What is your general attitude towards those who believe in religion whether they are jewish, Muslim, Christian etc etc.
Do you get on well with any religious friends and neighbours?
Have you ever thought of believing in a religion at some point?
If you do not like the faiths, why?
If you DO, also why? Does this come from your family? Maybe something went bad during your life?
I get that Lemmy might have the same stereotype in Reddit that there are loads of atheists, but there’s a good reason why despite criticism of religion, it is still here.
P.S. I am not religious or anti religious in any fashion, I am agnostic.
I respect the fact that people believe. They even can form their own clubs as far as I’m concerned. Forcing those beliefs onto other people is something I do have an issue with.
I treat religion like my penis.
It’s ok not to have one.
It’s ok to have one.
It’s ok to be proud of it.
But don’t display it in public, and don’t shove it down people’s throats.
And NEVER whip it out in congress.
Don’t say, don’t ask.
Imagine if that person did all the same things they do, but without the label of “religion” being attached.
Charity? Awesome! Habitat for Humanity is an explicitly Christian organization and does great work. In my neighborhood, the local Lutheran and Quaker churches give out free food to the poor, and they don’t sneak any Lutheran or Quaker cooties into it. If you’re good to others because you think God wants you to be good to others, that still really does count as being good to others.
Prayer? Okay, take “religion” off of it and they’re meditating, thinking, or talking to themselves. That’s good. Unless they’re thinking and talking about torturing their neighbors eternally, or something creepy like that. (But even then, better to keep those fantasies to yourself than to act them out in public.) Die Gedanken sind frei — thoughts are free.
Going to worship services? Okay, they’ve got a weekly social event where they sing songs and listen to speeches. Sounds great, unless the songs are about “everyone outside this room is a terrible person and deserves to suffer forever” and the speeches are about hate politics. If they’re about how wonderful it is to be nice to each other, or being brave and standing up against oppression, or something else that would be positive even without the label of “religion” on it, great!
Dietary rules? It’s okay to have preferences, distinct cultures, cuisines, and so forth. For that matter: my family isn’t Jewish, but when I was little, we ate kosher beef hot dogs, because my mom expected the rabbis would care about the meat being sanitary. (Unfortunately in retrospect, kosher slaughter is, shall we say, not clearly better than secular slaughter.)
I like this interpretation but last I checked the vegans aren’t going to vote for a despot who will kill all non-vegans, and that they don’t view the death of all non-vegans as a positive thing. (Most vegans I know are keenly aware they can only participate in veganism because of modern agricultural, distribution, and economic systems. They know veganism is an elitist choice that a lot of the world cannot make.)
I think that’s the major difference here.
Sure. Voting for religious genocide is just as bad as voting for non-religious genocide: e.g. on the basis of nationalism, pseudoscience, or the like.
Agreed.
I like this. You’re good people.
What you said is all true, but you are ignoring the negative aspects of religion.
Religious influence, both on their followers and on government, is anti-science, misogynistic, and anti-LGBT.
Religions are funded like pyramid schemes, with the most desperate and vulnerable as their victims.
Religious indoctrination is child abuse.
Anti-science, misogyny, etc. are bad independently of whether they are done in the name of religion, or pseudoscience, or political ideology. Doing bad things in the name of religion is exactly as bad as doing them in the name of communism, or capitalism, or racial ideology, etc.
Anti-science, misogyny, etc may be bad independently of religion, but they aren’t independent of religion. Religion is a source of these problems.
You can imagine a hypothetical religion that is simply a “social club” or whatever, but here in the real world religion comes with baggage.
Religion is why my cousin’s children have never seen a doctor in their life. Religion is why my gay friend in high school tried to kill himself. Religious indoctrination has led to lifelong shame and trauma in many of my friends.
And this was just from a “moderate” sect of Christianity- the millions living under fundamentalist religion have it even worse.
Every terrible thing done under religion has been done without religion. None of them have happened without people (except for killing the different). Maybe people are the problem and religion is just one of many tools that can be used to harm other people. Tribalism exists in many forms, religion in its many flavors being just one of them.
