If monotheism cures sociopathy and narcissism (i.e., evil), then the Middle Ages - when the Universal Church ruled Europe and placed religion into every aspect of public life - would have been a Golden Age of peace, brotherhood, and loving kindness.
Alas, it was not. Creepy assholes just moved in and ran the Church and the State. And it all started with Constantine (“hey, Jesus visited me and told me that he’s real, and that I should be running everything by threat of violence. How neat is that?”). And continued on from there - justifying violence and exploitation through divine fiat (“trust me, God says the land and gold all belong to me.”). That’s how it works.
The message of Jesus goes in quick (but people don’t read and just listen to some dude in a funny hat/robe…) and has the power to bring people together to work for a better future, but yeah, people have to do their part and we’re all fallible and have at least some moments of heightened stupidity and emotional turbulence. But I think it’s better to actually believe that A, B and C are immutably wrong (wanton destruction, adultery, excessive greed, etc etc) than to believe everything is negotiable, that good and bad are cultural in nature (it’s just lazy thinking too tbh), cause the perceptive, empathetic ones would’ve known it regardless and would’ve acted that way whether they could express it as an ideology or not, and the lesser among us in prosociality need the push.
If monotheism cures sociopathy and narcissism (i.e., evil), then the Middle Ages - when the Universal Church ruled Europe and placed religion into every aspect of public life - would have been a Golden Age of peace, brotherhood, and loving kindness.
Alas, it was not. Creepy assholes just moved in and ran the Church and the State. And it all started with Constantine (“hey, Jesus visited me and told me that he’s real, and that I should be running everything by threat of violence. How neat is that?”). And continued on from there - justifying violence and exploitation through divine fiat (“trust me, God says the land and gold all belong to me.”). That’s how it works.
The message of Jesus goes in quick (but people don’t read and just listen to some dude in a funny hat/robe…) and has the power to bring people together to work for a better future, but yeah, people have to do their part and we’re all fallible and have at least some moments of heightened stupidity and emotional turbulence. But I think it’s better to actually believe that A, B and C are immutably wrong (wanton destruction, adultery, excessive greed, etc etc) than to believe everything is negotiable, that good and bad are cultural in nature (it’s just lazy thinking too tbh), cause the perceptive, empathetic ones would’ve known it regardless and would’ve acted that way whether they could express it as an ideology or not, and the lesser among us in prosociality need the push.