(April 21, 2017 at 7:54 am)chimp3 Wrote:(April 21, 2017 at 7:37 am)Brian37 Wrote: It is easy in the west for skeptics to get stuck on the God/s of Abraham in Christianity, Jewish, and Islam, but the truth is tribal polytheism is what even the first of the three the Hebrews, were based on tribal Canaanites.
What I don't like about what gets ignored is that all of antiquity back then lived under ruling families, the Ancient Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, even China and India, everyone lived under local city/states under class rule and everyone mistook their good fortune as coming from a divine place outside human control.
Not even the Greeks and Romans back then should be compared to our modern western governments. They didn't have back then the ability to remove their Caesar through impeachment, they either died, passed down the power to a family member or they got murdered by family or a political rival.
Back in all of antiquity worldwide, even in polytheism, the mortality rate was much higher, life was far harder and for the person who was not at the top it was far more expected to tow the tribal line. One can only argue that there were more tolerant periods depending and less tolerant periods depending.
But the motif of "divine right" is not unique to the gods of Abraham. Royal rule existed everywhere even in India and China and Rome and Greece.
In the 21st century I am not asked by believers in Zeus or Aphrodite to explain how I have a basis for moral thought. Modern day Taoists seem to go with the flow. Krishna devotees can be annoying at times but mostly they just make bad music and invite you over for dinner.
Nope sorry, Taoism doesn't get a pass either, it also was started in antiquity. I really would recommend all reading this to READ Victor Stenger's "The New Atheism" to understand where our species behaviors are really coming from. Labels do not magically make the individual only do good. Not even the word "atheist" has any magic power to keep the individual from doing bad things. Our species behaviors have always been in our evolution.
Asia's history even with Buddhism and Taoism and Jainism has still had its division and conflicts among nations and back then all of them still lived under local royalty whom all mistook their rule as coming from a higher place, state or divine place. And even today those nations still have prisons like all nations do.
There simply is no logical way you can square any of the ignorance of all of antiquity. Combine that book I mentioned with the entire 13 part series of Cosmos with Neil, and you will see, everyone made bad guesses back then.
