Religion is for three kinds of people:
Fools
Liars
Disobedient children with fools or liars as parents
Tolerance of religion is a paradox as every religion is intolerant of other religions.
Yes Buddhism too.
Respect is earned. Trust is earned.
Religion deserves neither.
Not every religion is intolerant of other religions.
Greetings fellow lemming I’m new here and hope we can have a productive discussion.
Please allow me to elucidate my perspective on this question: are all religions intolerant?
I say yes, let me explain.
Many have told me about “their god” and I take their word for it. I believe everything everyone has told me about “their god”. Powerful, all knowing, usually vindictive, often horny for human girls, etc.
Resultantly I believe in all of “their gods”.
And I drew a conclusion about that guy.
I think “god” is a piece of shit unworthy of praise and we should seek to destroy and erase it. Those who worship it are dangerous and not to be trusted. At best they need psychiatric care, likely many of them should be incarcerated. The link between “piety” and “skeletons in the closet” is strong.
I hate god and have no respect for god-fearing people and no tolerance for their “beliefs”
Which supernatural make-believe system (read: religion ) is tolerant of my supernatural make-believe system?
Please don’t mistake my anger at religions as anger at you.
Cheers mate
I agree, fuck all religions
Many have told me about “their god” and I take their word for it.
Resultantly I believe in all of “their gods”.
I’m following so far
And I drew a conclusion about that guy.
What do you mean “that guy”. I thought we just established these are multiple guys?
I think “god” is a piece of shit unworthy of praise and we should seek to destroy and erase it.
What do you mean “it”? Don’t you mean “them”?
I hate god and have no respect for god-fearing people and no tolerance for their “beliefs”
Why are you talking about a singular God here? It reads like you’re blaming Yahweh for Zeus’ sexual behaviour and you’re blaming Hanuman for the Great Flood.
These aren’t the same character. Each “God” claim needs to be evaluated separately.
For example why do you hate Persephene so much? Why is she a piece of shit. You claim to believe in her right Your reasons shouldn’t include examples from the Bible.
Which supernatural make-believe system (read: religion ) is tolerant of my supernatural make-believe system?
You might find company among the Satanic Temple or other Satanists.
You said “Buddhism” was ruled out but you didn’t actually clarify so until you present your reasoning I’d say Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Jainism all lacking God’s are partially compatible.
I mean to be fair there’s not going to be a great answer because this isn’t a real question but a gotcha. And I say that as an atheist.
You obviously don’t actually believe in all the gods, your earlier language shows you haven’t thought enough about what that means and force them all into the same one God.
The Hittites believed in “all the gods” and absorbed every new God of neighbors they conquered. But they truly believed in these gods, not as a gotcha question but they really believed in the power of these entities.
Regardless of personal moral views on their behavior, outwardly taunting that being seems silly in light of genuine faith.
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Good
Religion has nothing to do with God, even if you believed God exists, then since God is omnipresent you can have a relationship with God from anywhere. Why would you need to gather with a group of people and have middle men priest who claim to speak on behalf of God. Religions are about power, control, elitism and us vs them tribalism. If there was a god, he’d be disgusted by the barbaric things done by religious people in his name.
Religion is not necessarily the same as religious institutions. Christianity is quite an outlier with its heavy centralization in the case of Catholicism, but there is many denominations of Christianity that are not adhering to a centralized institution.
It doesn’t necessarily mean they become atheists; some switch religions. While in the West religion is in overall decline, in the global south, Christian evangelicals are on the rise. This is especially the case in Brazil where Catholicism is on decline but evangelicals are growing.
If I were to guess why its probably because religious communities always tend to lean into hateful rhetoric against “others”.
People realize the closer you are to religion the further from God you feel as you couldn’t believe that judgement of other humans is wise from an all knowing being if it exists.
Then the internet of course gives so many alternate sane opinions for consumption and exposure readily at your fingertips.
Ex-Roman Catholic here. I was never particularly devout but this is what drove me away from the church once and for all. I have never seen people preach about God’s love with so much hate in their hearts.
