Evolution vs Creationism

Here's my thinking - even assuming some omnipotent being did create the universe and everything in it, what's that got to do with the religious concept of morality? We're an infinitesimal speck on an infinitesimal speck. Why on Earth would an omnipotent being be at all interested in whether or not that speck cared about him, worshiped him, or followed arbitrary rules of morality that he set? What's the point?

I mean, it's actually a case where, from an evolutionary point of view, codes of morality make much more sense than they do from a religious point of view. Yeah, claiming the moral code was dictated from on high makes it easier to get people to follow it, but the notion that any god would be even remotely concerned in the day-to-day running of Earthly affairs just seems bizarre. I mean, even if sentience/sapience where the whole point of creating the Cosmos, why would he be interested in whether or not those beings acted in a way that he dictated as "moral?"

geekmarine said:

Here's my thinking - even assuming some omnipotent being did create the universe and everything in it, what's that got to do with the religious concept of morality?

Nothing much. Religions set themselves up as authorities on morality because that gives them a degree of power.

My personal theory is that religions have particular survival characteristics that tend to make them successful. Conflating religious their teachings with morality is one of them; other examples would be shunning heretics and indoctrinating children. These things all tend to make the religion more successful at gaining followers and stopping followers from leaving. The popular religions we see today are the ones with the best survival characteristics; religions that didn't have these characteristics have died out and been replaced with those that do.

I certainly understand the question from a cultural context, but I was kind of curious if religious people themselves have an "objective" reason for conflating the origins of the universe with morality, despite the fact that the two seem to have little to do with each other. Yeah, combining the promotion of a moral code and explaining the universe works well if you're trying to spread a religion, but I just wonder if religious people themselves have an explanation for as to why God would be in charge of morality as well as how the universe works, beyond "Well, it's convenient for spreading our religion."