Condescension won't get you very far ─ just gives the impression you don't know how to respond to the points I was making. Ah well...I'm sorry blu, but you are describing nothing more than the sentiments of a 10 year old child - one who requires placebos in order to function somewhat competently in society, or who embraces fallacies as truth despite the influx of undermining evidence. Mature men (over 18 - 20), do not indulge in ludicrous notions or direct their lives around principles that are demonstrably refuted. Except for some fringe radical groups.
As for theologians, if they find belief in things found only in the imagination helps them to be good people, I have no argument. (As for apologists, they take the role of the defense attorney ─ truth is simply one of those things you can use in argument if it works to get the client off the hook, otherwise who needs it?)Some of the leading theologians that have ever lived were absolutely brilliant and extremely sound of mind. Philosophizing and demonstrating the virtue of a holy life, the hypocrisy of wickedness, the cowardice of lying, the strength and character of sacrifice, the profundity of abstinence etc... Theses are not imaginary ideals - show me a thief or liar, and I'll show you an insecure man - one who doesn't even trust himself. Show me a promiscuous person, and I'll show you a crass and vulgar person, or a bimbo.
You act as if you've never told a lie, never sneaked another biscuit, never invented an excuse to cover your rear. If that's true then you have no insight into why humans do such things. If you have done those things, you seem to be blind to the hypocrisy of your position.
But never mind.
My own morality is of a familiar kind ─ do no harm, and treat others with decency, respect, inclusion and common sense. That's the ideal, though of course I've fallen short of it at times. Still if only God subscribed to the do-no-harm idea ─ instead of urging the Israelites to conduct invasive war, massacres of conquered populations, mass rapes, human sacrifices, murderous religious intolerance, women as property, slavery as a norm, sending [his] son on a pointless suicide mission and so on ─ then at least [he]'d serve as an ideal of decency rather than as a Bronze Age barbarian.
Of course Man does ─ how else are all the countless gods of history, and even now of the world, to be explained?These ideals are real, and are demonstrably so. Man does not make up entities in his head, so that his life may be better than without them.
Yes, but that's scarcely confined to Christianity. Look at all the Jews martyred in Christian pogroms down the centuries. Look at the mutually murderous wars of Christian and Muslim. Look at the history of the states of India and Pakistan, what's now China, everywhere.Countless martyrs have gone to flames for their faith, have been stoned to death, tortured or imprisoned, persecuted and confiscated of their possessions, etc...
As I mentioned, we're all born with evolved moral instincts, one of which is a sense of self-worth through self-denial, and in this context, the various martyrs and more universally, the willingness of soldiers of all tribes and colors to die for their comrades.