202 - Moral Responsibility

Risks in the real world frequently cut both ways. A common trope in some religious narratives has been the "Atheist with a B Plan", converting to some religion on their deathbed "just in case". However, the same argument can also be made in reverse for the context of legal systems.

A common trait among the various moral philosophies and religions is the previously noted systems of reward and punishment, with the bulk of that judgment and reward/punishment process delegated to a given group's preferred brand of afterlife concept.

However, even in Theocratic countries such as the US, North Korea, and Iran, where religious law governs from the top, people facing trial for their crimes don't have the sum of that punishment delegated away to whatever afterlife concept that country's state religion prefers. Rather, the country applies some degree of punishment from human judges, however well or poorly.

What this demonstrates is the "(Religion) with a B Plan", recognizing that all punishment and reward cannot and should not be delegated away to some magical supreme entity that the people in question will never have any certainty of existence.

It also demonstrates humans taking responsibility, recognizing that indeed it does fall on humanity's shoulders to reward and punish appropriately to the degree that such judgments can be made wisely at any given point in time. Even some of the more intelligent bird species such as the New Caledonian Crow have demonstrated social punishment of "free-riders" abusing the good graces of others within the species.

Humans who demonstrate less social responsibility than that of a crow may find themselves with fewer individual rights than said crow in due time, as the best of one species can easily be worth more than the worst of another, with humans being no exception.

Much as science has paved over what religion once attempted to cover, increasingly from one century to the next, the degree of reward and punishment delegated away to religious afterlife concepts may predictably be on the decline. As the capacity to produce far more accurate, complete, and less biased judgments improves dramatically over the coming years and decades that shift may be expected to accelerate.

Even among those most stalwart believers of any given religion, it would be a grievous show of disrespect for them to lazily toss everything on the shoulders of an afterlife concept. Likewise, even someone 98% certain of that concept would carry a 2% catastrophic risk that could be mitigated by shouldering an appropriate level of responsibility, "just in case."

Fortunately, the older religions are less fond of embracing those catastrophic risks than the modern "e/acc" Tech Bro cultists. They've survived population dynamics, whereas the Tech Bros will not.