Usually, the very fact that after a particularly bad set of behaviors,
murder even, huh?, there _was_ no vengeful diety raining acid upon the
perpetrator, leads the scumbag to murder again. (Or at any rate,
convinces him such tales were tommyrot. Hopefully the skeptical among us
were not convinced in such ways....)
So promoting the myth of a diety is no choice either. Although it works
for awhile, especially in societies wherein the priest class has a lot of
power.... (It works in the Mafia, and Country Clubs, for a similar
reason.)
The ugly truth is, we usually get away with it. Whatever it is.
And I won't pretend to think your question is easily answerable. It
ain't. It may well be the question every society has attempted to answer.
There's always the Golden Rule.
*****************
Wade T. Smith
morbius@us1.channel1.com | "There ain't nothin' you
wade_smith@harvard.edu | shouldn't do to a god."
morbius@cyberwarped.com |
********* http://www.channel1.com/users/morbius/ ********