Raised Catholic, and I definitely see organized religion through that lens. I see charismatic leaders manipulating followers. I see systems to keep people, especially women and children, subservient. I see followers giving up responsibility for their own actions and beliefs. Even if a religion doesn’t start out that way, the way they organize makes them susceptible to the power-hungry who will corrupt it.
Am I extremely sceptical of organized religion? Yes, doubly so of people who seek positions of authority within organized religion.
Do I recognize some people who follow an organized religion are good and well-intentioned? Yes.
Do I call bullshit on the people who think the only way to be a good person is by following an organized religion? Heck, yes.
Despite the claimed ostensible “good” Religion can supposedly bring…
We’re literally in the middle of a mass extinction event and facing our own extinction and belief in this religious horseshit precludes people from caring or believing in man-made disaster.
We’re literally facing our own extinction because these people can’t be fucked to face up to reality instead of playing cult games of “but I’ll have everlasting life after death so who cares what happens to the planet!”
I don’t give one flying fuck what “good” it can do for an individual, it’s going to be the downfall of human fucking civilization.
Whatever “good” it brings is destroyed and overshadower by the cult like behavior that would worship corrupt figures like Donald Trump and who choose to live in a false reality simply because it is more comforting.
For the don’t-anger-the-sky-daddy religions, roughly the same as having a crazy aunt who gives 10% of her shit to a psychic or Trump. I haven’t experienced the be-one-with-the-universe religions being as exploitative, but I guess those wack Theravadan Wats don’t pay for themselves.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/10/india/dalai-lama-apology-kissing-boy-video-intl-hnk/index.html
Buddhism has its own set of worthless freaks, you know.
Those who believe in an invisible sky wizard (or any other delusion) belong in psychotherapy.
As someone who is mostly agnostic, those who belive that absence of evidence equals evidence of absence belong in psychotherapy.
There is zero evidence either way, the best we can say is that we don’t know.
Yeah man something about Russell’s tea pot
We have no evidence for gods, that’s it. There’s no need to provide evidence for absence of god, the burden of proof belongs to the person who makes the claim (that there’s a god/gods).
I get what you’re saying, but saying people who choose to believe something that can’t be proven and hasn’t been disproven need psychotherapy is like saying the same for color preferences. Sometimes there is no right answer and people should be able to choose.
Unknowns just exists, religion assigns the unknown form. Why is that justified and even more incredible important to those who believe that it be true and to make choices due to the assignment of that form?
Because science tries to understand the unknown using reason, religion throws the reason away and says it was gods.
The problem with this theory is that we dont have a complete explanation for existence without the existence of a higher power.
isn’t a ‘higher power’ just kicking the can down the road?
It could be, I guess it would all depend on the theory of what a higher power is. If its God, then thats the endpoint, if its aliens or simulation theory, then it definitely is a kick.
i am not sure what’s the difference there. why is one an endpoint, and the others aren’t?
God would be an endpoint in that its the full explaination, where as if aliens put the basic building blocks of life on earth then the question is where did the aliens come from.
Why is that a problem?
Isn’t it a much bigger problem to invent an explanation and insist it’s correct, rather than just admitting we don’t know?
The problem is that DNA and associated parts are too complex to evolve, so there is no explaination how it would have gotten to that point. You can say that religion doesnt do a good job explaining, but the various religions have one even though its kind of cheating. Evolution seems impossible without another unknown factor which makes it another faith based system.
I’m wondering who taught you that. There’s an overwhelming amount of evidence, proof, and reason for evolution. It makes absolute sense, is simple, and easy to comprehend if you’re willing to open your mind and disregard what religion has tried to teach you.
There are lots of good explanations out there, so I won’t bother trying – but basically the most difficult thing to understand about evolution is the incredible amount of time it took to get us to where we are today. Once you see that drawn out visually, it makes a lot more sense.
It’s not something you can believe or not believe, because it’s fact. Instead, you either accept it or don’t accept it. Most people accept the existence of gravity because it’s so easily demonstrated. Once you give evolution a minute of your time, it’s equally easy to accept.
Sure, evolution is fine, except for the most important part which is the very start. Without those basic building blocks then it doesnt work.
