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To me this sounds like the sort of
rationalizationbaseless promises societies employ to keep people compliant after they realize that death doesn't scare them anymore.Even from within an entirely materialistic frame, even stripped entirely of any reference to specific religions, "the wages of sin is death, but righteousness preserves and sustains life perpetually" seems to me not only evident, but unavoidable.
Have you ever had a close personal relationship with an addict, or with someone suffering from serious trauma? An abuse or rape victim, for example? Have you observed the consequences of serious cruelty or selfishness in detail over time? Do you have personal experience of despair?
it is possible to both observe and to experience the destruction of the self from an entirely materialist frame. Likewise, it is possible to observe life that transcends individual mortality: there are vital parts of me that did not come from me, but which live on as an extension of my ancestors, physical and memetic, and which I hope will live on long after I am gone in both my children and in those whose lives I influence.
Against this, it seems to me that you are offering warmed-over 90s-era tits-and-beer Liberal Atheism: people just need to be free to follow their bliss, and anyone saying otherwise is just an uptight square. There's a reason that meme has largely died out, even among Atheists, in favor of increasing recognition of some sort of moral frame with enforcement mechanisms for violations, and that reason might be encapsulated in the observation that Bill Clinton, the avatar-champion of tits-and-beer liberalism, was in fact a rapist.
We tried "follow your bliss". It did not lead to Bliss, but to misery and wretchedness. Tits-and-beer Liberal Atheism carried the field when it was novel and when no one knew for sure what the consequences would be. Now we see the consequences.
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People are largely horrible. The pressure keeps them from being as horrible. Remove the pressure and people become more horrible and more people become horrible.
As a social / civilizational technology it's produced better outcomes for those that have used it.
The quality of its outcomes is now secondary to the survival of the egregore. How would the indoctrinated recognize that there is a better way once there is, if it slanders and suppresses its competitors?
Competing egregores slander and compete with each other.
Looking at the outcomes of sexual degeneracy, idolatry, and multiculturalism for many choosing traditional Christianity is better than culture of current year, as it was better than acient paganism.
I'd expect turning away from sin to produce better outcomes, I wouldn't expect it to be popular amongst the unrepentant .
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