> When morality fails to evolve as fast as culture or technology
I'm not sure you've understood the position of most moral realists. Why we should (say) support LGBTQ rights in 2021 is not that morality itself has evolved, which implies that it may have been morally permissible not to support such rights in 1921. It's that when society failed to respect such rights it was making a moral error.
To put it another way, is there a culture or level of technology at which it would have been permissible to ostracize and punish gay men and women? To enslave as the spoils of war? To protect molesting priests over the children they victimized?
That's not to say that religion isn't a damper on moral progress, though I don't think it's fair to say that there is "no greater damper". Abolitionism often had a religious component, for example, while barriers to racial progress in the 20th century were maintained irrespective of religion. Or in terms that I've been thinking about recently, famous TERFs are often nonreligious.
I'm not sure you've understood the position of most moral realists. Why we should (say) support LGBTQ rights in 2021 is not that morality itself has evolved, which implies that it may have been morally permissible not to support such rights in 1921. It's that when society failed to respect such rights it was making a moral error.
To put it another way, is there a culture or level of technology at which it would have been permissible to ostracize and punish gay men and women? To enslave as the spoils of war? To protect molesting priests over the children they victimized?
That's not to say that religion isn't a damper on moral progress, though I don't think it's fair to say that there is "no greater damper". Abolitionism often had a religious component, for example, while barriers to racial progress in the 20th century were maintained irrespective of religion. Or in terms that I've been thinking about recently, famous TERFs are often nonreligious.