[hypertele-Xii]

Not completely different, the messianic morals are embedded in the ceremony by design: Sharing, caring, family, food, etc. These aren't incidental, they're the whole point. Sure the specific historical person, i.e. the messiah, blurs over time, as probably do the ceremonial activities, but surely they retain some of the original moral ideals.

[nautilius]

You prove my point. You won't find many atheists (if any) that will take Jesus as in any shape or form a historical person. These are two different worlds.

Atheists don't derive their morals from these stories, that's the difference. That there is some superficial overlap (a tree? presents?) doesn't allow you to claim the morality of atheists as religion-derived. That's ludicrous. It's like saying the local butcher taking apart a pig is adhering to Aztec rituals and their morals because at some point in both 'ceremonies' someone holds a heart in their hands.

In fact, the source of morals among atheists seems to be a permanent puzzle for many people with religious background, simply claiming them as religion-based misses the point completely.

[atq2119]

> You won't find many atheists (if any) that will take Jesus as in any shape or form a historical person.

Raises hand: Atheist here who thinks that a historical Jesus is at least plausible. Obviously not a son of god, though, that would have been embellishment by later generations.

[jmopp]

This. The existence of Jesus says nothing about his divinity or the validity of Christianity. We have more evidence for the existence of Muhammad. Does that make Islam the 'correct' religion? We have even more evidence for the existence of Joseph Smith. Does that make Mormonism the 'correct' religion? We have video recordings of L. Ron Hubbard, along with many people still alive who have met him. Does that make Scientology the 'correct' religion?

[nautilius]

Exactly. The possible existence of someone names Jesus ~2000 years ago gives zero validity to anything. But we don't even know that. It takes faith to believe in Jesus as a historical figure. There is as much evidence as for the existence of Harry Potter.

[tsol]

Jesus definitely existed as a person, we have records from the time mentioning him

[thecage411]

That is overstating it a bit; there are mentions decades (but not centuries) after his reported death.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus has a good overview of the non biblical sources.

[tsol]

You're right, after looking it up it was Muhammed who we have records mentioning either during life or within ~30 years[1]. For Jesus it definitely came after.

1- https://i.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/faq/religion#wiki_...

[lovecg]

> In fact, the source of morals among atheists seems to be a permanent puzzle for many people with religious background, simply claiming them as religion-based misses the point completely.

I don’t have a religious background and it’s still a puzzle for me. Best I can manage to explain it is through a combination of tradition and genes (“human nature”), and tradition is often indeed derived from historical religious environment. Moral is mostly universal but not completely - for one example the attitudes towards hard work at the expense of everything else vary greatly across different cultures and religious traditions.

[atq2119]

Amusingly, there's the same trap here as with the "who created the world" problem.

Sure, religious people get their morals largely from their religion. But where do the morals of the religion come from?

[lovecg]

You’re right of course - religion and tradition feed on each other. I’m imagining it as a dynamic system with feedback loops, etc. where organized religion plays the role of the mechanism that slows down change and provides stasis. We’re only a couple generations into our “post-religious” society so the jury is still out on how this great decoupling will play out exactly.

[nautilius]

I don't think moral is universal at all - 'You shall not kill' vs cannibal societies and honor killings, monogamy vs polygamy, eating animals vs vegetarianism, slavery vs abolitionism, democracy vs. tribalism, patriarchy vs. equality, mothers' rights vs unborn rights, etc.

It's not only not universal, but it's highly fluid (which it couldn't be if it was universal).

[v-erne]

I always preferred to look at morals as survival strategies for societies. From this point of view they do not have to be universal to work - its enough that they skew the probablity a bit towards survival of given group and the rest is just some version of Darwins Game of Life.

[nautilius]

Obviously they don't have to be universal to work, that's my whole post - they aren't, and humanity was pretty successful in settling every last piece of this planet.

[galangalalgol]

I'd still suggest the overlap isn't incidental. Religions need stable or expanding societies to procreate. So ideology that leads to stable or expanding societies is strongly selected for. Religions with written texts have surprisingly low mutation rates in their ideology, but when conditions begin to favor different behaviors to promote stability, polygamy for instance, the ideology changes quickly.

As a reference to my biases, I'm a theistic agnost, I don't know, but I believe. The life of pie or secondhand lions explain the why pretty well.

[nautilius]

But you're only arguing about proliferation of religion, you're not saying anything about the overlap?

[xhevahir]

>Atheists don't derive their morals from these stories, that's the difference.

The notion that atheists--or Christians, for that matter--ground their moral reasoning in first principles, completely free of unexamined assumptions and social convention, is so laughable that I'm amazed anyone here is seriously suggesting it.

[nautilius]

Wow, you destroyed that strawman!

[xhevahir]

If that's a straw man, then what would a more charitable interpretation of your comment look like?

[nautilius]

There is zero overlap between your comment and the quote you provide, so I wouldn't even know where to start fixing your comment.

[xhevahir]

Then what do you mean by your remark about how atheists "derive" their moral beliefs? rayiner's comment was about the religious origins of certain beliefs and their persistence in Western societies--not about whatever explicit justification contemporary atheists or believers might offer for those beliefs. In your comment you seem to be disregarding the former question to focus attention entirely on the latter.

[robotresearcher]

The mid winter family-oriented festival predates Christianity. The party at the darkest part of the year is indeed the original point.

[nautilius]

Indeed. I'd be surprised to find a single culture on this planet that did/does not celebrate that days are finally getting longer.

[Enginerrrd]

Even among equatorial people's?

[nautilius]

You got me. I should have specified that a certain threshold of day-night length difference would have to be exceeded to be subject to celebration.

I'm glad I specified the planet, or else someone would have pointed out planets without a tilted axis.

[Edit] Fair point, though. I asked for a single counterexample and you delivered.

[ClumsyPilot]

> Sharing, caring, family, food, etc

I really dislike religion claiming monopoly on morals.

Even tribes of cavemen cared for each-other. We have evidence of people being cared for and living for years with crippling iniiries. They could not care for themselves let alone help the tribe.

Even animals care for each-other and protect each-other, can't claim culture or religion there - its a basic feature of evolution.

If there was actually a correlation between religion and morality, then we would see less crimes like murder/ robbery /rape in religious societies. If anything, the opposite is true.

[hypertele-Xii]

> I really dislike religion claiming monopoly on morals.

Where's the monopoly? A discussion on the moral values of religious rituals doesn't preclude anything. I don't even belong to a church.

It seems you think (perhaps subconsciously) that religion has a monopoly on morals. Why else are you bringing that into the discussion and arguing against it?

> Even animals care for each-other and protect each-other, can't claim culture or religion there - its a basic feature of evolution.

Religious morals are an instance of mutual care emerging through social evolution in an animal - the human, specifically. And humans call it "culture", because humans like to invent words to describe specific instances of phenomena.