The Reasons why "Just Following Jesus" Doesn't work

[robvalue]

The thing is, religious people so often proclaim this "absolute moral law". Yet in my experience, they disagree way more with each other than your average atheist disagrees with another atheist. What's up with that? Either there is no moral law, or everyone is terrible at knowing what it is. And atheists are faced with billions of theists all claiming to have the "correct" version of moral law, while all saying different things. Can you see how this is confusing for us?

I'll tell you what's going on, in my opinion and understanding. Listen up ya'll.

Our process of natural selection has favoured those who cooperate. Certain methods of cooperation are very effective. It's not surprising, therefor, that most of us have a big overlap in what we consider "a good idea" and "a bad idea". For example, not smashing each others' brains in is generally "a good idea" from a cooperative point of view.

This is a pretty simple explanation for the overlap. Religion instead wants to go "Wow look, that's amazing, it must be magic!" No need for magic. The scientific explanations are more than adequate; and you'd expect the variation we see. According to religion, there should be far less variation than we actually see. Of course, then come the excuses for why God can't even properly apply his own moral law: devil, man, dark forces, evil...