“Donald Trump was sent by God to stop abortions”
Is when I realized, yes, I do actually hate organized religion.
If your religion is somehow linked to the place you were born it’s not your religion. You are indoctrinated.
If I changed Jesus name to Bob and worshipped Bob in the exact same way id be called insane.
Religon is brain cancer.
It’s a control mechanism from some of the earliest human societies, and today it is a dangerous tool that was just left lying around for any con man to take advantage of.
I can’t find any sources for this now, but a while back I read an article that basically said in the 1500s (roughly) people were starting to turn against the rich holding the bulk of the wealth. So the rich met up with some priests over a tankard of mead and came up with the idea that the church should say the rich deserved their wealth.
The south were pissed the north judged them for slavery, so they schismed the Baptist church to the southern Baptist church, where the only difference is that slavery was a commandment from God, and black people deserved it becausw of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Ham?wprov=sfla1
It’s weird how many religions tell you to obey priests without question, isn’t it?
The Marquis de Condorcet wrote about the evils of Christianity back in the 1790s.
He wrote about how it was a tool of oppression, not just of the person, but of the mind and spirit.
And nothing has changed in the last 200 years.
That is weird to me because Jesus repeatedly condemned the rich. He even violently kicked them out of temples by whipping them and flipping tables. Jesus even said the wealthy will never enter into heaven. Jesus was essentially a proto-communist
Former Christian here, I’m still very partial to this verse:
Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.
Wow that’s a banger, thank you for introducing me to it.
Jesus also didn’t proclaim himself to be the literal son of God, nor a part of God. That was invented by the churches some 300 years later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
Both Judaism and Christianity had their scriptures altered over time, serving political goals of the scholar’s class. This is why Islam puts such a strong focus preserving the Quran exactly as it was revealed.
Can you please expound upon that point, re: Jesus didn’t proclaim himself to be the literal son of God. Never heard that before.
Sure. So in Islam we believe that God and the creation are seperate. All Prophets (peace be upon them) are humans, who have been given prophethood for their virtuous character. Any powers outside the realm of human capacities were granted by God to aid their mission, but it wasn’t their inherent powers.
For a longer read on this from an Islamic perspective i found this article: https://www.reviewofreligions.org/27744/jesus-son-of-god-historical-context-long-read/
As for the development of the Christian idea that Jesus would be the son of God. This is a Greek/Roman idea that was pushed to dominance around the fourth century. Notable is the Council of Nicae, where it was agreed that the concept of Trinity (with Jesus as son of God and some abstract holy spirit) should be the used. As for the reason why, it is likely that the Trinity was chosen to make Christianity more palatable to Polytheists, despite the rejection of polytheism and embrace of monotheism being fundamental to the Abrahamic religions. This is also why the concept is strongly rejected by Jews and Muslims. However also Nontrinitarian Christians exist to this day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea#Outcomes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontrinitarian#HistoryThat’s an interesting take. Having been raised Christian, but now mostly agnostic, it’s a view I had not heard before. Thanks for sharing this.
Many Christians have never read the Bible. They hear about eternal salvation so long as you dunk in some water and say you’re sorry and they’re sold. If they even consciously think about it in the first place.
Christianity is just another one of Plato’s caves
I agree. I look at it this way…how many of those that claim to be Christian actually have Christian values or live by the Ten Commandments?
…how many […] actually have Christian values…
All of them, it’s how you know what “Christian values” really are (not just the cleaned-up public-facing image they use for marketing) and it turns out they’re pretty shit.
Well that might explain christianity but what about other religions like Hindu, buddhism etc.
The idea of religion is different there and it’s more of a way of life rather than believing in a supreme god.
It’s nothing new either. Kings were given divine rule before capitalism was a thing for centuries before.