Yep, but we have tool for trying to understand it. It’s called scientific method, and it has so far been able to help us understand the mechanics of the universe without resorting to crazy claims such as “yeah must have been super powered aliens”, which is the only offer from religion.
I do get that there’s a chance that it’s all bogus, and that there really is or was a god that created everything in a way we have been able to measure it, but why exactly should I believe it? Which story should I believe? ‘In this world of a million religions everyone prays the same way’, the same human made stories written over centuries trying to explain the world around us. In this context religion seems nothing more than a predecessor to scientific method turned into crowd control tool.
My main point is any philosophy about where humans came from is a matter of faith. I was just pointing out the issue where evolution doesnt sufficiently explain things, but most atheists are aware of this or just handwave away the problem.
I suppose on picking a religion you would need to look at what makes the most logical sense, and is most consistent. Also I would look at what has the best track record with the best outcome.
Yeah that religion is called science. To suggest that gaps exist on evolution so we need to go examine religion is an a joke of an argument. The difference in successful capturing of the reality of the process of life by the theory of evolution to any religion is galactic in scale. Your justification is ridiculous and only exists because you cannot let go of the lies someone taught you as a child in order to control you.
As someone who is mostly agnostic, those who belive that absence of evidence equals evidence of absence belong in psychotherapy.
This position is a straw man. Atheists generally do not argue that God categorically does not exist. Instead, we usually say that we don’t believe in God because there is insufficient evidence. Much like the proverbial invisible unicorn in your backyard - since there is no evidence that it exists, there is no reason for it to affect how we go about our daily lives.
When it comes to whether you’re agnostic or atheist, I think it helps to answer the following question on a scale of 0 - 10: How confident are you that God exists? If you say around 5, then you’re agnostic. If you say around 1 or 2, then you’re an atheist.
The one thing that still remains unclear with regards to science and god is the big bang.
The way I have heard it explained is that before the big bang there was nothing.
Which to my mind becomes:
First there was nothing, which exploded
This does not make sense to me, how can nothing explode?
So there are three categories of answer to this question:
A. There was something before the big bang which exploded, though this offeres not explanation of how the thing that exploded came into existance, I have heard theories about how the universe is cyclical and how it will eventually collapse into a new big bang, but that doesn’t answer the queation about the first big bang.
B. God exists and triggered the big bang, that means that the god entity exists outside of our universe.
C. We are just a highly advanced simulator, the big bang was the the program starting our simulation.
The way I have heard it explained is that before the big bang there was nothing.
It’s more like what happened before big bang has no consequences to what happened after. Because this, we have little idea what happened before because there’s no direct evidence.
There is no rule that says the universe must make sense to human beings. In fact the more we learn about it - subatomic particles, quantum mechanics, the multiverse, etc. the stranger it becomes and the less it appears to operate in ways that are intuitive to our primitive primate brains.
Hell, even space and time might not be fundamental properties, and could themselves be abstractions which emerge from an even deeper underlying reality…
All of which is to say your list should have an extra option:
D. Who The Fuck Knows?
Literally anything that anyone can ever imagine, is not all equally probable.
I believe in that which we can prove, because we have evidence of those things.
Not invisible sky wizards. Lol
When my siblings and I were kids, our parents considered themselves christian and we went to church. But as we grew up, we all stopped believing, and we convinced our parents to stop too. I don’t generally want to convince most religious people to stop, but we were kids at the time and didn’t really know the ramifications of disillusioning our parents. If religious people can believe in “heaven”(or equivalent) and think they are going there, it’s a really nice thought that I don’t want to take away from them. But people that use religion to hurt people, yeah I kind of want to take it away from them. I guess like anything else in life, if you are using it to be nice and constructive, cool. If you are using it to hurt people, take it away.
The real version of death kind of sucks. It honestly kind of physically hurts/feels bad to even think about ceasing to exist permanently. I feel like that has always been the true purpose and main point of religion. Pretending death is absolutely anything else other than what it really is. I don’t want to take that aspect away from anyone.
Pretending death is absolutely anything else other than what it really is. I don’t want to take that aspect away from anyone.
