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Comment by hacksoi | Hacker News Reader

If people can get away with it, they will do it. Rules and punishments for breaking them exist for a reason.

> If people can get away with it, they will do it.

This is not universally true and individuals and societies don't have to be organized this way.

Why are streets in some countries filled with trash when others are clean? My community does not have anyone policing littering - yet our streets, parks and public areas are litter free.

You are kind of begging the question - Do all members of your community take mandatory ethics classes?

> If people can get away with it, they will do it.

This isn't true of everyone, but assuming it is increases the likelihood that it will become so. Because if everyone is trying to get away with it, why shouldn't I? That sort of breakdown in trust is high up on my list of worrying societal failure modes.

If they can get away with it, some people will do it.

My sole rational argument for Christianity is that it has made the societies that it is, or was, infused with, more honest than the ones that were not.

We should really do some more honest crusades to export our honest values to the non believers to make the world a better, more honest place.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41684157

also the crusades were in significant part a competitive reaction to Islamic "proselytization via violence" so you're placing the blame on the wrong religion, there

I’m not sure there are any rational arguments for Christianity. I say that as a practicing Christian. Either it meets a spiritual need in you, or it’s not very valuable. I imagine that belief in a God who punishes evildoers has kept some people honest throughout history, but the value of that is surely outweighed by the evil done in the name of that God.

I also don’t believe Christian societies are more honest than others. Every religion I know of teaches honesty, as does every non-religious ethical framework I can think of.

I unfortunately cannot track down the prior research that I did on this in the time I have available as a new father but I am as skeptical as they come and I seemed to have found some solid data suggesting that nations with Christian values are simply broadly more honest and trustworthy. This includes countries such as Iceland because even though it is technically atheist, there's inertia there still from the influence of Christianity on its culture.

Congratulations! I hope you're getting some sleep. If you do ever happen across that data I'd be interested.

That sounds like it is loaded with a lot of "no true Scotsman" caveats including, perhaps, Scotland, which has crime like any other country.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41684157

People doing bad things, including Christians, is completely in line with the Christian teachings of original sin, the fall and concupiscence. It is human nature to do bad things and it is very difficult to over come this behavior.

If I read pagan Roman observations about life and people, they strike me as way, way more honest (sometimes brutally honest) than anything that we are used to for the last 1000 years, perhaps with exceptions like Machiavelli and some verbal jokes of the "unprintable" character.

In Christian theory, everyone is a sinner, but in a real Christian society, people try to cover up their particular sins all the time, at least against other laypeople (not the priest), which leads to the opposite of honesty - hypocrisy.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41684157

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