Morality

[Angrboda]

Wikipedia notes, "With particular emphasis on the importance of the family and social harmony, rather than on an otherworldly source of spiritual values, the core of Confucianism is humanistic."

"The importance of family and social harmony"
For me this is the key to society. And I see these reflected in all the successful religions in the world wheather they worship a god or not.
The importance of family, which I've conveyed in so many ways here,  is no where to be seen in modern athesists minds.
Nor is social harmony. These are morals that are formed with these objectives of a sustainable society. Forget about the whole God debate, its a dead end trust me. I don't claim to be all knowing and enlightened, far from it. Im just saying this is the subject where its at, not God. People just aren't looking at it this way.
I don't think Ive ever heard Sam Harris talk about morals from this perspective. Its always from a personal subjective view point.

I theorize that mankind were originally atheists and that these religions or moral standards were created (from secular foundations u could say) to form sustainable societies. They hold humans accountable for instinctive behaviours that weren't compatible to the success of a society.

I encourage people to learn about "human nature" a branch of psycology. No one has used any of its facts.
I was labelled a chadcell or something for using this science. And take a close look at societies in the animal world.

Brian37 said that the groups formed by chimps are in fact religions if u define it as simply a group. An interesting thought which I took on board.
I used to wonder why no other animals had religions but B37 got me looking at that differently. His theory was unlike anyone eles here and I was so glad that someone was on my page. Thats why I was his hostile respose was so dissapointing after I basically agreed with him and praised his theory on page 3 of this thread. I couldn't believe it. I agreed with someone yet they still dragged me through the mud.

The relationship between the law in the U.S. and Christianity is a contingent one, not a necessary one, so it's entirely possible that law in the U.S. would have developed just fine based upon some other cultural source other than Christianity

I said the law in western societies are founded on Christianity. I never said it was necessary.
And yes I agree that the USA could have developed under the moral stuctucture of another culture.

So we are in agreement on a few things.
The USA was founded on Christian morals.
Christianity is not required to maintain a society.
A God is not required to form moral standards in a society.
The USA didn't require Christian morals.
USA could have formed under the moral guidlines of another culture.
China didn't need Christianity or a God to form their society.

Ur the third person Iv reached out to now who has some views similar to mine. 3rd time lucky...
Hope for the best, expect the worse.

No, we're not in agreement that the U.S. law was founded on Christian morals. I simply noted that there was a relationship there, nothing more. And no, I don't agree that religion was formed in order to create the social stability that moral codes and law provide, nor that it was necessary that it do so for us to have law and moral codes. Even if religion did form for that purpose, it wouldn't follow that it was necessary for law and moral codes that it do so. You seem to be engaged in nothing more than question begging. A) The existence of a relationship between laws and morals was a result of religion forming to create the foundation for such; B) the evidence that religion was created for this purpose is that there is a relationship between it and laws and moral codes. That's nothing but a circular argument. You haven't provided any independent evidence that this is so, largely letting ignorance of the true causes of religion and civilization do all the work for you. In addition, you've been provided with alternative theories for both the formation of civilization (Gae) and that of religion (myself). Until you defeat those alternatives, it would be premature to embrace your theory, especially given that it seems to rest on nothing more than circular arguments, appeals to ignorance, and proof by assertion.

And finally, you've moved off of specific religions to a general claim that religions, whatever their form, contribute to the foundation of stable societies. The Rohingya in Myanmar would beg to differ, as well as any accomplisheed student of comparative religion and social history. Confucianism, which is what you were quoting there, was explicitly brought up because it was a largely secular philosophy, not a religious one. Next thing you know, you'll be lowering the bar so far that any human behavior or philosophy will be considered "religion" and thus validation of your argument. That's nothing more than equivocation and undermines your entire argument.

It's true that religion has functioned to encourage social cohesion and cooperation, but this has likely been the case both before and after the formation of civilized societies. There's little evidence that societies developed on account of this function, nor that religion itself formed primarily to serve that function. Both of those undermine your argument.