Does religion expose the shortcomings of empathy based moral systems

[henryp]

Here's the problem I see.  When you look at something really bad, let's say the Spanish Inquisition.  The inquisitors weren't wandering around torturing people willy nilly on orders from God.  While they would claim they were operating according to God's moral commands, we know that's nonsense.  There is no God.  They are just regular people.  Regular people travelling the lands jamming large devices up people's assholes until they died.

We pin that on religion/god being awful, but the religious folk aren't really following a God's law.  There is no God.  They were just regular people with the same governing biology as everyone else.  They had empathy and social inclinations and all that evolutionary jazz that Atheists usually use to explain our own moral inclinations.  

What I think the violent history of religion makes pretty clear, is that empathy/social inclination shit is weak sauce.  Because it just took a couple make believe stories for people to toss their empathy to the road side, and start literally tearing people in half.  

It seems clear empathy is only a factor in our behavior/morals.  One that can and has been overridden by a vast number of other impulses, and I don't know if anything makes that clearer than religion.  

I know a lot of theists and a few of us nihilists do the "Without God, morality is iffy at best!"  And for whatever reason, we always focus on atheist behavior when trying to make that point.  But isn't the point really driven home by religious history?  Because despite those people holding a dopey belief in God, they are still a prime example of what happens in an existence without God.   Religion and all the atrocities committed by it are the product of a godless world.  And that humanity has been so easily overrun with religion is just a testament to how flimsy empathy as a moral foundation really is for humans.

[Whateverist]

But it is easier to find religious people overcoming their natural empathy because they have convinced themselves that their own inclinations are not to be trusted and that what is right/wrong or good/evil is an objective fact determined outside themselves, in the being of God.

[henryp]

But it is easier to find religious people overcoming their natural empathy because they have convinced themselves that their own inclinations are not to be trusted and that what is right/wrong or good/evil is an objective fact determined outside themselves, in the being of God.

Religious people are just people.  They don't have some magical biological aspect that governs their behavior.  The things that lead someone to believe in a God that doesn't exist, and choose to kill people in the fake God's name are just as natural as empathy.  

They are the example of morality in a godless world that people who believe in God have been looking for.  

The problem, is the notion exists in a space that nobody is interested in.  God folks can't point to themselves as proof that morality in a godless world is shit.  And most atheists won't point to them, because they are promoting the idea that empathy provides the moral foundation of a godless world.  Both sides positions are undercut by the idea.

[ƵenKlassen]

Yep, the human species isn't all that smart in general, since people can't see that the bible is just a propaganda book written to
control the masses but, instead, defend it like it's not...

[Minimalist]

Religion is about power, nothing else.

http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/christia...rical.html

The eventual victory of the Cappadocian Nicene faith from 380CE meant that as the Empire collapsed, the Christianity that was left behind was the dark, violent, centralized type that did not tolerate dissent. By the late fourth century, a recognizable Roman Catholic Church had emerged. The doctrine of the Trinity had been created, and the vengeful violence of Nicene Christianity was in full, open, bloody view. Anti-semitism was given its official sanction. The edited Nicene Creed was the only form of belief that was to be tolerated. Inquisitors began reviewing religious beliefs, condemning victims to imprisonment, torture and public execution for failing to believe the right things. This state of affairs persisted and plunged Christian societies into a 1000-year long dark ages. If the Arians had survived the onslaught and been the religion that the Empire left behind, we would have been left with a Christianity that would have left a glowing legacy of Jesus. Instead, the Nicene's violence and intolerance won out, and the 'ages of faith' that resulted darkened humanity from the fifth until the fifteenth century.

[Whateverist]

But it is easier to find religious people overcoming their natural empathy because they have convinced themselves that their own inclinations are not to be trusted and that what is right/wrong or good/evil is an objective fact determined outside themselves, in the being of God.

Religious people are just people.  They don't have some magical biological aspect that governs their behavior.  The things that lead someone to believe in a God that doesn't exist, and choose to kill people in the fake God's name are just as natural as empathy.  

Did anything I said suggest I thought there was a biological aspect that governs their behavior?  Don't think I understand your point.

[vorlon13]

Hey, as long as you're doing it for the Glory of God, more power to you !!

[henryp]

Religious people are just people.  They don't have some magical biological aspect that governs their behavior.  The things that lead someone to believe in a God that doesn't exist, and choose to kill people in the fake God's name are just as natural as empathy.  

Did anything I said suggest I thought there was a biological aspect that governs their behavior?  Don't think I understand your point.

I guess I don't understand your original point has to do with my original post.  I tried to infer some context to make them related.

The key original point is that religion is an example of human behavior in a godless world.  So the shit that's done in God's name exists as a byproduct of our godless reality.  Religious people are what happens when there is no god, not when there is a God.

Atheists think religious people are historically the worst.  So when religious people say "If there's no God, then people would be shit."  They are right, and they are also the evidence of their being right.

[Angrboda]

No.

We all create theories, conscious or unconscious, about what reality is, how it works, and what the underlying picture really is. Moral systems -- all moral systems -- are layered on top of these theories and interpreted through them. Just as the meaning of a mathematical theorem depends upon the definition of its terms, and a sentence depends upon the meaning of individual words, so too, moral theories depend upon metaphysical and naturalistic assumptions. Our morals are built out of these underlying theoretical assumptions. A world that contains a God who is an embodiment of the good is going to inspire a different set of morals than a world which contains no god. It is the underlying worldviews which are constraining the nature of the resultant moral systems; not any defect in sourcing morals to empathy. My empathy is always going to be framed by what I view as the truth about the world, whether that truth is religious or not. So no, religion doesn't expose any such shortcomings, or, if it does, it exposes them as being shortcomings which all moral systems share, namely a dependence upon the physical and metaphysical views of the holder for the ultimate content of those moral systems.

[Cecelia]

Actually it shows the strengths of empathy based moral systems.

They didn't have empathy for their fellow man, and for a simple reason: Because they didn't believe the same way they did. It was their lack of empathy for those different that shows just how important empathy is in morality. If everyone had empathy for their fellow man, the world would be a much better place.