Haha, that’s certainly a curious interpretation of the crisis of the 16th century. You’re referring to this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General_Crisis
This series basically modernises a classic book on the subject that’s about 100 years old on the topic if you want to know more: https://hellonearth.chapotraphouse.com/views/podcast/
Dunno…too long ago for me to remember many details and as I said, I can’t find a source.
FWIW, those events took place in the USA though, and the article I’m referring to specifically mentioned the U.K.
A yes in 16th century USA
lol. Bit of an error there on my part.
The 16th Century Crisis was across Europe and that last link centers around the UK in the end in the English Civil War. It’s a whole thing that led up to it.
I think religion is capable of doing great things, but yeah, more often than not it seems to be a gateway to fascism and other extreme right dictatorships.
The red text of Jesus was based. It taught me that God weeps for the sparrows so we also should value and protect nature. Jesus washing the disgusting feet of people who walked around all day in sandals without socks taught me that truly great leaders use their position to serve the weak and vulnerable. Jesus warning that it was impossible for the wealthy to enter heaven and ordering us to take care of the poor just like we would take care of him if he needed it taught me empathy and helped me become a communist.
So yeah, Christian communism is based, but Christianity under capitalism becomes a tool of fascism.
There’s really nothing special about Jesus, if you accept that the voices he heard in his head were not really “the all-powerful creator” speaking to him.
What I mean is that Jesus did not say anything more remarkable or ground-breaking than say Socrates, Marx or … I don’t know Iain M Banks or any other story teller. Way less remarkable in fact.
There’s this persistent idea that Jesus was some wonderful caring hippy, and before Jesus everyone was just a callous exploitive bastard. But there’s nothing new about the share-and-share-alike philosophy Jesus espoused. It’s basic game theory and has been present in society since before our species even evolved. Even chimps grasp those ideas.
Jesus was just a poor Jewish common person who thought he was the messiah. Just like his compatriots of the time, he believed the Jews to be the “chosen people”, and his message was only directed at his compatriots. He had no more grasp of humanity as a whole than any other common person of his time. As the messiah, he believed - as did his followers - that he was going to usher in the end of the world.
It’s complete nonsense, and if you truely understand what a scam the modern church is, you would stop promoting him as some kind of revolutionary.
If counting Christianity then it will be a lot higher. I’m baptised and stuff like that, but that was just tradition. I never believed in a god.
So long as they’re not moving on to a new one, good. Religion is a plague on human society. We don’t need it holding us back.
Jedi religion rose dramatically from 1900 to today.
Ugh. They’re probably worse than a lot of them.
Abducting extremely young children into their cult. Teaching them to suppress their emotions, telling them to cut all families ties.
Someone ought to order their temples shut down to bring peace and stability to the
galaxyworld.
“
MoneyReligion is the root of all evil.”I think a lot of the evil done in the name of Religion really boils down to money, land, and power. Religion is just a convenient vehicle to get those things.
It is the mechanism by which you get normal people to fund and promote horrible acts. How else could you get your grandmother to pay for hiding pedophiles from the law?
Money, threats of violence, grandma could be related to them, grandma could be a pedo herself… Just to name a few.
Sorry i mean WILLINGLY pay.
Be careful that anti-theism may e as harmful as any fundamentalist religion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3D4tMVaO7k
What I think is not that we should “abolish” religion (granted that I know you did not propose that. I’m just extrapolating from “religion is a plague”)
I think we should move to exploring different religions without holding any of them as superior to the other, or at least not judging before reading a it more on your own accord and desire.
Someone pointed about issues on buddhism, which are true issues.
But eastern religions take from buddhism, taoism and confucionism religions and it is not uncommon to take a few different takes from each one of these as one goes in their own studies.
Same way, I think the rise of pagan religions would be useful to have the idea of being exposed to different concepts of religious ideas
Or similarly, different philosophical ideas, like reading from plato, but also from hume, but also from descartes, but also from…
As long as one doesn’t stay stagnant on the same philosophical pool, there is no harm browsing (with sufficient care) other ideas.
