literature throughout Kemetic history, and through them, we can understand something both of the conditions under which people lived, and the manner in which they responded to their environment, to each other and to Deity. However, even if their religious life was well-formed, from even a cursory reading of ancient documents, one can tell that everyday life was far from Utopia. Even this society, based upon the tenets of ma'at , an ancient word denoting order and truthfulness, was subject to disease, warfare, crime, and all of the attendant sufferings and ills that humans still experience today. Like us, the Kemetic people worried about the future, complained about bad government and high taxes, and wondered if the world was going to be as good for their children as it had been for them. Morality, then, for the Kemetic, is an active endeavor.
Good character engenders good responses in the world and in others.
If a man loves his neighbor, his neighbor will love him in return. In such a reciprocal worldview, what happens to a person is more often than not a direct reflection of what he has physically done in the world, rather than what he believes in. To be certain, the concept of Ma'at is very sophisticated and the Kemetic people were not na ve enough to believe the world would automatically conform to their wishes if they said the right words and did the right actions alone. They knew that sometimes people would act out of Ma'at, and that bad things would happen, either as a result of those wrong actions, or without any compelling reason whatsoever. Bad things happen, and will continue to happen, despite the best efforts of humanity to keep such things at bay.