"The team argues that adopting a "moralizing religion" may be a mechanism to help cope with environments where there is little access to food and water."

this is completely backwards. nomadic societies have tended to adopt the opposite of "moralizing religions", precisely because the environment they live in does not allow for egalitarian social constructs. this is the root of the actual problem that we face in a hierarchical society.

moralizing religion, rather, is a product of settled societies that needed to find ways to distribute agriculture.

hence, you had the messianic religions in the settled areas of the middle east and what is essentially the nihilist concept of a "master morality" in the nomadic areas.

the error here is orthogenesis. the researcher wants humans to create fair societies to deal with limited resources. in fact, the evidence is clear that when we have limited resources we abandon morality and revert to might makes right.

what happened afterwards is an evolutionary mismatch that we've yet to work our way out of. communism is basically the way out of it. we've got these hierarchical systems that were created as an adaptation for nomadism enforced into settled societies - not because we adapted to the best solution possible but because, in evolution, shit happens the wrong way more often than not. it's going to drive us to extinction if we don't work it out, because we're *not* doing this right.

what's really frustrating with these idiots is that they'll openly argue that the evidence ought to be altered to fit a social narrative. which is religious thinking.

they don't see any kind of a problem with beginning with a desired social outcome, and then compiling evidence that "proves it".

they're often so blinded by their goals that they fail to see how easily deconstructed their propaganda is. you're not going to get anywhere when your nonsense is this transparent.

the idea that there's a "secular church" is absolutely accurate. it's an idea you often hear thrown around by theists. it's something they're right about, and careful thinking atheists need to be wary of it.

if we find ourselves up against difficult climate realities in the near future, we're going to see our concept of morals move out of a slave morality and into a master morality, because that's how humans react to dwindling resources...

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/study-climate-may-influence-religious-beliefs/39927

in fact, we're already bombing the world for it's oil.

it's not what people want to believe, but what people want to believe is irrelevant in the face of the data.

the point is this: if you have a limited amount of water it is NOT rational to share it, so that everybody is thirsty. it is rational to cull the herd - to kill the weak.

animals do this all the time.

humans are animals.

therefore....

sharing only makes sense when there's enough to go around.

again, the evidence is pretty clear on this.

people don't want to hear this, but that's too bad.

the idea i'm getting from this is that there are people that want to use religion as a way to lock us down to adjust to upcoming resource issues.

it's not going to work. it's just going to create a set of easy targets.

we're going to have to fight it out. people will die. that's how shit works.