> But the fact that admission to this community required total philosophical adherence is just bizarre.

I don't think it's bizarre at all. With the church removed from western society something will fill the vacuum. And truly it already has. Our society requires complete unquestioning philosophical adherence to its new religion. What happened during the French revolution? They turned the churches into "Temples of Reason" all the while lopping off the head of anyone that did not wholly and totally adhere to their new moral code. Even in the end the god of this new moral code met his fate by the monster he created. Believe me what is happening is not what anyone here should want. For all of you who are thinking and reasonable. Read the history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dechristianization_of_France_d...

Dechristianization does not equal the french revolution any more than the rise of national catholicism equals Franco's fascist dictatorship. Plenty of western nations have dropped the church as it failed to adapt to modern liberal society, and plenty of atrocious regimes have been aided and abetted by the blessings of churches.

>And truly it already has. Our society requires complete unquestioning philosophical adherence to its new religion.

Obviously, since speaking heresies like this will get you killed. /s

Take a step back, disengage from the culture war, and take a look at what is actually happening.

But it can cost you a job, and your place in society

...so can religion? I mean we literally had to implement laws to say you can’t get fired for your religion, so clearly it was a problem.

You have to put things in their context though. Not saying that the years of chaotic and arbitrary killing that followed the revolution was great, but religion was a different thing in France back then. It was also (and foremost) politics and a system of power before being a religion. I wouldn't attach the world "moral" to the catholic church back then because it definitely had none.

People have been talking about the vacuum that Christianity has left or will leave in Western society for over a century. Most of the time, however, those who complain about this then completely miss the point.

The new organizations, ideologies, and new-age pseudo-religions "filling the religion-shaped hole" in society aren't inherently "lesser" than religion (or necessarily better). They are simply filling the niches in an ecosystem that many traditional religious structures by and large refuse to adapt to.

Yes, the sudden decrease in religiosity in society is probably just trading one set of problems for another, but if individuals didn't think that leaving their church was in their best interests then they wouldn't have left in the first place. Secularization is an inevitable consequence of freedom.

Religion and Christianity itself probably won't ever go away for the same reason it has clung to life for millennia: it will change and adapt to those new needs. It's only the stubbornly complacent sects and congregations who will dwindle and go extinct.

> And truly it already has.

I don't think you're arguing that it's the same motivation as the French revolution, so it would help to elucidate your point if you said what you think that new thing is. It would also help to explain how you think that enforced philosophical adherence by all of western society applies as there are still 47% of Americans who DO belong to a religious institution.

I agree that it isn't the same motivation but we're on trend to seeing a similar result. If we do get to that extreme then by that time, we'll have a new moral system which won't allow these types of conversations, in the same way certain extremist sects of christianity didn't allow dissidents to live. However, the form of christianity that we have now simply hurts peoples feelings. Hardly cause for such outrage. Though today hurting someones feelings is the equivalent of violence and there is no way to be forgiven except a life of apologizing and groveling. Exciting time to be alive.

You're still avoiding saying what you think that trend is.

> However, the form of christianity that we have now simply hurts peoples feelings. Hardly cause for such outrage.

I believe there are still abusers hidden in Catholic Church are there not?

Yes, there are abusers and that is heinous. The catholic church has done unspeakable amounts of damage to Christianity. However, that damage was done by going against the teaching of Christ who warned against such evil saying: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea." Mark 9:42. There will be justice. I can't imagine having a worldview where these evil people just die and cease to exist. Totally escaping justice.

And many can not imagine a worldview that relies on justice being provided by some entity after death. I would call that "escaping justice".

Actually that entity demands both. Man's justice and God's justice.

Jesus was pretty specific about who should be casting stones, and that generally people are not qualified to do so

Man's justice is forgiveness, not punishment

100% that second paragraph. Growing up with morals imposed on my, via the threat of fire and brimstone was weird. I did what I had to do, because I was told to do it or else.

Being an adult and doing the right thing, simply because it's the right thing, and developing my own moral and ethical code of conduct has greatly reduced my stress and anxiety.

I hear you. This, reliance on the Old Testament fire and brimstone teaching is a failure of the church. The Law (and the fire and brimstone) is important to show how we (no one) can live up to being prefect and our need for forgiveness and love. We are to do things out of love, not out of fear.

