I don't think the meanings are ambiguous... Tamisan's got the right answer.

By Tamisan's definition, I have good ethics and terrible morals (because my ethics over ride my morals if reason/logic demands it).

I would argue quite the opposite. When one thinks of morals one is most likely to think of the Bible or Koran, just as much as one would more often than not think of the Constitution or legal code when one thinks about what is ethical. Is the story of Adam and Eve more an ethical one or a moral one? Is this whole debacle over sub-prime lending an ethical or moral issue? To be sure, a reasoned and safe answer would be both, but I submit that the "pointed" answer would be the first is a moral one; the second, an ethical.

Sin - something that one would describe more as evil than wrong - is a state that seems much deeper and longer lasting than something criminal. Criminals do acts that are wrong and against the law. But what if the laws were to change? Then that same act would no longer be wrong. For example, today, in most states, if you possessed enough marijuana, you would be breaking the law and go to jail. But if you were in Amsterdam, there is no such thing as too much. From a moral perspective, a change in law would bear no meaning in deeming the use drugs as negative - i.e. evil.

I'm a bit confused about how you are ending your argument. Are you saying we derive our morals out of our ethics - that ethics is the chicken before the moral egg? I think this is largely untrue. I would argue that ethics and morals are two spheres of interconnected, autonomous activity. Yes, there were societies and primitive ethics and laws centuries before the major religions arose. And sure, one could argue that all religions start as cults that react the the society from which they come from. But surely, you do not mean to say that the moral lessons of religion have their root in and derive their significance from ethical practices. First, it is entirely conceivable to have morals outside of society. Think of all of the celibate priests and nuns and itinerant monks who take themselves outside of society to practice their moral beliefs. Or of the incredibly personal connection that some people claim to have with God. Second, according to your definition, morals seem to be nothing more than internalized ethics. But morals seem to possess a power that at times transcend ethics. A conception of morals as internalized ethics seems inadequate to explain not whether you should but why you should go to church, temple, or prayer.

Another issue. Are you also saying that ethics do not guide our decisions before they have become internalized? So ethics cannot be internalized and simply stay ethics without transforming into morals? Don't ethics guide our decisions too?

I agree but in the opposite way. I think that morals are your own philosophy and ethics are the norms of the society that you live in. like the code of conduct kind of.

ethics will eventually replace or reside alongside law and reason

The answer to, "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" can be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/6eql96