Why has God allowed religion to be so tribal?

[Jason118]

There is so much solid teachings in religious dogma and so many warm and kind people who practice. Why has it all come to this, or was it ever thus?

"If you don't how do you decide what's right or wrong? The majority of people know right from wrong, religion isn't needed for that."

But they clearly don't, they follow trends and societal influences that lead them time and time again to doing evil. If they no right from
Wrong, why do humans chose "wrong" so often?

And I thought you atheists don't believe in objective right and wrong anyway?

This comes from the humanist idea that people are basically good- this is quite evidently untrue- as history will show you time and again.
Christianity's view is that humans are, well, bad by nature. Being a christian is realising this. We stop kidding ourselves that we are good and acknowledge the evil we are capable of. That's where the idea of repentance comes from.

And I thought you atheists don't believe in objective right and wrong anyway?

The only shared "belief" athiests have is a non belief in gods.

But child sacrifice was ok for some cultures (not only ok but good)

• really, wow... except maybe for that baby or toddler thrown into a fire and dying a terrible death.

Society at large doesn't agree with Hitler and Stalin etc.

• well people lend these dictators support, and people were complicit with these dictators. Why is it ok in your mind for some cultures to murder their infants but not presumably persecution of racial groups? Also things like slavery which once had majority public support- do you find that justifiable?

You absolutely have a ground to stand up for what you think is right, but you need numbers on your side for society to agree.

There is no right in the atheist world view and often the majority goes the opposite way.

And I thought you atheists don't believe in objective right and wrong anyway?

The only shared "belief" athiests have is a non belief in gods.

Well if there is no moral absolutes which would require a god, then right and wrong is just set by the society at the time- which to me just leaves you blind and following the fad of the day.

really, wow... except maybe for that baby or toddler thrown into a fire and dying a terrible death.

We agree on that. But in the cultures where it was practised we'd be considered wrong

well people lend these dictators support, and people were complicit with these dictators

For a number of reasons including agreement with what they were doing, self preservation, ignorance

Also things like slavery which once had majority public support- do you find that justifiable?

At the time slave owning was considered both good and Christian

There is no right in the atheist world view and often the majority goes the opposite way.

Again there is no shared athiest world view beyond the non belief in gods.

Well if there is no moral absolutes which would require a god, then right and wrong is just set by the society at the time- which to me just leaves you blind and following the fad of the day.

There are lots of reasons people believe in moral absolutes. Evolutionary and societal reasons are both open to athiests. As long as they don't believe in gods

Vitalogy

I think we should give the caves a go again

I criticise you a lot on here I accept that, but seriously, when you say things like this, can you blame me?!

We live in objectively the best time in all of recorded history to be alive. Education, health, standard of living etc.

But no, let's chuck it all away and go back to a time when the average life expectancy was in the mid 30s and people usually died violent deaths or suffered from disease or hunger into an early grave.

Seriously get some perspective.

Missymoo

I always find it weird when the religious pull the whole 'need for a moral absolute' argument out of the bag. It's not a requirement for any other type of knowledge.

For example do you think there is an absolute, objective standard for whether a food is delicious or not? Obviously there isn't, everybody's tastes are different.

However that doesn't mean that there are therefore no boundaries and it's only a matter of time before I go to a restaurant that advertises 'delicious' food and end up being served a bowl of rotting fish guts and excrement.

Morality is by its nature subjective, it changes over time. As an example, Henry V at Agincourt executed all his french prisoners during the battle, but nobody criticised him for it at the time, not even the French. Nowadays that would be a war crime. There is no objective morality.

Also things like slavery which once had majority public support- do you find that justifiable?

At the time slave owning was considered both good and Christian

There was some disagreement about it between Christians granted, but ultimately christians brought an end to it.

I digress, but the point I'm making is that humans aren't so good at "right and wrong" as they like to think- like you just stated whether it be self preservation, being agreeable, or ignorance.

I think some behaviours are more conducive to human flourishing than others,- ie charity, kindness vs chd sacrifice- but they don't always win out when dealing with humans. By acknowledging that it puts me into conflict with moral relativism- that morals are whatever you think they should be. If you remove the idea of a higher moral law people will just keep stumbling around getting it wrong.

Christianity's view is that humans are, well, bad by nature. Therein lies a major problem. It's like a parent that tells it's child how bad they are all the time, not a good environment. I'm not an Atheist btw.

