[leto_ii]

This is a seemingly compelling explanation, but I see no reason why it would actually be true.

It seems to me like it treats people as lacking the degree of intelligence and foresight needed to figure out that it's a good idea to pass building techniques along. As if back in the day people were only capable of understanding things if they were framed in a religious or supernatural way.

I just don't think people a couple of thousand years ago were so cognitively different from us. Not to mention that there's still overwhelming evidence of knowledge being passed down for non-religious purposes throughout history.

[beaconstudios]

> It seems to me like it treats people as lacking the degree of intelligence and foresight needed to figure out that it's a good idea to pass building techniques along. As if back in the day people were only capable of understanding things if they were framed in a religious or supernatural way.

I think this speaks to your own prejudice against religion based on how Christianity is treated in the US. Religion isn't predominantly about supernaturality, it's about what works. Supernatural explanations of why it works almost don't matter, if it works.

Let me give an example. Christian morality seems to be to largely be about stabilising society. "Turn the other cheek" prevents cycles of revenge, for example. Does it matter if that's the case because you understand cycles of revenge and how they lead to more harm than the original offence, or because your priest told you that's the right thing to do? It would be ideal if everyone just understood these precepts from logic, but I don't see any structures for disseminating logical behaviour to the broad masses today either.

People thousands of years ago are the same people as us. I see plenty of truth in religion and I see plenty of falsehood in modern, supposedly "rational" modalities. I don't think the balance of how clear-thinking we are has changed at all.

[leto_ii]

I actually didn't mean to be dismissive of religion. It's just that in general I don't think you need religious or any other indirect justifications for the pretty straight-forward idea that it's good to pass building techniques along.

> Christian morality seems to be to largely be about stabilising society. "Turn the other cheek" prevents cycles of revenge, for example.

Again, I think you might be mistaking the effect for the cause. While it may be true that applying the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount might lead to social stability, I don't think that's what Jesus intended exactly. I don't think he was doing social engineering, rather that he was really trying to convey his ideas of what a right and moral life would be. The fact that leading good lives as individuals leads to better societies is a fortunate corollary, not the main purpose.

Incidentally, if you think about it honestly, it's quite clear that Christianity didn't actually lead to particularly nice societies, once it became the politically dominant religion.

For the record I also need to mention I'm not American and was raised Christian (although I don't consider myself one anymore).

[beaconstudios]

> Again, I think you might be mistaking the effect for the cause. While it may be true that applying the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount might lead to social stability, I don't think that's what Jesus intended exactly. I don't think he was doing social engineering, rather that he was really trying to convey his ideas of what a right and moral life would be. The fact that leading good lives as individuals leads to better societies is a fortunate corollary, not the main purpose.

Then what is the purpose of leading a good life? In my mind, morality is precisely in order to stabilise society. I know we don't talk about it in those terms, but then we never really talk about the purpose behind good and evil. It's just "doing this is good, doing this is bad".

> Incidentally, if you think about it honestly, it's quite clear that Christianity didn't actually lead to particularly nice societies, once it became the politically dominant religion.

Compared to what? Today? Possibly not no (though I think we fail to acknowledge how much we lost in our transition to secularity), but compared to what came before Christianity was pretty great, as I understand. To be honest I lay a lot of the historical nastiness of Christianity at the feet of the Church rather than the teachings of Christ too, after all power does corrupt.

> For the record I also need to mention I'm not American and was raised Christian (although I don't consider myself one anymore).

I'm not either. But I do see nerd-culture (or tech-culture or whatever) as being broadly very dismissive of the value of religion, and generally having no understanding of it either. Funnily enough I was raised Atheist but am now a somewhat-practicing Buddhist.

[leto_ii]

> Then what is the purpose of leading a good life? In my mind, morality is precisely in order to stabilise society.

The way I see it morality is an intrinsic human ability. This is not to say that all people are moral, but that all people, if they develop in a normal, stable environment, will naturally develop a certain morality that is actually not that different from one person to another. In this view morality doesn't really need to be taught and enforced by authority. Leading a good life is therefore the natural thing that people do.

> we fail to acknowledge how much we lost in our transition to secularity

I tend to agree, although for me what was lost with secularization is not so much morality, but important social institutions that fostered collaboration, charity, mutual understanding. Even when it's not lost, religion can be deeply perverted by the modern capitalist society - something like prosperity theology is an abomination to me.

> compared to what came before Christianity was pretty great

I recommend The Darkening Age[1] for a sense of just how destructive early Christianity was.

> I do see nerd-culture (or tech-culture or whatever) as being broadly very dismissive of the value of religion, and generally having no understanding of it either

Here I also tend to agree, particularly when the dismissal of religion is tied in with scientism and perhaps even classism.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkening_Age

[beaconstudios]

> The way I see it morality is an intrinsic human ability. This is not to say that all people are moral, but that all people, if they develop in a normal, stable environment, will naturally develop a certain morality that is actually not that different from one person to another. In this view morality doesn't really need to be taught and enforced by authority. Leading a good life is therefore the natural thing that people do.

I actually strongly disagree with this. I think there are some moral values (obvious ones being like "don't murder your family/friends") (but then why would you, they are of practical value to most people) but if you look at, for example the Old Testament there's tons of murdering of other groups being approved by God. So clearly, moral values can change over time. Even across cultures you can see behaviours that one culture finds deeply offensive and the other is the norm. The stoning of women in the Middle East comes to mind. I believe this moral core of right/wrong is extremely cultural, not innately human.

> I tend to agree, although for me what was lost with secularization is not so much morality, but important social institutions that fostered collaboration, charity, mutual understanding. Even when it's not lost, religion can be deeply perverted by the modern capitalist society - something like prosperity theology is an abomination to me.

I think a central morality is something we've lost. So we're getting moral drift where cultural norms splinter into different factions of morality. Clearly, for example, cancel culture is not in line with redemption morality, which is a deeply Christian ideal.

Prosperity theology is messed up though. America's weird in how it seems to have adopted capitalism as a replacement or supplement to culture in some areas, rather than as a separate social concept.

> I recommend The Darkening Age[1] for a sense of just how destructive early Christianity was.

I mean we all know that the Church in the Middle Ages was oppressive, I don't disagree with you there. Establishments seem to swing between good and bad.

> Here I also tend to agree, particularly when the dismissal of religion is tied in with scientism and perhaps even classism.

Yeah scientism gets my goat. HN being one of the worst culprits. I hated it before I adopted idealist metaphysics but now it's even worse because I'm more aware of the limits of both the idealised and in-reality scientific process than ever.

Americans don't talk about classism. Which is rather strange as they're very excited to talk about any other kind of -ism, some of which are deeply entwined with classism.