Pretty much sums up my experience as well, I grew up going to church and every week it was ‘follow the church or go to hell’ and ‘you are all sinners going to hell’.

As an adult ( in a different geographic area ) I’ve been to church with my wife and its a much more positive experience.

In the end my ‘belief’ is in a moral code and not in a religion.

> Frankly, growing up in the church left me with a broken moral code. It was only once I left it in my teens and had to work things out for myself that I feel like I could properly ground myself ethically. Having a moral system imposed on you can do that.

How did you derive your moral code yourself? Any action you take has side effects in the outside world, and so some minimal, common understanding of morality is necessary for any beneficial interactions with the world and especially other people (I'll leave God aside for a second). Did you rely on the authorities of non-theistic moral authorities in the past, and if so, how did you examine the bases of their moral beliefs? Were you just relying on personal feelings and maybe some experiences? Did you discover the joys of hedonism?

I want to understand.

Edit: looking at some other comments, it seems you might be referring more to "fire and brimstone" preaching? I never experienced that growing up, despite being on the conservative end of mainline Protestantism and still practicing today, so I can kind of understand the reaction.

I'm still curious though.

Not who you were asking, but I had a similar experience.

Ultimately what I ground my beliefs in is empathy, and the understanding that my actions have an impact on other people. The second very important piece is every human being counts equally.

Our society and inner psychology is complex. So we'll mess up and cause harm at times. Occasionally it will be intentional. But I think it's straightforward to understand committing to this as a guiding principle.

If you do that, and also agree with every human being counting equally, then I've got no problem with you or your faith. What disturbs me is how many people use religion as justification for inequality, or how they use concepts of forgiveness and grace to avoid fully owning and learning from their moral failures.

I find the argument that religion is required to understand and practice morality doesn't hold any water. In fact, I'd say religion makes it harder.

Religion gives you a set of rules, and usually involves some horrible cosmic punishment if you break those rules. But those rules are easy to derive without the need to invoke the supernatural. E.g.

- "What goes around comes around."

- Lying tends to produce more lying, leading to consequences for the liar

- Turning the other cheek gives you peace and endears you to others

- Charity is its own reward

- The 7 deadly sins are all eventually toxic to the individual committing them

- etc.

These would all be true even if religion never sprouted up in our world. Religion coopts basic, secular morality and claims it as its own divine truth. It's done this so effectively that people like you become confused about how non-religious people learn to be good people, and some go as far as to equate spirituality with morality.

My question to you (I'm assuming you're Christian) would be, how do you know that you shouldn't kill someone who works on Sunday? The bible explicitly says that you should (Exodus 35:2). If you know that your morality doesn't line up perfectly with the bible, then how did you arrive at it? There are prominent Christian figures you agree with, and plenty that you do disagree with. How do you decide which is which?

I can only speak for myself, but I drastically simplified things down to 'If it doesn't hurt anyone, it's probably ok'

Just because a very old book says that X, Y, or Z is sinful, doesn't mean those actions are immoral if there's no harm to anyone.

You don't need religion to learn about morality. Watching Mr. Rodgers or reading Winnie the Poo would do. As you get older you can get into Machiavelli and start really becoming a principled person.

I never grew up with watching Mr. Rodgers and only really know about him through the recent film about him, but it definitely seems that his Christian faith shaped his children programs, see: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/how-mister-rogers-faith-sh...

At the end of the day, the basic moral tenets of the christian faith can be found in every other faith, this aspect of the christian faith is the least unique IMO. "Love thy neigbor," being able to let things go, and helping the less fortunate are also in fact Buddhist rhetoric. Mr. Rodgers leaned on his faith because that's the philosophy he knew and understood how to use examples from. If his mother raised him with Eastern philosophy instead of scripture, he probably would have put up words from the Buddha which convey a similar message instead of that bible verse.

But he never threatened you with hell, promised heaven, or invoked god at all, which is are all parts the parent post found strange.

The parent said that: "You don't need religion to learn about morality. Watching Mr. Rodgers or reading Winnie the Poo would do".

My point is that Mr. Rodgers doesn't take all these teachings out of thin air, as is mentioned in the PBS article.

