Are beehive (binding) moralities good?
My academic path began in high school when, as a young atheist, I read Waiting for Godot and plunged into an existential depression. If there really was no God, then our lives seemed to me as meaningless as those of Vladimir and Estragon. I have gained new respect for religion as I came to see it as a complex of co-evolved genes and cultural innovations for binding people together and imbuing them with a sense of community and collective purpose, immune to the sense of pointlessness and isolation that engulfed me in high school. To the extent that religions really accomplish this goal they are good, at least from a straight utilitarian human-welfare perspective. But whenever I speak or write about these good effects of religion, it is useful to have Sam Harris reminding us of the costs, which I cannot deny. If religion is in part an adaptation for successful intergroup competition, then the suppression of selfishness within groups is purchased by the increased likelihood of righteous n
