To make good people do evil things, that takes religion.

[Robert_S]

Religion isn't the cause for humans doing shitty things, it is a convenient excuse manipulated by those with authority.
Humans are inherently nasty creatures and not to be trusted.

Religion has the nasty habit of turning things that otherwise decent human beings would consider to be awful into not only good things, but things mandated by the deity. You know, like Abraham being directed to slit his son's throat, or the Israelites murdering all the Amalekites, and raping their women. Immense evil becomes commanded goodness. Like chopping off the tip of every boys' John Thomas. Pointless and cruel, but a good covenant with God.

And, humans are basically good. Some suck. And, in desperate situations they will do desperate things. But, generally speaking, they are good, kind, trustworthy, caring and generous. At least that has been my experience.

The Abraham story is about JHVH-1 rejecting human sacrifice by providing a lamb caught in a thicket. But it is also a story of the founder of a religion being willing to perform such a deed. An excellent example of how faith can lead to wickedness and barbarity where natural instincts would lead to compassion and protection.

All the stories in the bible were written by people. It is their ideas, their world view--the human one--that the stories tell.

Ideas preceded events/acts and had to precede the stories. That means the ideas existed first and the stories came after to codify, and support and justify the occurrence and perpetuation of those ideas and acts.

That means it is a justification for being willing to perform heinous acts. It's better than the other tribes who actually did practice human sacrifice, but not by much.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

...I KNOW religion isn't the only way to get people to do utterly evil things.

Doing utterly evil things is one thing, but mistaking the utterly evil things you do for utterly good things..?

Yep, "For the greater glory of the (fill in the blank)" isn't exclusive to religion.

Not exclusive, no. But, it is religion's, shall we say, métier...

My thought is that something else would have stood in stead for religion if it had not been invented.

[Mysturji]

To make good people do evil things, one suggested method is to tell them God wants them to do it."

That makes more sense. I KNOW religion isn't the only way to get people to do utterly evil things.

Not the only way....but, it does appear to be quite a tried-and-true method.

Oh, I quite agree. But greed, prejudice, fear, and stupidity all work as well.

They certainly work well for the church.

[redunderthebed]

To make good people do evil things, one suggested method is to tell them God wants them to do it."

That makes more sense. I KNOW religion isn't the only way to get people to do utterly evil things.

Not the only way....but, it does appear to be quite a tried-and-true method.

Oh, I quite agree. But greed, prejudice, fear, and stupidity all work as well.

They certainly work well for the church.

They have worked well for bible bashers and right-wingers for a long time some if not all its their stock and trade.