It seems that major themes are taken from Jesus Christ's teachings, and His Sermon on the mount. See: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5-7&ver...

I meant the grand-grand parent:

> Having the Church community while growing up was great. But the fact that admission to this community required total philosophical adherence is just bizarre.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26621224

I sort of feel the opposite, that a moral code that appeals to some authority is much poorer than one justifiable by some first principles. You can get a lot of milage out of just assuming that you do not want to be hurt in some ways and that other people are like you in that regard, and iterate from there.

Moral code is at least partially cultural. Somethings are consider immoral in some cultures while not in others. Although the major ones seem pretty aligned.

However religion isn’t needed for it, as different people from different religious backgrounds more or less got to the same place.

> How did you derive your moral code yourself?

By thinking about it.

I also read a lot of Spinoza.

> But the fact that admission to this community required total philosophical adherence is just bizarre.

My grandpa's best friend was a catholic priest. I remember him saying that you really don't need to go to the church if you don't want to, but, if you did good deeds selflessly, always tried to make things right (in the sense of least global damage possible) and to avoid wronging others, you'd be a good enough catolic to pass any reasonable judgement day test.

Which is something I would suspect my idealized Jesus would stand behind.

The only time I saw him actually working as a priest, was when my grandpa died and he delivered his eulogy.

It's also the official doctrine of Catholic Church since Vatican II...

Thing is, application of it by clergy is not exactly universal :(

This is false. It is true that the church teaches that you can be saved without going through the church, but this does not apply if you are aware of the church. Invincible ignorance does not apply to those who are not ignorant.

I believe the main issue is whether one refused god or not (i.e. catholic who renounced the faith). Being aware of faith but not practicing while still fulfilling the requirements does count, iirc.

No, I'm pretty sure it doesn't. I mean, this is one of the mayor schisms between Protestant and Christian churches.

You can check the catechism if you want. It puts it in black on white.

Not really. If you are, muslim yes. But if you are Catholic, then one of your duties is mass every Sunday and not doing so is a mortal sin.

There are diverging views on the subject. For some, it suffices to act according to what Jesus taught. For others, the more strict observation of rituals is a necessity.

In response to your first paragraph: I was raised Catholic, and for a long time I’ve been a little bit envious of my Jewish friends’ ability to still associate themselves with their religious identity even after they no longer identify with the theistic elements of it. “If you leave you’ll burn in hell for eternity” was effective for a long time, and it worked on me for much of my childhood, but it doesn’t seem like a very effective retention strategy at this point.

Of course, I don’t really care to associate with most Catholics as they stand today anyway. But that might be different if Catholics and “I was raised Catholic”s had a more formal shared identity in the same sense that religious and secular Jews do.

If you want more solid evidence that the Catholic Church is the right one, check out this miracle:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

> Having the Church community while growing up was great. But the fact that admission to this community required total philosophical adherence is just bizarre.

If you're not talking about the capital "C" church (which I interpret as the Catholic Church), then, it doesn't, really. You can be a Unitarian Universalist and believe in just about anything you want. Their entire philosophy is almost literally "be excellent to each other."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism#Belief,...

There's pockets of us UUs all over! Is someone asks me whether I got to a church, I have to ask, "Wait, what's your definition of a church?" Some of us Unitarians would prefer to drop the whole "Church" name entirely and call ourselves "Communities."

- Yes, you can believe whatever you want. Everyone is just genuinely curious about your journey. "My father was Jewish, my mother was Catholic, and I'm Wiccan now." is something that people legitimately say all the time, and never in jest.

- We "believe", if that's even the right word, that no one has it all figured out. There's great wisdom in all the world's traditions--and some nonsense too. Let's talk about it with respect.

- The way we teach sex ed is top-notch, educationally and psychologically. It's called "Our Whole Lives" because we know, from a vast empirical literature as well as our own personal stories that human sexuality is a complex, life-long activity. Our sex ed teacher is usually a guy called Mike. Mike is gay, and everyone agrees he is the best one to teach that class, for a variety of reasons.

- We encourage our kids to explore their own spirituality, in a "make your own religion" activity. We ask the kids themselves whether they think there is a god or not (or gods), and help them however we can.

- We vote whether our minister stays or goes.

