I'm not sure how that strengthens your argument, however, as to me it simply proves that humanity will inevitably invent religion regardless of race, culture, geographic or historical circumstances. In addition, everywhere religion has emerged, it has immediately become the domain of the priest, or the medicine man, or the shaman, or whatever. I don't believe this is due to some kind of nefarious influence from power hungry people, either. I think this is simply the emergence of natural hierarchy.
Religion's utility is that it combines science, culture, morality, politics, and tradition into a single, easy-to-use institution. That's the reason why it exists in the first place. However, none of these have to be embedded in an institution lead by those shamen. Yes those "priestly" class will naturally emerge as soon as you start combining them all into a single social structure. Those social structures then, almost immediately, become impenetrable in order to protect the strict social hierarchy that the members have benefited form, which necessitate those structures either being regularly purged, or entirely burned down and re-built. This is even a problem within science. Those exact structures are precisely the problem as they hold back any forces for adaptation, change, or positive growth; since that is what their sole purpose is. That is why Gods die. The Gods don't change, they become useless, and must be replaced. That impermeability of those structures and thier extreme centralization of power is what makes them dangerous. It reminds me very much of the "Cult of Assur" which founded the Assyrian Empire. These single city-state Gods were the manifestation of the city-states influence, and the city-state lived and died with it's God, but it's leadership was effectively a cult. I'll get to our current God with our "Cult of Rationality / Progress" later.
You seem to believe that humanity is capable of constructing the purely rational moral framework that is required when divorced from religion. I do not. Even the most rational among us are driven by emotion.
I do not believe in the Cult of Pure Reason / Rationality. I value reasoning. Reasoning is not devoid of emotion. Reasoning includes emotion. "Why do I feel this way?" is a pretty important question. Reasoning doesn't give you truth, either. It just gives you validity. You can use that to help dispel magical thinking if you can establish some basic true premises, and see what follows. However, you have to be right about what is true already.
However, that is exactly my point. I did construct a rational framework that is divorced from religion. Hilariously, I found that quite a bit of it mirrored Protestantism. That's fine. The point is that based on my priorities and principles, swathes of protestant ethics are correct. I just don't need a man in a flashy garb to tell me that they were correct. This is because the man in the flashy garb doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about and can't actually explain anything. The level of blind ignorance and total uselessness among Christianity's institutions is galling.
It is because of that incompetence, ignorance, and maliciousness, that I had to develop an ethical framework and moral principles on my own because the institutions could not be trusted not to abuse or exploit me as it's victim. Instead, what I have now are moral foundations I can have confidence in, not because it's tradition, or because it's what someone in a robe said, but because it was forged in fire and is worthy of being carried on as a tradition. It's a moral framework I can have confidence in, so that when everyone else tells me I'm wrong & evil, I can stand in front of them unflinchingly and know I'm absolutely 'God damned' right.
I also believe that the majority of people don't have it within them to form a 'Master mentality', nor do they want to.
I know that most people in our society are willing slaves, but that's a bad thing. I intend to break that, certainly for my family/friends/community. People are not innately of a slave mentality. It is because of our authoritarian institutions that people are incentivizes to a slave mentality. Every cult cultivates/grooms people into slave mentalities, it makes having a master mentality horrifically painful, risky, and dangerous. It is better that 100 slaves kill themselves, then a single rival master emerge. This is what we would expect to see as master's centralize their control. However, I don't believe that people are slaves by default. Humans are far more capable than you give them credit for. They are all capable of a master mentality, they've just been told all their lives that they can't or they shouldn't.
Further, I think this arrangement is essential for societies to actually function. If everyone was a self-directed master of their own moral framework, you would end up with a situation of too many chiefs and not enough braves
Again, I see this as a lie disseminated to slaves, by cowards with a master position. A cowardly master so scared of losing position that they break society to protect themselves. A society of any value would require it's people to seize the initiatives and responsibilities in their lives.
Put it like this: why does an armed society become a polite society? Because an armed society has each member taking responsibility for their own protection. This creates a system where each person is capable of defending themselves from attack, and no one person can monopolize violence or intimidation enough to hurt another member. A master mentality, that isn't cowardly, would welcome this as every person has the ability to protect what is theirs. A cowardly master invokes his will to ban guns for the slaves so that he may protect himself. A slave may even accept this disarmament because he's afraid of being attacked by other slaves. A society worth saving isn't one made up of disarmed slaves and cowardly masters, so petrified of responsibility that death from a rampaging force is preferable.
