Few people understand philosophy. They either lack the talent to understand, they lack the interest, or they’re already captured by other ideas of the cultural elite, or maybe something else. Regardless of the reason, they generally don’t understand.
A significant problem with large proportions of people not understanding moral principles is that it’s the understanding of those principles, among other things, that facilitates civilization and general human progress. Divergent values (meaning, values that don’t align with some goal, in this case, the goal being the understanding of moral principles), lack of talent and misaligned tribalism can’t be fixed. However, tribalism can be manipulated, divergent values can be circumvented by fear or incentive or both and lack of talent can be overcome by simplicity.
I’ve speculated on where religion comes from, or how it may have arisen. Specific religions, however, may have arisen for different reasons. All probably seek to manipulate behavior, but not necessarily for unsavory reasons. There are religions, possibly the vast majority of them, that seek to manipulate for the goal of civilization. You can’t make people understand moral philosophy, but you can make them follow moral principles if you make them simple enough for the untalented to understand (like a story), make it scary enough or rewarding enough (or both) to get the attention of those with divergent values (with concepts like heaven and hell) and/or if you use the natural cultural phenomenon of religion (since it arises naturally from fear of and awareness of death) to reach the tribalists, even though they don’t understand the philosophy.
Religion has, of course, been used to manipulate people for nefarious purposes, but has had, for the most part, a civilizing effect on mankind. Obviously, the most noteworthy manipulations are the nefarious ones, but, between religious individuals, worldwide, on daily basis, it probably has a significant civilizing effect that, though unmeasurable, certainly outweighs the evils committed in the name of religion, at least in the classical, established religions.
I feel compelled to address the fact that virtually all religious people who, before risking or even giving up their lives for some cause, invoke their god. The invocation of gods doesn’t mean that they’re doing what they’re doing for religious reasons. Maybe they are, or maybe they’re being manipulated by religious elites in order to gain compliance for some greater cause, good or bad. People invoke their gods before attempting any challenge, be it an act of war, terrorism, sports match or personal trial. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re doing any of those things for religious purposes, but they invoke their gods out of concern for their success, preservation of their lives or the conditions of their afterlives.
This is one of the reasons I don’t make arguments against religion; it probably serves an important social function: making people follow moral principles or, at least, reenforcing natural moral principles to ensure the stability of civilizations.
