> I think you’ll find that for the most part beliefs that are present across religions are pro-adaptive in the economic and technological contexts in which they

> I think you’ll find that for the most part beliefs that are present across religions are pro-adaptive in the economic and technological contexts in which they arise. True! But we have to remain open to the possibility that any such belief could represent a local maximum, roughly analogous to Ptolemaic astronomy or Newtonian physics: Serviceable in limited contexts but falling apart in others. > western secular humanism seems like an “ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of” Christianity. Which half of Christianity would that be? Being serious now: Christianity — the version actually preached by Y'shua of Nazareth — is simply Judaism stripped down to two specific commandments from the Hebrew Bible: Love God, love your neighbor as yourself. See the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 ("Do this and you will live [eternally]") [0] and its counterpart in Matt. 22:34-40 ("On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets"). [1] Jesus wasn't trying to start a new religion: He wanted Jews to be better Jews, and he seems only reluctantly to have concerned himself with non-Jews. What we now think of as "Christianity" and its doctrines of the Triune God, soteriology (how "salvation" is achieved), and christology (what was the nature of Jesus): Those came later — in some cases, much later — from others, not from Jesus himself, so far as we know. [0] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010%3A25-37&version=NIV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010%3A25-... [1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt.+22%3A34-40&version=KJV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt.+22%3A34-4...