so there were some guys asking for donations to their Christian charity at a traffic light today and it got me thinking about religion. i've held this philosophy on religion since i was a teenager but don't really see any use in letting people know IRL, so i'll post it here. i can only assume this is already a prevalent theory but i'm not going to search for it.

essentially, i think God/religion was a really good idea before advancement of science and reliable law enforcement were around, but it's still just that, an idea. i think some really smart people got together and decided that instilling the fear of God in people would make society run much smoother. also, obviously, whoever ran the church would obtain money and power.

i believe in family, community, selflessness and a lot of other things that most religions teach. society can't function without them. before God, there was nothing to prevent "sin". what was to stop the hungry 25 year-old man from walking to his old man neighbor's house, beating him to death, ****ing his hot wife and then stealing all of their food and lying about it? nothing, there won't be any consequences for him. the dude is dead and the police don't exist. if the man is God-fearing, though, he knows he's going to hell like five times. nobody wants that.

i could go on forever with examples of religious teachings that have a huge positive impact on how people live their lives today, but i'll keep it short.




in conclusion:
-are there many profound and extremely useful teachings in religious literature? yes

-was the concept of a God(s) necessary hundreds/thousands of years ago when science/law enforcement weren't around? yes

-does God exist? of course not

-does religion still have a place today? sure, in poor/uneducated/underdeveloped areas


thoughts?

Why are we better today than say 2,000 years ago? Don't we have even more forms of corruption?

I don't think people are as selfish as you portray them. More to the point, if your claim (that people would have behaved selfishly in pre-civilized times if it weren't for a fear of god) is correct I think it would suggest religion is more useful now than in the past. After all, cooperation with one's immediate neighbors is far less important today than it used to be - your hypothetical sociopath would have very quickly found himself an outcast or dead, IMO. Nowadays it's much easier to behave as you describe (with the possible exception of murder).

I'm not surprised you miss the days when priests could have men nailed to crosses to die because they didn't like their views. Although it is ironic.

seriously?

If this was an honestly asked question your ignorance truly truly knows no bounds.

Op was talking pre-priests wasn't he? In his theory smart people invented god to give the population a reason to behave morally.

I think a God 4.0 concept will emerge out of our current God 3.0 version, akin to how Christianity emerged out of the Greco-Roman concepts of God.

Many profound and extremely useful teachings will develop from it.

A couple thousand years from now people will consider us poor, uneducated and underdeveloped.

Someone will wonder if we still need the concept of God.

So they had crosses we have electric chairs and lethal injections in our current society. (But that's overlooking that there are still parts of the world where they do Chinese water torture and it's only been a few decades since the Nazis were stringing people up with piano wire.)

It still doesn't prove we are any more moral than earlier peoples.

It just shows their means were more primitive than ours and our methods have changed. It doesn't say much about the morals.

I think it's already emerging.

I wasn't talking to OP. I was making a tongue-in-cheek comment about Splendour's frequent longing for the days when the church leadership had more teeth, enough teeth to even brutally (and legally) murder her non-violent hero.

well put. exactly what i'm trying to say.

any form of corruption that exists now but didn't exist back then, emerged from the advancement of our civilization. government, technology, etc.

so yeah, there weren't computer hackers or white collar criminals in 700 b.c., but i don't really see what that has to do with anything. the point is that nowadays, we can behave morally without believing in a mythical omniscient entity.

The Roman government murdered Jesus, not the Jewish religious leadership.

Ah, ok. I basically agreed with splendour that the op seemed to be implying we were more inclined to be moral now than we used to be which seems implausible to me. I kind of assumed your response was directed to both of us.

One objection to her and my position which occurred to me was that we may be erroneously extrapolating a perceived decline in morals over the last twenty years or so in some linear sense. It may be more sensible to view it as cyclical in the medium term with a long term, linear and upwards trend.

Stop strawmaning.

Nobody was longing for anything.

I'm asking the OP how he knows people today are any more moral than any other time period. I could have said 4,000 years ago, I could have said 500.

If America killed every last Afghan today in a purposeful genocide what would happen? If America tried to instituted legal slavery what would happen? If America tried to make it illegal for unmarried women to leave the house without a male relative escort what would happen?

Were better. Though it depends on culture and place and in some ways were probably not. But generally were better. I dont think most modern Americas could last in the past, either ethical or just living.

I wish i had the power to transport people who dont think so back a few thousand years. I think id make you go to Sparta on the verge of male adulthood. That or being a women force into an arranged marriage where you partner had the right to correct your behavior. I kid, i wouldn't want to do that to anyone because it would be cruel.

You first. As in something resembling an evidence-based logical argument in support of your conclusions. Or is this a faith-based testimony you are presenting?

Lol, what? Please don't be bringing up that Zeitgeist garbage again. It gets tiresome taking it out repeatedly.

Nah, more the evolution of philosophia perennis.

It seems implausible to me, too. What's different is that we've developed better institutions (political, educational, etc.) over the centuries which help mitigate our immoral nature. At least most cultures have... some more closely than others still resemble those of 2000 years ago. Not that all cultures of 2000 years ago were brutal. But I think even the average Mexican living in the hell hole of corruption that is their country would prefer it over rounding up slaves to murder on altars to an Aztec god.

I see your point. But I think you're opinion is based off of social evolution or social progress where I am looking at individual progress.

It's possible there are more people today that have personally progressed today because of social evolution/progress. But because the number of people in the world is much greater than ancient times it looks like we really haven't changed much since we have such glaring examples of people that are still going wrong amongst us today.

I think God has managed this social evolution. But everything still hinges on the individual. There is clearly an interdependence between the moral advancement of the individual and the moral advancement of society.

Think of the world as one big pot of clay. Some people are like hard clay and some are like soft and moldable clay. Some even manage to get separated from the rest of the clay so they aren't mixing in with the hard elements so much. Gradually the clay is being worked across time.

I think we as individuals are generally better too. That was the point. I dont think many Americans as individuals would make it in the past without compromising some cherished morals they hold. This includes believers.

I think what you are going to compromise is related to the type of society you move in.

Well if you sent me back in that transporter there are a lot of morals i wouldn't like to compromise. Like owning slaves or the treatment of women or in the case of the Spartans murdering and steeling to become a man.

I do not think religion is nessesary to make us moral.
I think morality is behaviour evolved to make social units larger
than just one individual viable . Hence there is a (very) rudementary morality even in chimps.
Also there is no actual evidence that religious people are more moral than the nonreligious.
Also is someone who is acting good to get into heaven, or avoid hell, acting moraly? Is this not just another calculation to further
one's well being? To be really moral one must act unselfishly without expectation of reward.

Good job mate, finally figured it out.