and yet, don't we need something to tell us not to murder? is love for your fellow man really instinctual? it might just be my pessimism but it seems to me that cruelty is more inherent than compassion--every organism starts by viewing itself as everything and slowly starts to recognize others only by relating them to itself. generally we quickly adopt cultural values, but specific situations can cause us to question these values--when that happens, those values need to relate back to something for their legitimacy. if they just relate back to other people than there is no reason not to simply replace them with your own. that's where religion comes in, and that is the context in which i see it as useful. the problem is updating a religion as a lot of what used to be considered sinful becomes acceptable, without revealing the whole thing to be built on nothing.
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