In evolutionary terms, morals are ultimately biological, as explained by Darwin: morals that enforced social cooperation were an evolutionary survival strategy for something like 100,000 years, long before "god" or theology existed.
Such biological morals (in nomadic kindship groups) were di…
In evolutionary terms, morals are ultimately biological, as explained by Darwin: morals that enforced social cooperation were an evolutionary survival strategy for something like 100,000 years, long before "god" or theology existed.
Such biological morals (in nomadic kindship groups) were disrupted by the end of the ice ages and then after 5,000 years or so, the emergence of agriculture and dense urban populations (walled cities).
The Bronze Age collapse exposed the limitations of biological morals (embodied awareness/spirituality in nomadic social forms). Cultural evolution then produced Contemplative, Axial culture, religious-theology and purity-myth morality (godliness vs sin and evil) in response.
Contemplative religion/theology had an advantage because it could generate meaning and collective intelligence that transcended "tribal" morals, and thus became the foundation of Axial States (the State became necessary to help religion INHIBIT anti-social personalities and social tendencies that were resistant to a transcendent God).
The "left" threw the baby (transcendent spirituality) out with the bathwater (the Ancien Regime).
Disagree.
Theology is the invention of the state.
In evolutionary terms, morals are ultimately biological, as explained by Darwin: morals that enforced social cooperation were an evolutionary survival strategy for something like 100,000 years, long before "god" or theology existed.
Such biological morals (in nomadic kindship groups) were disrupted by the end of the ice ages and then after 5,000 years or so, the emergence of agriculture and dense urban populations (walled cities).
The Bronze Age collapse exposed the limitations of biological morals (embodied awareness/spirituality in nomadic social forms). Cultural evolution then produced Contemplative, Axial culture, religious-theology and purity-myth morality (godliness vs sin and evil) in response.
Contemplative religion/theology had an advantage because it could generate meaning and collective intelligence that transcended "tribal" morals, and thus became the foundation of Axial States (the State became necessary to help religion INHIBIT anti-social personalities and social tendencies that were resistant to a transcendent God).
The "left" threw the baby (transcendent spirituality) out with the bathwater (the Ancien Regime).
re: "Theology is the invention of the state"
Correction:
It is probably more accurate to say that Theology and the State co-emerged in cultural evolution.