You saw it, I saw it. Reality, summarized.
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Well, I think my experience shows the opposite. The existence of a higher power is not natural, and is effectively something that only exists within the human mind as a literary device. Organized religion is just an attempt to continue that abstraction through time, but it is inevitably corrupted. No cultural institution is a final arbiter of truth or morality, and the fact that American Protestantism off-loads most of that onto "God", means it's out of human hands. That's where it's really the only exception to other religions. God not existing is why Protestantism works. You stop letting humans try to manage God through an institution.
But, once you realize you're just offloading it, you realize that some responsibility needs to be taken, which is why it has to be personally taken. But there's only one logical outcome to this: full, personal, responsibility. God simply becomes an irrelevancy once you realize you're the one that needs to make the appropriate decisions and suffer whatever consequences inevitably result.
You're only looking at one end of the bell curve for what role a higher power fills.
True, but I see no reason why human IQ development can not be continuously grown. I agree that that level of anti-theism was not possible in the Bronze Age, but I see no reason low IQ is the kind of limiting factor that would make it impossible for a secular society to take responsiblity for itself.
Atheism and anti-theism is not the other end of the bell curve. Low IQ people need religion imposed upon them for the fabric of society to remain stable. Most atheists are just lashing out in rejection of that and tend to become religious adherents of things that are less strictly theistic, but still religions - like the cults of communism or media's pop "science" (not to be confused with an actual understanding of the scientific method).
The other end of the bell curve is understanding and making peace with the existence of a higher power without the need for societal compulsion. Lashing out against the concept of God is not beneficial. Accepting God is beneficial even to people that can understand morality without God.
I'm sorry but I just don't agree with it. Low IQ people need structure not necessarily religion. Tradition, community, and family should be plenty for their needs.
I wouldn't say most, but there's clearly far too many that haven't undergone what we call "Deconversion". This is the process of actually taking the mantel of responsibility onto yourself. At that point, you just don't need God. It's an irrelevancy. You don't fight it at all. You don't need god for morality, tradition, community, beauty, or really anything.
An atheist who is raging or waring against God, is still a theist, because otherwise he's a madman tilting at windmills.