If humanity was capable of forming a society of self-directed individuals who each individually come to the same rational, universal system of morality, I would expect to see at least some evidence pointing to it at some point in history.
You are referring to the Cult of Reason. Reason does not, and can not, provide you with a universal outcome. It can only provide you with logical validity.
Societies of self-directed individuals is, what I would consider, the best possible society. It will actually have a pretty common moral framework as it would heavily focus on liberty and personal responsibility. There are not many systems like it, because most previous societies existed to prosper elites in control, rather than the general benefit of each person.
Religion's utility is that it combines science, culture, morality, politics, and tradition into a single, easy-to-use institution. That's the reason why it exists in the first place. However, none of these have to be embedded in an institution lead by those shamen. Yes those "priestly" class will naturally emerge as soon as you start combining them all into a single social structure. Those social structures then, almost immediately, become impenetrable in order to protect the strict social hierarchy that the members have benefited form, which necessitate those structures either being regularly purged, or entirely burned down and re-built. This is even a problem within science. Those exact structures are precisely the problem as they hold back any forces for adaptation, change, or positive growth; since that is what their sole purpose is. That is why Gods die. The Gods don't change, they become useless, and must be replaced. That impermeability of those structures and thier extreme centralization of power is what makes them dangerous. It reminds me very much of the "Cult of Assur" which founded the Assyrian Empire. These single city-state Gods were the manifestation of the city-states influence, and the city-state lived and died with it's God, but it's leadership was effectively a cult. I'll get to our current God with our "Cult of Rationality / Progress" later.
I do not believe in the Cult of Pure Reason / Rationality. I value reasoning. Reasoning is not devoid of emotion. Reasoning includes emotion. "Why do I feel this way?" is a pretty important question. Reasoning doesn't give you truth, either. It just gives you validity. You can use that to help dispel magical thinking if you can establish some basic true premises, and see what follows. However, you have to be right about what is true already.
However, that is exactly my point. I did construct a rational framework that is divorced from religion. Hilariously, I found that quite a bit of it mirrored Protestantism. That's fine. The point is that based on my priorities and principles, swathes of protestant ethics are correct. I just don't need a man in a flashy garb to tell me that they were correct. This is because the man in the flashy garb doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about and can't actually explain anything. The level of blind ignorance and total uselessness among Christianity's institutions is galling.
It is because of that incompetence, ignorance, and maliciousness, that I had to develop an ethical framework and moral principles on my own because the institutions could not be trusted not to abuse or exploit me as it's victim. Instead, what I have now are moral foundations I can have confidence in, not because it's tradition, or because it's what someone in a robe said, but because it was forged in fire and is worthy of being carried on as a tradition. It's a moral framework I can have confidence in, so that when everyone else tells me I'm wrong & evil, I can stand in front of them unflinchingly and know I'm absolutely 'God damned' right.
I know that most people in our society are willing slaves, but that's a bad thing. I intend to break that, certainly for my family/friends/community. People are not innately of a slave mentality. It is because of our authoritarian institutions that people are incentivizes to a slave mentality. Every cult cultivates/grooms people into slave mentalities, it makes having a master mentality horrifically painful, risky, and dangerous. It is better that 100 slaves kill themselves, then a single rival master emerge. This is what we would expect to see as master's centralize their control. However, I don't believe that people are slaves by default. Humans are far more capable than you give them credit for. They are all capable of a master mentality, they've just been told all their lives that they can't or they shouldn't.
Again, I see this as a lie disseminated to slaves, by cowards with a master position. A cowardly master so scared of losing position that they break society to protect themselves. A society of any value would require it's people to seize the initiatives and responsibilities in their lives.
Put it like this: why does an armed society become a polite society? Because an armed society has each member taking responsibility for their own protection. This creates a system where each person is capable of defending themselves from attack, and no one person can monopolize violence or intimidation enough to hurt another member. A master mentality, that isn't cowardly, would welcome this as every person has the ability to protect what is theirs. A cowardly master invokes his will to ban guns for the slaves so that he may protect himself. A slave may even accept this disarmament because he's afraid of being attacked by other slaves. A society worth saving isn't one made up of disarmed slaves and cowardly masters, so petrified of responsibility that death from a rampaging force is preferable.
You are referring to the Cult of Reason. Reason does not, and can not, provide you with a universal outcome. It can only provide you with logical validity.
Societies of self-directed individuals is, what I would consider, the best possible society. It will actually have a pretty common moral framework as it would heavily focus on liberty and personal responsibility. There are not many systems like it, because most previous societies existed to prosper elites in control, rather than the general benefit of each person.