I also enjoyed the Church community while growing up. It was important and no really 'religious' at the same time. Its hard to replace now that I have my own children. We don't go to church but are most certainly not 'anti-religious'. Like other comments, the sense of community was strong. I think society will be worse off as these communities erode or lose favor

Having an imperfect moral system imposed is better than having no moral system imposed. You have a context for which you can deviate, but if morality is all relative, many will be lost. You need something to ground yourself to. That's where familial culture and religion come in. One isn't necessarily better than another, but its useful to have as a starting point

I completely disagree that religion is the only moral system.

If you are not religious you still have a moral system. In the West this had been heavily influenced by Judeo-Christian values, but if you look at countries without that influence you still see a lot of similarities in morals.

I never said its the only one. It's one that has survived over thousands of years. Other places in the East may have their own values imposed outside of the context of religion. But it still exists.

The West for all its flaws based on Judeo-Christian values has its merits. For one, a Japanese person would be more likely to be accepted as an American than an American be accepted as a Japanese.

Religion isn't perfect, but it stood the test of time. It helped guide most of my bloodline to today (apart from a brief detour due to communism). Theoretically you can create a moral system and a way of imposing it outside of religion but I think that's dangerous. How sure are you that your new moral system you just thought of will serve your future generations to be happy and productive members of society? I personally wouldn't gamble my children's fate on it

You said you don't have a moral system without religion.

That's preposterous.

You also don't end up with a moral system you just invented. But how much of it is due to religions present and past is a fair question.

Religion is universal, it must clearly serve some purpose and convey some advantage to humans. I'm not arguing it has no value.

It's also unclear if you could get rid of god based religions if they would not just be replaced with something else similar to a religion. Woke culture makes me wonder.

Supernatural beliefs are universal. Religion is not.

Further, Christianity was the first "religion" to insist on its exclusivity. Others were either "people" religions ("Jews believe this"), animistic/traditional spiritualities, or highly polytheistic systems that willingly absorbed or included other gods / belief systems easily.

Christians were the first to come along and say: you [anyone in humanity] will burn eternally if you don't practice this belief exclusively, only we are correct. And not only that, by the 3rd century they were executing each other for disagreements about very arcane subjects (consubstantiality, etc.) And then later killing non-Christians as well.

> Supernatural beliefs are universal. Religion is not.

Can you point me at a pre modern culture that didn't have religion? I don't know any off hand.

It really depends on your definition of religion. We tend to superimpose Abrahamic religious models onto how we see "pagan" practices, but in reality many belief systems wouldn't fit what we call religion now. Almost all of them, including traditional Roman beliefs didn't include any notion of their own supremacy or unique truth, for example. The gods were not "perfect" beings or all-knowing they were just ... more powerful people. What you _believed_ was less important than what you practiced (sacrifice, etc.) Christianity was the first to make _belief_ primary.

And this goes back to what I was saying at the start of this thread: the church community is nice. But it is tied to an insistence in belief. Like, you have to have these ideas in your head. That's actually kind of f*cked up if you think about it, and kind of an aberration in the context of spiritual practices in all of human history. Most of the time it was: put this idol in your house or give a sacrifice for a good harvest and we're good. Nobody cared if you believed it or not. It's a series of practices to hopefully alter the world. And some good stories to go with it.

The Romans were incredulous at the early Christians not because of what they believed ("sure, Christ, why not...") but because they refused to follow along in community practices (no sacrifices to the emperor or city gods) and insisted that _only_ their beliefs were correct.

> It really depends on your definition of religion.

From Merriam-Webster: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion

2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices 4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

I think that applies universally or very nearly so to human societies - which is amazing because very little is so universally human.

> many belief systems wouldn't fit what we call religion now

I see that as just a blind spot caused by our Judaeo-Christian heritage, not a fundamental issue.

You've got some interesting points though about how Christianity differs from pagan religions (actually I think it applies to Judaism and Islam as well.)

"Religion-based" morality is dangerous and it evolves with society. What was acceptable by religion 300-500 years ago isn't acceptable today. And yet, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever? No thanks.

Having an imperfect moral system that's not imposed seems just as good as one that is imposed.

What's so good about having somebody else decide your moral system?