"Morality is by its nature subjective, it changes over time......There is no objective morality"

To me this is just going to lead us nowhere. Our civilization was built up on Christianity- the hospitals orphanages, universities, based on being kind, looking after the weak.
Yes you can say there's no moral objective, religion Is fake- but is not going to build up anything... atheism is a dead end. Where's your direction if anything can be right at anyone time?

@Missymoo100 you do realise that there were and still are plenty more civilisations that were not built on Christianity. Civilisations that somehow managed to have laws and moral and develop and at times be a lot more developed and "civilised" than us?

atheism is a dead end. Where's your direction if anything can be right at anyone time

Again the only shared belief for Athiests is the non belief in gods. The majority of Athiests probably share the same general morality of whichever society they were born into. They just don't happen to believe in god

Therein lies a major problem. It's like a parent that tells it's child how bad they are all the time, not a good environment. I'm not an Atheist btw.

Yes this is true, but like a parent- it may make us face what we have done wrong and try and offer guidance- it is for our benefit, although we sometimes resent it- because certain behaviours we do , and often enjoy are destructive. But like teenagers kicking out people don't like to hear they are doing anything wrong.

Rebel- yes but Christian societies as they stand are more free, less oppressive than many others.
Plenty of civilizations have fallen too under their own weight.

There was some disagreement about it between Christians granted, but ultimately christians brought an end to it.

Eventually. They also supported and profited from it beforehand. The point being the morality changed

I criticise you a lot on here I accept that, but seriously, when you say things like this, can you blame me?! I said caves, then seriously, followed by describing smaller communities, meaning away from consumerism/big corporations/banks, so not exactly caves.

We live in objectively the best time in all of recorded history to be alive. Education, health, standard of living etc. But it's all going to pot. Our education, healthcare system, well,
And Re standard of living, the majority of the people on the planet don't have a good standard of living. The few have the lion's share. Which will get even worse if we keep on moving forward like we are now.

But missymoo, saying it's not going to lead us anywhere doesn't make it not true does it?

And besides, how exactly does religious 'morality' present a better deal? The Bible sanctions slavery, genocide and incest amongst many other 'bad' things. Where's your objective moral standard there?

@Missymoo100 ye we are more "free" and less suppressive. That is due to a separation of church and state , the more rights we got,the less influential religion was.

Religion has been used for thousands of years so manipulate,control and suppress the masses (and women excessively so).

I do believe in God btw,but let's be honest here...(organised) religion was/is man made,promoted,adapted,translated etc.. and thus fallible.

Vitalogy

The majority of people on the planet don't have a good standard of living

Compared to us you mean.

They still almost certainly have a better standard of living than their ancestors had at any time in recorded history.

Read Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature. Excellent book and presents a compelling case that we are actually living in the quietest, safest and most prosperous time that there has ever been.

Depends...

It seems that many religions and denominations accept that 'God' is perfect, but humans are not, and that we somehow fail to interpret things correctly sometimes. That's how we end up with denominations or splits.

Also, God gives us free will, which then explains how God 'allows' us to get it wrong. If God intervened, it wouldn't be free, would it?

Then we have the issue of preordination. It's a seeming paradox that if God knows our destiny, how can God give us free will, and perhaps a chance to change destiny? but preordination and free will aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

These aren't necessarily my personal views, just a rationale for how a God might allow things to happen.

But missymoo, saying it's not going to lead us anywhere doesn't make it not true does it?

-no but even if it's not true it's done more for us, than atheism ever has. As I said orphanages, hospitals, laws, universities were founded by Christianity. How many successful atheist societies have you heard of?

The bible does not advocate slavery- the Old Testament, started when people were already keeping slaves - in fact it brought the first legal protections for slaves- or if you harmed a slave you must set them free, and it was illegal to return a slave that runs away. Before this slaves were property and had no human rights. It was slow progress but you can't change a culture overnight.
Some of the killings were against some of the groups like the canaaites that were wicked- they practiced things like I've mentioned- infant sacrifice.
The bible is a historical book as well as a religious one, so not all texts are endorsements, but descriptions of what was happening at the time.

@Missymoo100 if the Bible is historical how come we didn't end up like something from "The hills have eyes" due to inbreeding...twice?
We've seen the effects of this in royal families,and that was just centuries not thousands of years.

I think of the Old Testament- the theme is people turn away from god, and they die- not because god wills it but by the very nature of embracing moral relativism, and going their own way, people bring about their own demise.

I'm all for being positive and optimistic but you sound like you're in denial a wee bit.

They still almost certainly have a better standard of living than their ancestors had at any time in recorded history. When I read that the thought of people having to move to the cities from say farming. Are these people now better off.