If Christianity is man made, why does everything about it go against man’s desires? Does Christianity go against man’s desires? If so, is that evidence for Christianity? I answer this question, discussing the history of Christianity, the cognitive science of religion, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, and more.
The whole “atheists can’t answer this question” and “atheists can’t explain this” thing is really getting old.
Religion has definitely been coopted for control, but the 10 commandments, and most of Jesus teachings are not really controversial or controlling (The arent progressive in todays terms, but for their time I think they are very reasonable).
The layers of bullshit that has been built on top certainly is controlling.
The whole adultery thing isn’t controlling?
Marriage required recognition by a priest. All sex must happen inside the union if a marriage.
They were literally controlling who had kids with whom.
The whole theft thing protected the rich way more than it did the poor.
The “worship none one beside me” was also about keeping people from leaving.
Murder was about maintaining stability. Remember, murder is the unjustified killing of another. Who do you think was better at justifying it with a little bribe?
But all of that is besides the point that religion vastly predates the Ten Commandments. The only reason that they’re not “progressive” was because as a basic moral code, they’ve been around longer than Moses.
Oh, and forget the whole store of the exile from Egypt and stuff. That’s all justification for genociding their neighbors.
Moving beyond the 10 commandments which are far from the only religious law… ancient Judaism was extremely controlling. Off the top of my head:
There’s a lot more there. And there’s a reason for that. By making it so restrictive, and threatening eternal damnation, it ensures people do what you tell them to do, and there’s plenty of people that- as ardent believers- are terrified and will do all kinds of stupid shit to stay in god’s good graces.