We were only briefly religious growing up to satisfy some elders in the family, but in truth the community around our church was no stronger or any different than any other family based community we were in while growing up. You could have a just as strong of a family community with your kid in rec league sports, for example, because ultimately people just want to have a good time and you don't need a belief system for that when a plate of food will do.

Better to join a church/synagogue/whathaveyou that DOESN’T require total philosophical adherence.

There’s a similar problem in political circles, as politics has in many cases (especially last 5 years) replaced religion. Adherence is mandated by many, but the healthiest political circles/communities do not require strict adherence but instead allow healthy debate.

And in part, it is a difference in tradition. In Minneapolis, I was loosely connected with some Christian community houses (which were wonderful BTW), and one of the people who lived there was a (secular) Jewish person who made a kind of funny observation: She noted how Jewish people tended to get together and bond over arguments over the Torah, but in an evangelical Christian Bible study, everyone would “get together and just AGREE on everything!”

I tend to enjoy the process of philosophical/theological arguing as well, although I come from a evangelical Christian background, not a Jewish one. It’s just way more interesting to argue over stuff. And there is way less agreement out there on a lot of these topics.

Whether we talk about social justice, the ultimate fate of the universe, simulation theory, politics, utilitarianism, right and wrong and how that can or cannot have fundamental scientific bases. And also how spiritual vs physical interact with ideas as powerful entities themselves... Materialism is probably true on a literal basis, but ideas themselves have immense power, analogous to what the Ancients would talked about spirits ...is the Self a physical thing like a brain, or an idea or thought process or software that runs on the brain? How is that similar to the idea of a soul? Is it any different, and is dualism viewed from that perspective really incompatible with materialism? Why are people so resistant to the idea that a strong AI could have consciousness like a human or animal? If materialism is basically true (probably is), then it seems there’s nothing that one couldn’t effectively simulate. And why couldn’t we be in a simulation at this moment? Who runs this (possible) simulation and what are their goals? How is this any different from theological questions, and can we bring better insight to them? Are there things like “love” & “kindness” that we OUGHT to follow as our guiding principle in spite of lack of evidence of their utility? Is “right and wrong” purely situational or should they transcend merely being useful?

Anyway, these ideas, which one might think are obsolete with modern science, aren’t going away even from a purely materialist perspective. And neither do I think the need for community is going away any time. But it sure would be nice if we got rid of the “must have strict philosophical agreement” requirement that many (but not all) religious and political communities have.

"Better to join a church/synagogue/whathaveyou that DOESN’T require total philosophical adherence."

I'm a philosophical materialist and I don't believe in any kind of deity or supernatural world. There is no "church" that would have any place for someone like me, other than maybe the Unitarians, and, well, honestly, they're not that interesting.

I hung out in Marxist study groups and Trotskyist groupings for a while in my 20s. That was my replacement for a bit. :-)

Yeah, the political groups have very similar community effect. The healthier ones allow philosophical differences and debate.

You'll have a broken moral system imposed on you either way then, if not by a church than by the shifting values of politics and society. You'll never derive an absolute moral code by yourself, you are forced to accept the changing values of society or risk being ostracized. Most people just allow their morals to shift with society rather than dig in their heels or try to develop an absolute moral code.

> You'll have a broken moral system imposed on you either way

I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how moral systems work, one that is perpetuated by the church.

In Christianity, there is a specific "source" of morality, one that's (supposedly) infallible and unquestionable. This leads to problems when the infallible-unquestionable source of morality endorses things like slavery [1]: if it's unquestionable and infallible, how can your moral system be adapted to address this shortcoming? (This is usually handwaved away by theists by saying something like "oh that's the old covenant", or "that was a different god", which uses strange internal doctrinal shenanigans to somehow justify this supreme perfect being's obvious moral shortcommings, and looks to everyone outside the religion like someone just playing the cup game.)

Outside of religion, there is no single "source" of morality. There's a codified system of laws that our societies adhere to, certainly, but there's plenty of examples of how the laws do not codify morality (e.g. I am not required to be even a minimally-decent Samaritan to anyone I encounter on the street). Morality instead is something that an individual has to build for themselves, as a framework for decisionmaking in the wider world: how do you choose between your available actions? what are your guiding principals?

