| > Why not provide societal benefit through secular and people focused governance, for instance? Because they weren't. That's the point. The culture at the time didn't care to support anyone but the most powerful. Could a non-religious approach have fixed it? Maybe, but none emerged that did so. Not 2000 years ago, anyway. So Christianity entered the scene at a time when no one was doing these good things, and gave people a reason to rally behind them. Even today, statistically speaking, Muslims give far more of their income to charity than any other group, and if I'm not mistaken, Atheists ranked last. (Christians only marginally performed better, which says a lot about the state of modern Christianity.) So why is that? I think it has to do with tribalism. You can't form a strong tribe around NOT believing stuff. Not believing in something isn't enough of a reason to form strong social bonds and take on major projects. Does that mean you can't come up with a good secular belief that people can rally behind? Of course not. Liberalism was a secular idea that made massive changes. Same for democracy. But you need a flag to rally around. "Disbelief" makes for a poor flag. It's not much of a rallying cry. What's more, the rationalist/atheist community tends to be very strongly individualist. Individualism, almost by definition, isn't particularly interested in things like hospitals or caring for the poor. |