If you hang out on the internet long enough, you’ll encounter some variant of “do you think that religion invented morality?” (Sometimes that generally, sometimes more specific to one particular religion.) And if you know much of anything about actual history, it’s tempting to just reply, “well, yes, obviously, assuming by ‘invented’ you mean something like codified and/or made known.”

But the thing is, they are not using “morality” to mean something like “a rational system that categorizes the world and actions into good and evil and compels one to do the good and refrain from evil.” (Not that that’s the best definition of morality, but it’s easy and workable for our present purpose.) What they actually mean is something like, “Not constantly engaging in anti-social behaviors and maybe even occasionally engaging in pro-social behaviors.” That is, what they have in mind is not murdering everyone the moment you see them, and even occasionally working together when you feel like it, constitutes “morality.” And it’s certainly true that religion didn’t invent that. Chimpanzees do that much. Even honey badgers—one of the most legendarily aggressive animals on earth—don’t constantly fight and can even work together sometimes to do things like raise young. Heck, even bacteria sometimes cooperate with each other.

This rather anemic definition of morality is also why they can believe that empathy is the basis of morality, despite the fact that Empathy Is Such a Stupid Basis For Morality.

So the next time that you see this, do not wonder how they can be so historically ignorant. Wonder instead how they can be so philosophically ignorant.