Depends on the religion. But as a whole, what we thing of “religions”, are definitely a net negative with our knowledge of the world. We no longer need to rely on superstition to survive.
Some religions are more a way of life rather than a structured creator being system with strict rules and exclusionary politics. Religions like Christianity/Judaism/Islam are quite different from Shinto or Buddhism for instance.
There’s still some toxicity around Buddhism at least. Living in SEA I now know several people who are really turned off by the practices and beliefs of their family’s religion, Buddhism, from the way all troubles are explained away as karma to neurodiversity and Learning Differences being hidden because that would mean that person did something bad in their past life.
I used to think Buddhism specifically was the “good” religion that’s more like philosophy, but spending more time with people who grew up deep in Buddhism has made me see there’s really more to the community and it’s beliefs and practices than I thought.
There’s a lot of Buddhist teachings I agree with but do we really need all the supernatural baggage to teach people to be less materialistic and to be kind to each other?
I’ve found Zen Buddhist koans, essentially short stories to be contemplated over, to be deeply calming and insightful.
My favorite one is this.
"A man was walking through the jungle, when he spotted a tiger. The man immediately fled, but the tiger gave chase. Approaching a cliff, the man saw only one option… A hanging vine. He jumped off of the cliff and grabbed the vine, hanging on for dear life.
The tiger came to the edge of the cliff, snarling.
Just as the man thought he was in the clear, he noticed another tiger prowling below.
And then, if things weren’t difficult enough, the man then saw two mice above him (one black, one white) gnawing away at the vine.
In this state of impending doom, the man looked over his shoulder to the sight of a strawberry patch on a ledge, at arm’s length.
The man reached over, plucked a strawberry and ate it. It was the best damn strawberry he ever had."
Its a problem with all of them. How can any christians be non pacifist when direct from christs mouth was the very direct command:
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.”
I have had discussion and its ludicrous the other parts they engage in mental gymnastics to work around it. Its the same with the 4 noble truths and the 8 fold way. Its pretty obvious its about looking inward and delving into anyone elses life except to help them would be feeding into desire. Sihks have this whole thing about goofy practices of other religions and then have their own goofy practices. No idea how jainism gets corrupted or other faiths off the top of my head but im sure they are there.
Because you don’t have to be a good person at all to get into heaven. Just repent. Simple.
Like all religion, it can be messed up and carried on.
Sort of like when the winter solstice turned into “dead and buried three days, then rose again” and a bunch of zombie religions are still around.
That’s for Spring (rebirth, Easter), not Winter.
Christmas is for Winter, it celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. It came from Saturnalia, probably the most important holiday of Roman society.
No. I mean, first of all let’s start with the fact that both Winter solstice and Spring Equinox were so-called pagan holidays that Christianty subsumed. Right? Let’s start there.
Then let’s understand that those so-called pagan holidays were traditions based on earlier - much earlier - observances. And those observances were astronomical in origin.
The winter solstice is when the sun stops moving for three days - it rises in the same location whereas all the time before that it had been moving slightly every day.
After those three days it starts moving back. That’s the birth. Life is born again. We’re going to make it around the sun another time. That sort of thing.
Spring / Vernal equinox is when we make sure everyone has progeny. Rabbits. Flowers. Eggs. Chrisitanity decided to appropriate this one to mark Jesus’ ascent into heaven. Fine. But irrelevant. Because it has nothing to do with life on earth - very literally, it’s about leaving earth and going to heaven.
That’s why there’s such a disconnect about crucifixion and rabbits and eggs. They don’t have anything to do with each other because the church yoinked a pagan tradition to keep people from celebrating it outside the church.
That makes a lot of sense. Until you consider that around Winter solstice, Christians don’t celebrate the resurrection, yhey celebrate the birth. How do you explain that disconnect?
This explains some of the reasoning, although because it was 350 CE they can’t confirm anything with 100% certainty. Such is history.
What is certain to anyone who has studied it even a little bit is that the winter solstice was near-universally recognized by all cultures prior to the common era.