I do, because choosing to believe in a comforting lie is what leads us to despots killing anyone who is different. There’s a direct line between the two.
Donald Trump is a comforting lie that a strong man (like God, the ultimate strongman) can come in and just “fix things” because it’s easier to believe that than do the hard work of understanding how complex and confusing our world is. That’s where we’re at, the comforting lies appeal to humanity more than cold truth and it’s going to fucking kill us all.
Sorry, humans need to get the fuck over themselves with this not being able to handle death shit or wake up to our own extinction. Eternal life, reincarnation, it’s every flavor of stupid.
I don’t care unless they force me to believe the way they do.
What would you say to a person that wont use preferred pronouns of a trans person?
It’s not analogous nor related to the topic, but since you asked, this scenario requires a lot of assumptions.
Is said person intentionally misgendering? I’ll make it quick. “Please respect [trans person]'s preferences.” It’s not my business to force them to comply or not.
Taking a WAG at the number, I would say that 90% of people in your belief group would use soft power against someone that wouldnt go along with using their new pronouns. This includes things like banning them from social media, kicking them off youtube, debanking them, ect. Do you think that using influence like this is approapraite to get people to not offend the trans people?
No.
Okay then it sounds like you are like what normal christians are. The problem is that most of the people in your group will start yelling and use their soft force to get people to comply, which most christians dont do. So in the end your group is the one that is trying to use force to get people to follow their ideology.
If you’re trying to make an analogy here, that’s incredibly short sighted.
Forcing religious values down other ppls throats is trying to dictate their life.
“forcing” aka asking to be referred to with certain pronouns is asking to have your own life respected.
One is about having your beliefs respected, the other is demanding others to act as if they were part of your faith no matter if they believe or care.
So then what would you say to a person that wont use preferred pronouns of a trans person?
I’d say if you can at all help it please be less of a cunt
Some religions believe that they should proselytize as many people as possible, so really not letting them convert you is disrespectful to their beliefs.
I agree that there’s a difference, but I’m not sure a simple argument like this really works since it is difficult to say one belief is ‘better.’
Proselytizing: You can say no without repercussions.
“Forcing Their Beliefs:” You have to follow the religion or you will face legal/societal consequences.
I am Anti-theist, If anyone brings up religion around me I will not hesitate to tear it down. These people are playing make belief and if affects my life, I have to live in a world where people make decisions based on some imaginary sky friend.
I will not play nice for the sake of someone feeling good about their bullshit.
So you’re an asshole, using religion as an excuse to berate and bully people, got it.
I actually care a lot about people. I don’t care much for ideas though.
How’s it go? Love the person hate the imaginary “friends”?
One thing that’s nice about being visibly queer is that luckily people don’t try to con me into their religions.
Religious or not, I don’t care. What matters is their personality. (except for jehova’s witnesses, every time I’ve interacted with them it made me think they’re some sort of cult rather than a religion, so not sure if this counts.)
I do have religious friends that I get well with.
As someone married to a JW and who is friends with several others, I will say this: like any group of people, they can be a mixed bag. Some are more closeted and “in the truth” whereas others are more outgoing and " worldly".
One the things that I actually admire about them (the individuals, mind you, not the Watchtower organization) is that they really seem to try and live by the teachings of the Bible and study it frequently. Much more so than, say, your average evangelical Protestant.
In New Zealand we’re currently waiting on the release of a report from a parliamentary commission on the state of the Jehovah’s Witnesses following decades of abuse claims. We don’t expect it to be light reading.
I’m an ex-Christian, the more I read the Bible, the more it doesn’t make sense. But I respect others choices to believe in their higher power, whatever that may be that makes their life work. Double points if they respect back. They all can’t be right.
Growing up in religious circles I kinda learned that there’s no good in religion. Surely there’s good religious people, but they spread the evil word the same as those who want to bring the oppressive shit onto others.
Religion has never been good for anything but for controlling masses
I myself am Christian and have never had trouble getting along with others no matter their religious beliefs. The only conflict is when someone thinks their religion or religious precepts should be made law; I have no tolerance for that.
