(June 10, 2013 at 11:22 pm)ronedee Wrote:Thanks for your reply! I always learn something from you!
I guess my question should be: Where do morals come from?
I mean what really stopped us 5,000 years ago from smashing someones head in for a berry? Did we wake up one day and say, "I love my fellow barbarian"?
Now on an individual level, your argument may be correct (more in a minute)....
But, there musta been a "wide spread" conversion of those animal instincts long ago. I don't believe there was a higher learning institute in those days.
And to say that it just happened naturally, that people most everywhere on the globe wanted a deity in their life is ...well... a stretch! Superstition is enough for believing in a God....but for the masses to start believing in morality?
And sure.... why wouldn't an educated, intelligent, thinking secular society be moral? These types of individuals are drawn to atheism and their own godless, peaceful lifestyle. But, the masses aren't so "smart". The masses are looking to be directed. The masses are in need.
You are probably getting my point about now.
And you are definitely correct that religion as "a weapon" needs to be removed from the hands that will do harm. But this is where religion gets the bad rap! and even though the "good" far out-weighs the "bad"....the religious community far out-weigh anyone!
So atheism attracts a "certain", small, defined group of individuals. Religion attracts EVERYONE! And there my friend is my dilemma as a religious person.
No matter how good I, or the 10's of millions of Christians could be...the "bad ones" are still more than the biggest secular society there will ever be!
Apologies for butting into this exchange but I would just like to add a few comments:
"I mean what really stopped us 5,000 years ago from smashing someones head in for a berry? Did we wake up one day and say, "I love my fellow barbarian"?"
5,000 years ago we were already farming. Better to look further back, say 20,000 years ago to the hunter gatherer societies.
What is interesting is there is no evidence that this sort of thing happened to any degree. As a social mammal with a large brain it quickly became apparent that working and living together was a better strategy for survival than an "every man for himself" approach.
We do not see evidence of such errant behaviour in any of our nearest relatives - chimps, gorillas, bonobos etc. Even in more distant species that operate in groups we see cooperation and the establishment of hierarchy which avoids internal fights to the death as much as possible.
Once you get to that point the rest of your argument is negated. There wasn't any kind of spontaneous development of morality. It was a gradual process over time. The move to farming (10,000 years ago) would have introduced a whole plethora of new moral judgements with the idea of personal or group ownership so that a group that works the land reaps the benefits. If this had not come about then farming would have died out. What would be the point of working for a year to grow crops only to have them stolen by a warrior group?
That people continued to farm shows us that in the main this did not happen.
What religion probably did do was formalize morality at some point and introduce the idea of punishment for bad behaviour.
Sadly, however, this came at a cost. With religion being the first attempt to interpret the world it assumed angry deities caused any and every catastrophe to happen. Angry gods took lives. Religion sought to appease these gods by pre-empting their need to take life and human sacrifice was borne.
This was replaced over time in some parts of the world by animal sacrifice (largely during the period of the OT) but was then recalled in the NT with the idea of Jesus Christ having to die for our sins. Sociologically this is a huge step backwards from the ancient Jewish idea of scape-goating where sins were placed on an animal that was sacrificed.
Neither concept is palatable in today's western societies.
