Moral Systems in Traditional Societies

Lenski attributed this correlation to changes in technology and communication which in turn impact political organization. Changes in technology also produce increasing diversity through internal and external population growth. Increased diversity creates pressure on a moral system to adapt to the new social reality. Successful societies either adopt a new moral belief system with a greater ability to integrate disparate peoples, or fundamentally alter one or more components of an existing moral system to the same effect. The latter process can be seen in some cases of monotheism. Despite claims of an unchanging, eternal god, historical accounts of the attributes or reported nature of God have clearly varied over time. Modern apologists feel compelled to account for such disparities; particularly if they appear in sacred texts. A cottage industry of apologetic texts has emerged within protestant Christianity, for example, attempting to reconcile observed differences between the God of the Old and New Testaments (e.g. Copan 2011; Lamb 2011).