Does religion expose the shortcomings of empathy based moral systems

[The Grand Nudger]

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.

That's not what they believed.

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.  

That's not what they believed.

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.  

They thought they were doing the right thing.  They probably even thought that they were saving other people..and in many cases, saving the souls of the condemned.  That's empathy working as intended..through a horrid religious filter.  

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.  

Meh.

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.

Not really.  People will do terrible things to other people...particularly if they think it's the right thing to do, if they think they are protecting people or saving people by doing so. To use a less contentious example..a soldier isn't thinking of the guy he's about to shoot when he justifies it to himself. He's thinking of folks back home, or some pretty thing that has to live in the hellhole he's invaded. -Then-..he thinks about the guy he's about to shoot, and how horrible that guy is for those other people.