Some decide that, for various reasons, they cannot support industrial animal agriculture, and turn vegan. Some decide they fundamentally disagree with the structure of our police forces. Some turn pacifist--but all come to these conclusions through their reasoning. They absolutely can (and do) borrow reasoning from other sources, but it's impossible for it to be 'imposed' on them because there is no 'higher power' that has the absolute moral right.

This is something that's frustrated me when trying to engage with religious people on other moral issues; a few months ago I was talking to my mom about the concept of wealth redistribution, as to me it seemed incredibly immoral that people like Jeff Bezos can have an insane amount of wealth while we still have children in our schools who can't afford lunch or library books or are even homeless. My mother (Christian) couldn't get around the idea that she had no right to impose her perceived morality on another: that it would be wrong to support laws requiring the redistribution of wealth. She had similar issues with LGBT rights: she could see the harm caused to LGBT people, and did not want to participate in that harm, but struggled to support them because she felt like codifying moral support for something, which she didn't have the power to do.

This removal of one's own ability to develop and test morals is part of what disturbs me greatly about the church. It makes it very difficult to demonstrate when people make mistakes, how they have harmed other people, and how they might go about avoiding that in the future.

[1]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+21&versi...

> My mother (Christian) couldn't get around the idea that she had no right to impose her perceived morality on another

I mean... you probably can't get around that idea either. Or do you believe that any and all of your rights can and should be taken away if a majority of the people agree you shouldn't have those rights anymore (even if the majority are religious nutjobs who decide you should not have a right to consume alcohol because it's immoral)?

> even if the majority are religious nutjobs

This is generally why I 'advocate' for atheism speficially, and street epistemology [1] generally: I want people to be able to effectively reason through their morals and beliefs, because I believe that will lead to a generally better society--or at the very least will make it easier for people to identify when they're arguing from different base assumptions.

My issue w.r.t. moral agency in religious folks is it's difficult to start having conversations around things like LGBT rights because their default stance is (paraphrased) "It doesn't matter what I think is 'right' or not, because I'm not the one who gets to say what is 'right' or not--that's God's job."

So before we can even get to the concept of "when (if ever) can you impose these moral beliefs on another" they're refusing to engage with the concept of a morality where that question matters.

To answer your specific question, no, I don't believe "any and all of [my] rights can and should be taken away if a majority of the people agree you shouldn't have those rights" because it doesn't align with my own moral perceptions: I don't think the majority is obviously correct. (For example, I am illegal in 71 countries and can be legally executed in 12. Perhaps not a strict majority, and I"m using laws as an indicator of moral policy, but certainly a lot of people--regardless, I do not agree with these things.)

That said, my perceptions __can be flawed__. I would hope that the tools I use to build them, and my willingness to discuss/argue/test them with others will prevent them from being egregiously wrong, but it is still possible that they would remain wrong. This makes it possible for me to correct my moral system where it is found lacking.

[1]: https://streetepistemology.com/

Christians do not advocate for slavery. Many laws of the old testament were for the jews living at that moment of human history.

If you tried to establish a slave free society in a small nation sorrounded by slave owner empires how much time do you think that would last?

> Many of the laws of the old testament were for the jews living at that moment of human history

But those laws were given by a god who is all-knowing and all-powerful, so either

(1) said god was totally chill with slavery, which means its moral code is suspect

or

(2) that god was not all-powerful, and had to cede some morality to the dictates of the surrounding societies

or

(3) that god doesn't exist at all, and people just made up laws that fit their time.

Neither of your assertions answered my question. Have a good day

I note you don't tell me how my answers fell so short, so that I may clarify--no matter, I have other arguments.

Your god, who you trust to know all the facts of the universe, was okay with slavery. He didn't say "This is a terrible thing that we have to deal with for a few years, but will go away eventually." He didn't say "Treat your slaves as well as you would your neighbors, though they may work for you."

No, he explicitly allowed abuse to be inflicted on a slave, so long as they don't die:

  Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod
  must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result,
  but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a
  day or two, since the slave is their property.

[1]

So if you beat your slave so hard they die, you too can be beat--but if you beat them just short of death, and they're walking about in a day or two, you're off the hook. How is that fair? How is it in any way just and moral of this god to allow his followers to be so cruel to these people who have no recourse?

