To believe we know the mind of God is to deny that our own mind is only as human as everyone else's.
In fact, no one is more godly or moral or holy, simply because they "believe" they are, and no one "becomes" more moral or holy through a "belief" that they are. But there are plenty of examples throughout history that prove the opposite is true.
It is believed that the "belief" that morality necessarily comes from God, who wields the divine power to punish us eternally for failing to live up to it, is necessary for making people moral.
It never occurs to these "believers" that such a belief is itself the very thing that contributes to most of the "immoral" behavior in the world.
It was just this sort of thinking, for example, that lead Columbus to lead the slaughter of millions of Native Americans, for God and gold (which are essentially the same thing, when you think about it), and why the Catholic Church hide it's child rape problems for so many decades.
Hence a "belief" in morality does not make people more moral, but it does go a long way to help those who "believe" this lie, to shift all responsibility for the immorality they continually exalt through their bible based judgements and actions, to God, in the same way people in the Milgram experiments shifted all of the responsibility for the shocks they "believed" they were administering to the people in the next room in order to "educate" them (they weren't actually, but they "believed" they were), to the people in the white lab coats with clip boards.
This was true even when the subject administered what they believed to be lethal dosages of electricity to the "learner," much like an inquisitor trying to "educate" a person on the correct understanding of Catholicism, which happened more than 60% of the time.
Ironically, this experiment likewise demonstrated how willing people are to do the exact same thing with scientists that they do with priests, which explains as much about America's current opiod addiction as it does about the Crusades and the Inquisitions, and simply because we have been "in chains" for so long, as Rousseau pointed out, that thinking others should have some form of authority over us, for the good of ourselves and society in general, not only allows us to shirk responsibility for what we do and "believe," it is also the very assumption we fail to notice is untrue, the way the fish never notices the water.
St. Augustine would be proud.
In fact, no one is more godly or moral or holy, simply because they "believe" they are, and no one "becomes" more moral or holy through a "belief" that they are. But there are plenty of examples throughout history that prove the opposite is true.
It is believed that the "belief" that morality necessarily comes from God, who wields the divine power to punish us eternally for failing to live up to it, is necessary for making people moral.
It never occurs to these "believers" that such a belief is itself the very thing that contributes to most of the "immoral" behavior in the world.
It was just this sort of thinking, for example, that lead Columbus to lead the slaughter of millions of Native Americans, for God and gold (which are essentially the same thing, when you think about it), and why the Catholic Church hide it's child rape problems for so many decades.
Hence a "belief" in morality does not make people more moral, but it does go a long way to help those who "believe" this lie, to shift all responsibility for the immorality they continually exalt through their bible based judgements and actions, to God, in the same way people in the Milgram experiments shifted all of the responsibility for the shocks they "believed" they were administering to the people in the next room in order to "educate" them (they weren't actually, but they "believed" they were), to the people in the white lab coats with clip boards.
This was true even when the subject administered what they believed to be lethal dosages of electricity to the "learner," much like an inquisitor trying to "educate" a person on the correct understanding of Catholicism, which happened more than 60% of the time.
Ironically, this experiment likewise demonstrated how willing people are to do the exact same thing with scientists that they do with priests, which explains as much about America's current opiod addiction as it does about the Crusades and the Inquisitions, and simply because we have been "in chains" for so long, as Rousseau pointed out, that thinking others should have some form of authority over us, for the good of ourselves and society in general, not only allows us to shirk responsibility for what we do and "believe," it is also the very assumption we fail to notice is untrue, the way the fish never notices the water.
St. Augustine would be proud.
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