Morals in Western societies come from what people agree to through discussions, human experience, and politicians they choose. By doing that, people are not discovering some universal truths (morals), but what works in some place at a certain timeline with the least amount of damage to everyone. That is a democratic and humanistic way.
But when you have these ideas of moral universalism and/or moral realism, what you really have is a group of people claiming that they know what is moral with all the baggage that comes with it. So, moral universalism and/or moral realism pretty much looks like just another way of trying to shoehorn authoritarianism.
But when you have these ideas of moral universalism and/or moral realism, what you really have is a group of people claiming that they know what is moral with all the baggage that comes with it. So, moral universalism and/or moral realism pretty much looks like just another way of trying to shoehorn authoritarianism.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
