Lillailler wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2017 8:01 am
There are a number of teachings of Christianity which provide support to our industrial civilisation (*), and to discard them is, perhaps, to put that civilisation in jeopardy.
'love thy neighbour', 'be a good samaritan', 'welcome the prodigal son', 'turn the other cheek', 'honour the widows mite', 'cast out the beam in their own eye', 'render unto Ceasar', 'not cast the first stone', 'see the labourer as worthy of his hire', 'regard peacemakers as blessed'
this is exactly what brute is talking about. it seems that a large percentage of humans in The West got their morals/ethics from a certain subset of Christianity, brute will call it Nice Christianity.
other cultures arrived at similar rules, sometimes through other religions (Judaism), sometimes through non-deistic religions (Buddhism, Confucianism), sometimes simply without any connection to faith at all (Scandinavian Humanism).
some humans advocate for religion or Christianity based on the "useful fiction" it provides. brute thinks he is unable to pretend to believe in a god when he doesn't, so he'd much rather join some kind of Humanist Cult.
interestingly to brute, Mormonism seems to be a pretty explicit attempt of building a Humanist Cult of Nice Christianity.
the cult dimension in this is interesting, too. Atheists tend to view humans as very rational and capable, therefore advocating for individual responsibility and some type of Enlightened Humanism, like what Dear Leader Jacob is describing in Denmark.
Mormonism seems to take a different view of humans: they are gullible, chaotic, but can be nudged in the "right" direction. to brute, Mormonism seems like a very simple and effective, barely disguised, attempt to rope gullible humans into doing The Right Thing.
Scientology is the Evil Cult, Christianity and many other major religions have too much crazy history to really make a call on their effective benefit/cost. but Mormonism seems just about as harmless as a cult can be, yet has all the advantages that Nice Christianity offers: work ethic, frugality, benevolence, forgiveness, family, community, health.
if one takes the somewhat pessimistic view of humanity that 75%+ are gullible, don't want to be enlightened, don't enjoy agency, and enjoy external rewards and rules, then maybe a benevolent cult like Mormonism is the best strategy, with Cynic Humanism for those humans that would rather Do The Right Thing without believing in god.