Quote (thesnipa @ Jul 23 2015 03:52pm)
You're employing quite a bit of confirmation bias here IMO. and conjecture as well. The modern state, where stealing is considered faux paux without religious motivation, is the direct result of thousands of years of a religious system, where not stealing was at the very least partially motivated by religious beliefs. So we basically live in a day and age where religion has less of an effect than it used to, but our morality and cultural norms are somewhat based on the religious norms of the past. Would stealing have been taboo'd without any religion in the world, perhaps but we cannot conclusively say, all we can say is religion did help form the social norms we currently have. Past cultures would poison wells, steal women and resources, and cripple the men when they conquered other kingdoms. So there is some historical precedence for stealing being socially acceptable, the people you stole from just needed to be part of another social group you were against to justify it.
well, i dont see a confirmation bias here since we do not really have a thesis to confirm.
Taking a look at the animal kingdom we see some species which penalty stealing. The intersting thing about this, to make the conection to your next statement :), is that stealing is only a bad thing if it accures ingroup.
Religion gave a not so nice future for those who violate the social norms. Back in the days it was pretty hard to find out who was the thief, so a higher instance was needed (one from which was belief that he/she/it does know everything and so will judge everything). Lets say some form of aversive stimulie which will be aplyed somewhere in the past, or even after your dead.
Anyway, (marginal) group think is a very common phenomena in human. Put half of a school-class into red shirts and the other half in blue ones and you might be able to watch a nice one gang-fight. We tend to be group-social beeings which might be a good thing to survive (at least in the past). Today people use religious symbos, nationalities, colour of your skin and and and to divide up people into groups. Thats something freaking dangerous. This "we" and "the others" thinking might lead to evil things, just like they have happened in the past. Pretty ot now, sorry therefor, but over here we got some politicians who are sailing this corse and it makes me fucking mad
sorry for the crapy english. i have applyed to much beer and political rage to myself
This post was edited by Wirbelschwein on Jul 23 2015 10:42am