EDIT: Tried to make a joke and it seems to have missed the mark. Centrist was the least surprising thing in that comment to be shocked by, I thought, so only being shocked by that I thought would have come off as funny. Poe's Law prevails lol
Yes, because it's basically the "hey guys, not all cops are bad" take but applied to religion.
Like yeah obviously don't be a hateful asshole and persecute religious people, obviously, but pretending there is no value in tearing down religious structures is apathetic centrist enabling bullshit. We should shine a light wherever ignorance dwells, not turn a blind eye to it.
I mean, yeah. On one hand, you have pretty much all of Conservatism which is empowered largely by religious ideology, and is propelling the West full-speed towards fascism. On the other hand, you have people's freedom to believe in an authoritarian skydaddy who gives them permission to seek dominion over other people without being challenged.
This take sits right in the middle: "Yes, extremism is largely a result of religious indoctrination, but don't hurt people's feelings by challenging their beliefs."
No, sorry. Challenging people's bullshit supernatural beliefs is very method in which we attack extremism. If those beliefs justify cruelty, there is no shame in telling a person that their beliefs are bullshit and their behavior is reprehensible.
There is also a modern definition of fascism as “Inequality through mythological and essentialized identity”. Basically you foster belief that because of some mythos you are special (gender, ethnicity, religion), and that allows you to deserve more or discriminate against the others. Religions that demand blind faith are contradict modern science more or less have to foster part of this thinking. Not that you need religion for this but it's close. And not all extremism is fascist ofc.
Tell me you are a Christian who is sad that people keep calling out how Christians have vitriolic hatred for their fellow man with telling me you are a Christian.
Also anyone get a strong feeling that by extremist, OP means Muslims not Christofacist in the US
I probably show up in some statistics as protestant.
According to the guy I replied to that makes you an extremist.
If you look up "% people in (your area) religious" you'll find roughly 80% identify as one religion or another. If religion is the problem it's 80% of the population.
Counted as affiliation of by culture ,studies are as said not a census. I was born into something . My belief may be something else. Then also not all religions are equal in my book . The desert variations are at one end. Others Sikhs , Buddhism, variations of different polytheists and are more on the other end...
One end is more prone to blow shit up just for who beliefs in what skydaddy.
Am I religious? No . Am I spiritual? sure but I would never trust a hippie. And my worldview is more based around material reality than idealistic wishing. Where do I end up in the stats?
Yeah, but these are taken as sample. I've never once been asked, but I'm certain my existence in a particular geographic area has been counted one way or the other. Was the sample statistically significant? Who knows.
Are you kidding me? Religion is supremely useful in controlling and exploiting people. It promises all of the wonderment and fantasticnous you can imagine while also promising the absolute worst nightmares you can imagine, and all you have to do is pay and pray, and the prayers are optional.
"Work in service to your masters and you will be rewarded after you're dead. Defy your masters and you will be punished for eternity" is the perfect tool of control for the uneducated/unintelligent.
People who are active in religious congregations tend to be happier and more civically engaged than either religiously unaffiliated adults or inactive members of religious groups, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of survey data from the United States and more than two dozen other countries.
That's just saying "people who are in a social community are happier and more engaged than those that aren't" because most social communities are currently religious focused.
“guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, does that mean there should be zero regulations on guns?
Strawman. I was mentioning hammers, are there any regulations on hammers? I never once called a gun a tool.
Religion is the same, and historically has been the CAUSE not the TOOL for countless genocides and “justified” killings.
If you believe the people causing genocides wouldn't have fun another reason to excuse them I have a bridge to sell you. The Holocaust wasn't motivated by religion.
Yeah, I'll give you the strawman, sorry about that. Made sense before I said it.
The Nazi belief was absolutely a religion. Not one of deity, but of superiority. A group of people held the same belief and tried to beat that belief into the whole world. TBH, sounds just like the crusades, just less successful. Thank goodness.
The Nazi belief was absolutely a religion. Not one of deity, but of superiority.
That agrees with my point that if you managed to abolish all religions people would still find excuses to perform atrocities. They'll just do it in the name of their "superiority" instead of their "god".
What is "too far" though? Is raising your children to follow specific religious rules already too far? Because I think it is, but many others think that's okay.
What about expecting your surroundings to accommodate your religion? At what point exactly is that going too far?
That's the point. They all start nice and friendly. And the more power they gain, the more hardcore it gets.
The first step (joining a cult) is already "too far"
Sure, in the same way that not knowing how to count or add and subtract numbers doesn't technically hurt anyone. But it sure as fuck stifles their potential in life and they would definitely be better off getting educated on the topic.
Well then you should not try to convince people to accept atheism as well🤷🏻
Edit: This is not a serious counter argument in case it isn’t clear, ofc no one is going to every individual person, events and stalls are put up for this purpose, so it is obv. that the only one who will go there are the ones who are interested, there should be no force involved
Trying to save a person by pulling them out of the cave of ignorance isn't the same thing as trying to convince them that the boogyman wants them to stay in the dark. This is an enormous false equivalency.
Yes, I'm aware. The difference is in that one of our beliefs is founded in the observable world and the other delusion. One holds up to scrutiny and the other does not.
The difference is in that one of our beliefs is founded in the observable world and the other delusion. One holds up to scrutiny and the other does not.
Scientific scrutiny shows there are health benefits to belonging to a religious organization. The only thing that "holds up to scrutiny" is "I'm right and you're wrong" which, again, the religious person also believes.