So even supposing that your argument--being surrounded by other slavery-endorsing nations made holding slaves morally permissible in the Old Testament--your god still allows horrific things to be inflicted amongst these people treated as property, so long as they don't die. So, best case scenario, he doesn't even do the minimum of saying "sure, have slaves, but treat them well."

Morality does not scale relative to time period. Slavery was always horrific--it wasn't that it slowly began to become morally-bad as time went on, it was always, always bad, people just chose to put profit over human rights for centuries. Eventually we came to realize the pain and suffering we were inflicting on people (and those people gained enough combined force to actually threaten those abusing them), and we changed our ways and laws. This doesn't mean that morality suddenly changed and slavery used to be okay, but now was bad, and people updated the laws to reflect that; no, people realized the things they were doing were indeed horrific, and changed their ways.

In the Bible, this is not the case--and I would hold that an all-powerful, all-knowing god, who can see all of time, would know that slavery would be immoral--regardless of WHEN it occurred. I think it's insane that some Christians just shrug and say "Well that was then, this is now." The lack of self-agency in such an argument disgusts me, and simply lengthens the tail on such flawed morals. That is, where they aren't actively participating in such things.

From "A People's History" by Howard Zinn:

  In the year 1610, a Catholic priest in the Americas named Father Sandoval
  wrote back to a church functionary in Europe to ask if the capture, transport,
  and enslavement of African blacks was legal by church doctrine. A letter dated
  March 12, 1610, from Brother Luis Brandaon to Father Sandoval gives the answer:
  
    "Your Reverence writes me that you would like to know whether the Negroes
    who are sent to your parts have been legally captured. To this I reply that
    I think your Reverence should have no scruples on this point, because this is
    a matter which has been questioned by the Board of Conscience in Lisbon,
    and all its members are learned and conscientious men. Nor did the bishops
    who were in Sao Thome, Cape Verde, and here in Loando--all learned and virtuous
    men--find fault with it. We have been here ourselves for forty years and
    there have been among us very learned Fathers . . . never did they
    consider the trade as illicit. Therefore we and the Fathers of Brazil buy these
    slaves for our service without any scruple . . . ."

So I'm afraid that even your original statement, "Christians do not advocate for slavery. Many laws of the old testament were for the jews living at that moment of human history," is demonstrably wrong in the deepest way.

[1]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2021&ver...

Why would my morals be based on other people's beliefs? They simply boil down to a question of 'does this harm others, in a provable way?'

> They simply boil down to a question of 'does this harm others, in a provable way?'

And when there are interest groups pumping money into research to ensure the thing does not harm others in a provable way?

It's like cigarettes in the 40s. Tobacco usage was both moral and socially acceptable because big tobacco pumped money into the research to ensure the perception was that it did not cause harm.

That was eventually disproven, but it took decades, and we no doubt have modern day "big tobaccos" pumping money into research to ensure their product/ideology/etc. is "proven" not to cause harm. You may think something is moral now but will change your mind later. For example, you may think it's perfectly fine for a person to attend church today, but what if research comes out later that religion provably harms children, would you then be on board with banning religion? And if so, doesn't that disturb you that a slightly different society might come to an equally "proven" conclusion that atheism provably causes harm to society?

To expand on my moral philosophy, I think someone should be free to do as they please unless there is evidence that it harms someone else. Harm is defined by the preponderance of evidence. A few contrarian papers sponsored by big corporate interests aren't going to change that. I take a fairly firm stance on what constitutes evidence, and when in doubt, lean towards individual freedom over society's view of something.

> A few contrarian papers sponsored by big corporate interests aren't going to change that.

It's more than that. Not just big corps but sometimes prominent scientists, or political movements have agendas and biases that influence research (studies related to racism, sexism, and diversity/equity come to mind). There are also research "cabals" that won't let you publish research contrary to the groupthink. And on top of all that there is a "reproducibility crisis" that especially impacts social science/medicine.

> and when in doubt, lean towards individual freedom over society's view of something.

I think this is the right stance. Too many people (in my opinion) cherry pick papers on topics that do not have a "preponderance of evidence" (or have even been reproduced a single time) in order to fight for policy changes or otherwise bolster their stance.