Maybe we need to step back and study the underlaying dynamics and possible flaws in the basic paradigms people take for granted.
Whether one is religious or not, monotheism has been the most instrumental concept in the Western mindset.
The basic logical flaw to this idea, as it has been interpreted, is that ideals are not absolutes.
Truth, beauty, platonic forms are ideals. The core codes, creeds, heroes, narratives at the gravitational center of every culture are ideals.
The universal on the other hand, is the elemental. So a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell.
The light shining through the film, than the stories playing out on it.
Morality is not an absolute, as it couldn't be transgressed, if it were. Like a temperature below absolute zero.
Morals are the ideals, the beliefs, habits, behaviors, etc. that enable a healthy and functional society.
Traditionally that one's status be a function of what one adds, not what one extracts.
Yet those age old tribal societies gave way to nation states of hundreds of millions of people, more focused on defining themselves and guarding against neighbors, than surviving in the wild.
To the Ancients, monotheism equated with monoculture. One people, one rule one god.
Though basically repurposed to validate rule from above. Divine right of kings, as opposed to consent of the governed.
Democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures. The various ideas and ideals interacting.
When the West went back to more populist forms of government, it required separation of church and state, essentially culture and civics.
The problem this has left us with, is the basic assumption that there is one universal map, model, frame, ideology, religion, political structure, etc. whether god or math and since we can't quite find it, all the various current ones feel obliged to assert their universality and superiority.
The fact though, is that such systems are necessarily finite and only exist as long as they serve some purpose.
The map is only the barest rendering of the territory, otherwise its usefulness, its signal, would be quickly lost back in the noise. Whiteout.
An objective point of view is an oxymoron.
What this means is that all those belief systems function as nodes in the larger network. What might be signal to one, could be noise to another. "One man's trash, is another man's treasure."
Alternatively, one mans truth, might be another man's conspiracy theory.
Nature evolves bottom up and top down only occurs from constructed edifices.
Then, the more complex these structures become, the more subjective and specific they are.
They also tend to incorporate inconsistencies,, conflicts, patches, hollow spots, etc. that make them vulnerable to being destabilized.
Then when they do break down, as everything ultimately does, the next structures are necessarily built up from fragments of prior structures, so they might seem even more arcane, unexplainable and off the wall.
So now many of our current systems are failing and the young and future generations will have to build up from the debris left behind. Given it appears that it will be a monumental mess, I think it necessary to really get some sense of what is going on, on a basic, conceptual level, not just as emotional responses to all the pain and suffering. That invariably get caught up in the same doom loops with no circuit breakers.
