Once the society removes God from His rightful place, evil quickly takes its place as the predominate influencer. I have seen this transformation take place in my life time.
I think that is what it appears to believers but only in the absence of widespread enlightenment. We can go infinitely far beyond the superstitious, contradictory and manipulative beliefs of the bible with natural human morality and the unlimited potential power of our minds.
What are you even talking about. Humans by nature are murderous, selfish beings.
Society as it exists currently in the west is still at the core built on a christian moral framework. Murder and theft being wrong or helping others are not natural moral positions. Survival of the fittest is the natural state, meaning the weak would be cast aside and left to die like we see in the animal world.
Without god, morality becomes relative and subjective. Meaning if someone believes it's moral to kill you and take what you have, who would be able to say that their morality isn't valid, and by what standard?
I think atheists and godless people fail to realize this. Without a biblical moral framework, child sacrifice, pedophilia, murder...any kind of depraved act would fall under subjective morality.
I think love and co-operation is our natural state. Speaking for my own non-religious upbringing that was how it was in our house and that is how it is today with my own family. We feel love towards each other because of our mammalian biology. We co-operate because it makes it easier to survive. Read Terence Mckenna's treatise on the archaic revival about how we really are and how the dominator culture, which is associated with religion fucked it all up.
I completely disagree and believe you're extremely naive to human nature. Humans as a natural state are tribal and violent. Just look at cultures dating back to the dawn of time. Even among seemingly same peoples like the Native Americans there was constant war and slavery divided between tribal groups, because each tribe or group wants the resources and power to help their own tribe survive and flourish at the expense of others.
We even see it in modern times, humans naturally will divide themselves into tribes. Even this forum is itself a tribal group.
Sure within a tribe humans can cooperate, as in your own family or group because it can be beneficial. But this again stems from deriving a benefit from the relationship, and even within families there are many who selfishly exploit for their own gain.
It's only within religious frameworks that you see truly selfless behavior where people sacrifice at their own detriment to help others.
To say "love" is a natural state of being is just really out of touch, hippie new age viewpoint completely detached from reality.
I think it is absolutely bizarre to claim religion prevents people from child sacrifice, murder and pedophilia. As far as I can see it certainly appears to be exactly the opposite.
How so? Our laws make these things illegal. There will always be evil people who do these things, the difference is the status quo and agreed upon moral standards condemn them. And do you really think those that perpetrate these acts are pious or god-fearing?
Take for example musician Tim Lambesis. He hired a hitman to murder his wife and did some time in prison. He was once a devout Christian who lost faith. He stated that once he was an atheist he saw nothing wrong with murdering his wife because there was no such thing as morality in his mind.
Also every Communist genocide has been acted out by a secular government that abolished God.
Once the society removes God from His rightful place, evil quickly takes its place as the predominate influencer. I have seen this transformation take place in my life time.
I think that is what it appears to believers but only in the absence of widespread enlightenment. We can go infinitely far beyond the superstitious, contradictory and manipulative beliefs of the bible with natural human morality and the unlimited potential power of our minds.
"Natural human morality"
What are you even talking about. Humans by nature are murderous, selfish beings. Society as it exists currently in the west is still at the core built on a christian moral framework. Murder and theft being wrong or helping others are not natural moral positions. Survival of the fittest is the natural state, meaning the weak would be cast aside and left to die like we see in the animal world.
Without god, morality becomes relative and subjective. Meaning if someone believes it's moral to kill you and take what you have, who would be able to say that their morality isn't valid, and by what standard?
I think atheists and godless people fail to realize this. Without a biblical moral framework, child sacrifice, pedophilia, murder...any kind of depraved act would fall under subjective morality.
I think love and co-operation is our natural state. Speaking for my own non-religious upbringing that was how it was in our house and that is how it is today with my own family. We feel love towards each other because of our mammalian biology. We co-operate because it makes it easier to survive. Read Terence Mckenna's treatise on the archaic revival about how we really are and how the dominator culture, which is associated with religion fucked it all up.
I completely disagree and believe you're extremely naive to human nature. Humans as a natural state are tribal and violent. Just look at cultures dating back to the dawn of time. Even among seemingly same peoples like the Native Americans there was constant war and slavery divided between tribal groups, because each tribe or group wants the resources and power to help their own tribe survive and flourish at the expense of others.
We even see it in modern times, humans naturally will divide themselves into tribes. Even this forum is itself a tribal group.
Sure within a tribe humans can cooperate, as in your own family or group because it can be beneficial. But this again stems from deriving a benefit from the relationship, and even within families there are many who selfishly exploit for their own gain.
It's only within religious frameworks that you see truly selfless behavior where people sacrifice at their own detriment to help others.
To say "love" is a natural state of being is just really out of touch, hippie new age viewpoint completely detached from reality.
I think it is absolutely bizarre to claim religion prevents people from child sacrifice, murder and pedophilia. As far as I can see it certainly appears to be exactly the opposite.
How so? Our laws make these things illegal. There will always be evil people who do these things, the difference is the status quo and agreed upon moral standards condemn them. And do you really think those that perpetrate these acts are pious or god-fearing?
Take for example musician Tim Lambesis. He hired a hitman to murder his wife and did some time in prison. He was once a devout Christian who lost faith. He stated that once he was an atheist he saw nothing wrong with murdering his wife because there was no such thing as morality in his mind.
Also every Communist genocide has been acted out by a secular government that abolished God.