[Sherman]

(02-10-2019 05:08 PM)MrLemon Wrote:  

Great question. Here is how human society works:

1. Morality is decided by a small group of intelligent thoughtful leaders.
2. They create a religion, packed with mystical brainwashing techniques, to pound these morals into the heads of the 80% of average people...who are about as intelligent as chimpanzees. (apologies to Chimpanzees).
3. They use laws, policemen, and torture/jail to control those parts of the population who are not adhering to the religion.
4. Women never invent morality. They are the ultimate sheep. But they enforce it with ruthless efficency.

This has been true for 100,000 years. It will be true for another 100,000 years.

We are not in a "post religious" era. That's absurd. We're rapidly diving back into a religious frenzy that will make your heads spin. Another dark ages? Hmmm.

It's interesting that Ancient Greek Religion didn't connect the afterlife to moral behavior. Everyone went to Hades whether they were good or bad. Hades was a pretty depressing place. So depressing that the mystery religions developed to provide a better option. If you were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, you had a good afterlife. But it didn't matter how good or bad you were. You just had to perform the rites and you were in. Even the Ancient Hebrews had Shoal, which was a place everyone went to whether they were good or bad. The only control Yahweh had was to make your life miserable while you were alive or punish your descendants to the nth generation. So not all religions scared people with a bad afterlife to make them good. This seems to be an innovation of Christianity. Maybe this came more from Zoroastrianism. In Egypt, if you were bad your soul was just gobbled up by a monster.