December 25 is very often the solstice, or close enough to it that it was selected by some as the annual celebration for their deity of choice. As the article notes, in Rome that was the birthday of Sol Invictus. It’s also the birthday of Saturn, Mithras, and depending on whether you believe some fourth-century Christian authors, also Horus.
So Pope Julius “chose” - note that no one is in any doubt the date was selected, it wasn’t like Jesus’ old birthday cards were found and everyone knew that was his actual birthday - Pope Julius chose Dec 25 as the annual celebration day for Jesus. That became known as his birthday. But it wasn’t. What it WAS was the winter solstice.
Just because they aren’t theist doesn’t mean they don’t have horrible backwards teachings. Most people are good without religion. Religion creates situations where otherwise good people do evil, because they’re told it is actually good.
Most people are not good without religion, they are good because of civilization. If society breaks down, everyone is going to get real mean, real quick.
The most evil people in Nazi Germany were generally anti-religious.
I don’t know if evil is the right word. However, most people are self serving and will do “evil” things to enrich themselves. Whether that makes them evil is up for debate. As far as I can see, it’s a matter of human nature following the rules of game theory.
Even with civilisation or society, there’s always been a subset of people looking to exploit whatever facet of existence they can, whether it be religion, politics, crimes of opportunity, weaknesses in social systems, or even the justice systems that are supposedly meant to deal with those flaws.
And to add even more complexity, other people who aren’t pieces of shit looking to exploit others form emotional attachments to those who are and are fooled by their lies and will defend them. Others don’t have attachments but see parallels to themselves and worry that attempts to deal with the problematic ones will result in the same treatment being applied to them (and aren’t necessarily wrong because even justice trying to act in good faith can get it wrong).
It’s all a complex web of power struggles and religion is just one set of stands.
Hard disagree. Yes, when people are desperate they’re capable of horrible things, but most people won’t shoot a home intruder even if they went through the process of purchasing a gun for home defence and have someone break in. Everyone is capable of great evil, but they are not evil. Most people will choose to cooperate if they can.
Also, I’d say the most evil Nazis were religious. Their religion was Nazism though. They had a belief (that they were told was scientific, but wasn’t) that some people were better than others, and some groups actively needed to be removed to make the rest of us better in the future. It’s the same beliefs religions create, and it was also based in faith, just not of a god.
The most evil people in Nazi Germany were generally anti-religious.
Unless you’re excluding old Adolf from that list (which would be both interesting and telling), this is not correct. A lot of people forget about him though.
Just sounds like the usual “no true Christ-man” being resurrected whenever there’s some atrocity for the church to slink away from once it becomes unpopular.
Kirsten Lesage, Kelsey Jo Starr, and William Miner titled this erroneously. The title should be:
#Children are learning cults are bad, and their parents tried to indoctrinate them against their will
Christianity is basically just a pedophile ring at this point
That’s a bit unfair to the people who are in just for the homophobia
Or trans phobia
Or the ones who hate colored people
But just look at how it brings people together (to rape the kids and hate the minorities). Surely there’s societal value in leaving them a breeding ground.
And they need your money!
Monotheism was a mistake! The last save point was hermeticism, it’s going to take us ages to get to the enlightenment again. 😮💨
Excuse me, is hermeticism not a monotheistic philosophy?
Nope, technically it’s henotheistic. Hermeticism doesn’t deny the existence of others gods, but does believe in one supreme God.
https://arnemancy.com/articles/hermeticism/monotheism-in-hermetism/
Well, during the enlightenment it existed in a Christian context. I do not see how one can disavow monotheism and accept hermericism, since other gods in it are hardly important to say the least.
Whats funny is when they leave their childhood one and go to another. The new one seems better because they don’t know enough about it.
Some do, some don’t. Most ex-mormons like myself don’t end up going to another religion. We already have a community of like-minded people on the outside.
Not enough people leaving the very worst religion of all.
I would argue that the antireligious sentiments of “the left” and some liberals is a part of their civil religion.
