In Reply to: "the oughtness of things"... posted by ray on March 16, 2003 at 04:21:31:
I actually really like CS Lewis, well, the Chronicles of Narnia, which I read over periodically and find very fascinating.
But "nietzsche, in announcing the death of god, also predicted a century of unprecedented cruelty and bloodshed... and was right.." I think that if you look back in history, religion with its belief in God has caused great amounts of bloodshed as well and it hasn't changed all that much due to the removal of God in some societies.
What about the Spanish Inquisition, in the name of God, the Crusades, in the name of God, the Israelite destruction of Palestines both thousands of years ago and today, in the name of God, the Osama Bin Laden whole affair, in the name of God, and the Muslims have caused years of terror in history all in the name of God. So, with or without God mankind is bent towards selfish behavior, and I might include, with or without Jesus. Religion doesn't seem to matter so much when a selfish person gets a wicked idea in their mind and decides to carry it out by whatever means they can use, whether it is "For the sake of the Truth found in our religion" or just pure greed.
As far as what basis to concoct the rules of behavior and who would have the right to say what is good and what isn't, society at large is not yet able to do that, as is obvious. People would have to realise that they need to have rules which promote the good of society, so that the society can progress in peace and make the most of its life. Otherwise the society would soon be destroyed.
I sometimes wonder that society was going a bit haywire and so someone thought up religion as a way to pull the people together into some sort of unified behavior. Through religion they gave the people rules and guidelines and morals, while also gaining some control, as the priests, the religious leaders or the kings would gain through persuading the people that if they behaved in a 'wrong' fasion then the gods (or God) would be angry and punish them, and if they behaved in a good way, then they would be rewarded, most of it post-humously of course, the 'carrot to keep the donkey moving'.