So instead of having "rules for thee but not for me", maybe everyone should not be trying to force their beliefs on others.
Assuming we've read the same study, that study also showed the exact same benefits you're describing could be achieved with regular yoga or meditation; it seems to me the real benefit is getting out of your own head and devoting yourself to something other than your internal monologue for awhile.
But beyond that, any health benefits are entirely an aside to whether or not the philosophy itself holds up to scrutiny, which no religion I've encountered does.
Finally, I don't believe in rules for thee, not me. They are welcome to present their beliefs in the marketplace of ideas as well. I believe in the power of veracity; I am not challenged by false ideals. I'm not anti-proselytizing, i believe in proselytizing the proselytizers.
The problem is that they aren't trying to convince anyone to join their religion, they are trying to remove the choice by changing laws to reflect their religion. They could give two shits about if you believe, as long as you obey.
Institutionalized religion is bad, religion for yourself isn't imho. I can understand the need for answers, although I don't necessarily need them.
I think that is part of tolerance, to accept the believes of others.
"Religion for yourself" in the age of internet of called "personal belief". So, the term "religion" now only means, like it or not, "institutionalized religion".
This is 100% caused by the fact that people "identify" as Y (not using X as a variable, as it is now a fucking confusing buzzword), and are subsequently grouped together in "echo rooms" by various platforms algorithms. This happened so overwhelmingly that in less than a decade, it redefined the default behavior of people, online, and you will now see people automatically seeking those echo rooms. Even on Lemmy, where people are literally seeking instances that will validate their own beliefs, and block those they do not share.
If you keep away from social media as much as possible (as anyone should) its not so bad. I know a few people, that don't go to church but believe in god.
No one feels great by being critiqued, but its necessary imho.
An adult that still believes in Santa might not lead to anything bad, but it leads to them indoctrinating their children to also believe in Santa into adulthood,
And if some dude can live on the north pole and travel to every home on earth in one night, then other equally ludicrous ideas might not sound so far fetched
And before you know it you're wearing radioactive stickers to rebalance your chakras, sticking jade eggs up your ass to bring luck and you're blowing up a shopping mall because your imaginary friend hates gay people
This is a classic slippery slope fallacy. Millions of religious people exist from all sorts of ideological spectrums. The vast, vast majority are not evil and don't do bad things.
The extremism present in religious people is also apparent and present in atheists, agnostics, or whatever generic belief system you can think of. Religion by itself doesn't cause extremism: ad hominems, whataboutisms, and disinformation causes extremism. Constantly comparing yourself to an enemy and convincing yourself you are in the absolute right causes extremism. Sure, you see some 'religious' people going crazy and shooting up places. They also have manifestos that are completely detached from reality in a way that reeks of far-right propaganda and disinformation, and never any real coherence or thought given to the religious teachings they supposedly follow (if they mention their religious texts at all, it's often cherry-picking or outright incorrect).
We should not try to fix the issues of mental health that plague a lot of countries by going after religion. If anything, that would only backfire by virtue of validating any persecution complex religious people might have. We should instead focus on providing affordable mental healthcare that is easily, immediately accessible and normalized for the wider population, as well as providing clear sources of valid information and having any questionable sources that construe facts and claim to not be news sources in lawsuits or elsewhere be forced to clearly denote themselves as not news regularly.
That sounds an awful lot like sexual depravity, which makes god sad for some reason so i believe you'll be cast into a fiery pit to have your skin melted off, regrown, then melted off again, for all eternity. And this will be just, a punishment that fits the crime
And while you're in excruciating pain for all eternity just remember: god loves you ♥️
You don't need religion to believe in something, did this occur to you?
I don't have anything against people who believe some even weird shit. Let me hear it, let us discuss it, but do as you please (who am i to judge? I don't know the truth).
But the moment you enter some cult (or religion if you prefer that term), you're on my hate-list.
They are to control the weak sheeple. Period.
Why do people always take it, that belief equals religion?
I can understand the need for answers, although I don't necessarily need them.
Btw do you think atheists always need answers for everything? I think atheists can be okay without knowing the answer. The religious people are the ones who always wants an answer(wrong answer counts) and they always explain thinks they can't explain as "god's creation/mystery/whatever"
No I certainly don't have have all the answers, the people that think they do are a huge problem.
I can understand the need for an explanation, but I simply don't have that need, although I like to know how things work. But if we as humantiy don't know I don't think its so bad.
Yeah, if you try to change the facts because of your believe we have a problem. If your religion can adapt to new facts (or live besides them) I don't really care.
People created god as an explaination of how the world is created and maintained. People who do science really knows that we can't know everything for sure, and are familiar and okay with not knowing that thing.
I said we cant know everything but we must be okay with that. Religion just takes something they see and put the "god made this" label and refuses to question god.
If religious people don't have that need for explaination, would they belive god created everything? Aren't they okay with saying "we don't really know how everything was created"?
I can understand the need for an explanation
Religion usually explains with something wrong and the followers simply take it as real truth. Don't say atheists are the ones who need explaination for everything
Which is "your" religion? I'm pretty sure it isnt Buddhism.
I am talking about whatever religion that puts "god" as almighty and the one who made everything including us.
Thoose "god belivers" are like against spirit of science. Not scientific facts but scientific spirit of accepting that we have much more things to know and cannot put a god as someone who made everything the way it is, without questioning.
I am saying this about the fact that people belive "god made everything". I do understand religious people are individuals and i am targeting the belief in god not the individuals
