The Authors Of Ancient Religious Texts

 

One of the powerful criticisms that atheists and skeptics launch against religious believers goes like this: If ethical sophistication and standards today are more advanced than those of 1500 years ago (I think humans have made moral progress in theory, if not as much in practice.), then monotheists then and now, that brag up their ancient creed and deity as all-good, all-wise and all-powerful for eternity, and yet God is not responsible for evil in the world, seem to provide evidence that a perfect morality back then could not become more perfect today. That being so, it appears that the ancient morality and ancient religion were flawed and culturally constructed by the people those ancient times—these deities and their creeds were defective and just man-made and not reflective of the teachings of an existent, everlasting, perfect one God.

 

Did those ancient deities even exist, if no contradiction is allowed to exist in objective reality, and yet here we are faced with the metaphysical contradiction that apparently these perfect ancient deities, taught or allowed humans to live by a rather, evil, inferior moral code (altruism)?

 

I am not quite sure how to answer such a powerful criticism, but my makeshift reply would be that these ancient religions were largely theologically solid, and that the deities they represent were good deities that actually existed and still exist today. Humans were just unable to relate to them, to make sense of what the deities revealed to them, so the good deities reluctantly, unavoidably had to dumb-down their communications to human prophets, so ancient mystics, prophets and authors of sacred texts cognitively and ethically were only able to reach for crude, corrupt altruism because that was all they could comprehend. It was not their fault, but their limited consciousness and collective and personal ignorance ineluctably reduced the rendered clarity and essence of divine messages received. The translations were largely unsatisfactory.

 

I now have concluded that altruist-collectivist morality, though historical, pervasive, and popular all across the world, is an ancient, inferior morality that either is from the Evil Spirits, or is a prime means for their keeping a grip on suffering, subjugated humanity via this ethical code.

 

As a moral moderate, I would replace altruist-collectivist morality—not entirely but mostly: it would be retained as a minority emphasis in my new ethical system—with egoist-individualist morality as the major emphasis. The individualistic morality, which is modern, superior, and better for people, is aligned with the approving good deities and Good Spirits, all individuators.

 

If I am correct that egoist morality is a modern improvement over ancient altruism, then how can I still believe that all these putatively perfect, omniscient, ancient gods actually existed, if perfect deities cannot tolerate imperfect moral codes? How could these deities have been and are benevolent, if they promoted an evil ethical system, which they appeared to promote, or at least are accused of promoting and tolerating, by modern atheists and skeptics?

 

This dilemma can be solved, I believe, if we assume—I do not know for sure of course—that the great and minor good deities of ancient times—were purely good or mostly good then and now. They were never devious, hypocritical, malevolent, nor tipping the scales of cosmic just against benighted, blighted humanity, struggling up out of the cave.

 

Ancient people, and the prophets representing them, were groupist, superstitious, depraved, ethically uneducated and unenlightened, so they naturally stayed with what they instinctively favored, altruist morality.  Because these ancient religious prophets voted for altruism, they  then concluded that that was what their adopted deities desired and proclaimed as just, though I believe these deities did not believe or claim that altruist morality back then or now was just ever.

 

The Divine Couple, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, and other good deities—Individuators and Egoists all—could only reveal who they were and the moral system that they wanted humans to live by, to partially unreceptive and uncomprehending prophets in images, language, and conceptual patterns not too alien from the group-oriented, nonindividuating worldview and consciousness of the human recipients and authors of ancient religious, holy works.

 

Any divine message from divine egoists to unreceptive groupist prophets and mystics could only be delivered as clearly and enlightenedly as the receivers could handle and understand, and that led to predominance of altruist-collectivist ethics that keep evil in power all across the earth.

 

As humans slowly emerged from their corporate slumber as nonindividuating joiners in their packs in Europe about 400 years ago, and began their slow, intermittent ascent from barbarism and wickedness into individualism and rationalism, then egoist humans now can begin to hear the wisdom of from their individuated good deities and Good Spirits. Now finally we have an ethical code that will help us grow in spiritual goodness and love, bringing us closer to bonding and enjoyment of the good deities.