(November 9, 2017 at 3:30 pm)Aegon Wrote: Your point about how theists don't feel responsible for their actions because they believe in God makes no sense to me.
It's not so much that theists don't feel so responsible for their actions in that they are giving up responsibility for their actions to someone else.
They are partially outsourcing their decision making process by deliberately going to a service every Sunday to be preached to. And it's not just an hour or so of praise about how wonderful their god is, but preaching about what people should value (e.g. family values), about how to live their lives, about what people should hate (e.g. homosexuality, pornography, masturbation etc)
Obviously theists can't be micromanaged throughout their entire day to day life, and so must take some responsibility. but they are still asking for guidance in the same way that a child asks for guidance from their parents. Compare this to having to make a moral judgment about particularly complex situations where there are many unintended consequences. It's a lot easier to advocate throwing away the key on all felons for example if you have someone in authority (who isn't an expert) telling you to take the easiest option and a whole congregation agreeing with you. Whereas having to decide all by yourself means that you have to face up to the possibility of being wrong, which no one ever likes to admit.
Of course it is a generalisation. There will always be exceptions. But what I am describing is typical of organised religion because it means a large power base of voters can be influenced to exercise their political power en masse. A church is more than just a collection of like-minded individuals, it's a group of individuals conditioned to become more like-minded.
