Who am I to question someone’s spirituality if it makes them happpy and they practice in a healthy way and it doesn’t negatively affect the people around them?
and it doesn’t negatively affect the people around them?
The problem is that most of the time this isn’t true.
I found out not too long ago that my best friend is perfectly willing to vote against my right to love who I want and embrace the identity that I want, and will openly (albeit only when I ask) tell me I deserve to go to hell for it. My family is even worse.
You are right that they are no longer a friend, but that’s because they were brainwashed into thinking their friends perfectly normal identity is a result of Satan controlling them, or whatever. Christianity, and most other religions, cause more harm than good in our modern times.
We have outgrown religion’s usefulness as a species, but people are so afraid of death, and the meaningless of life, that they will deny reality to hold on to the hope of a better life after this one. Then, others will use this desperation to their own advantage, and convince their followers that being gay, trans, or just a little different, is an automatic heaven ban.
I have friends who are full on religious while I’m an atheist, they know I’m not a fan of their religion but they also know that I only care if it’s making them happier and helping them, which to be fair has helped them become better people, but they were always the ones that needed some external guidance so I suppose gods a better guide than a meth dealer.
They don’t try to convert me and I don’t try to convert them and we still have fun, plus I enjoy hearing the weird AF stories from the bible, like the time Jesus got pissed at an out of season fig tree for not having figs when he wanted, so he cursed to for life, hungover entitled shit Jesus has some funny stories.
I’d like to think religious people don’t necessarily believe or remember word-for-word what happened to Jesus or Muhammad or whoever but they do learn lessons from the readings that they apply in their lives in a positive way. Or at least their intentions are positive.
It’s a routine group-based literary text analysis that gives people a reason to be together, not unlike a high school first language class.
If you wanna get old school sociological about it, you could say it fulfills a social need for cohesion that non practicing people replace by placing increased importance to other routine activities such as sports watching or working.
It’s a pretty mean angle to take, but why deconvert people by pushing them into a nihilistic crisis?
It’s not like atheists think life is meaningless, kindness to be pointless, or the afterlife something to be anxious about.
I’ve found far less mean-spirited success by explaining how belief isn’t necessary for existence to be worthwhile for us. If they can come to understand how happiness is possible for someone who doesn’t believe, their own belief suddenly become a lot more optional.
In my experience, people like that will be terrible with or without religion.
The difference of “external man in the sky” vs “internal concept of my own rightness” for how they feel ok about their own actions doesn’t make a difference when they’re still a bigoted asshat at their core.
I think you missed the bit of the above post that specified that spiritual belief was fine WHEN it’s expressed in “a healthy way and it doesn’t negatively affect the people around them” - restricting abortion and marriage prohibitions both are violations of their actual premise.
I think they’re saying there is no such thing as harmless belief in the unreal.
These people vote, raise children, form relationships and live life in general, interpreting reality with a fundamental distortion. I would agree that it’s hard to claim they won’t end up harming someone.
See that I just can’t abide. So many people just want to cut other people’s grass that they can’t frame anything they don’t like as a fundamental problem to be addressed and rooted out of society as a whole. Everybody has “distortions”. You are stuck living your life through a fixed lense perspective. Your distortion might be privilege, it might be status it might be health or ability. Even the most idiotic person out there is not invalid and undeserving of happiness. What level of acuity you have is less important than whether or not you are kind. Why should belief in the unreal be any different if they still subscribe to the modern standard of what is kind?
My time in the atheist community was very short lived because I was never atheist “enough” for not actually caring if other people believed in fairies. The gatekeeping and lack of tolerance for the legitimately harmless always felt like supremacist thinking where the rubric for acceptable to be afforded basic human respect was a coin slot’s width.
None of us live our lives doing zero damage. We aren’t omnipotent, and as such, we will hurt others during our lives. We can merely hope it will be an amount too small to matter.
I would suggest that being raised atheist leaves you better equipped to understand the world in a way that more closely matches reality, and thereby enables you to more consistently avoid causing harm during your life.
Does that mean every person needs to deconvert tomorrow? No. The process in itself can end up doing more damage than it’d be preventing.
But it does mean religion can’t continue to be the default world view, if we are to improve as a society. For a better tomorrow, it does need to be phased out as quickly as it can harmlessly be achieved.
That’s why we dohave to care. Deconverting grandma doesn’t matter too much, but if a relative or friend is raising a kid to be religious, preventing that is worth attempting. Another zealot in a coming generation will do more harm than good.
No kind person means to do harm, but unless you get as close to knowing reality as you can, that won’t always be enough. And even then, you’ll probably break some hearts and say things that cause someone somewhere to need more time in therapy.
But you’ll certainly be more effective in realising the things you mean to do and say, if you don’t live life thinking prayers affect reality.
As for you experience with atheists, you’re describing anti-theists. People who hold an actual stance against religion. It sound like you found some especially virtue signaling ones, bad luck.
But an atheist is just someone who doesn’t believe, not some given type of person, ideology, or the nature of your relationship with the rest of humanity.
The woman crying in this comic isn’t the religion that’s “burning down your house”
She’s just some schmoe that had her light in the dark removed and now she’s scared.
I agree, there are better ways to light the darkness than religion. Candle in the Dark is a book by Carol Sagan about how science is a candle in the dark.
![Victory? [elder cactus]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/244d43ec-eeec-4e9c-a97a-a7e978cc47a5.jpeg){kind=link}
Thats why I don’t do that shit to people.
Who am I to question someone’s spirituality if it makes them happpy and they practice in a healthy way and it doesn’t negatively affect the people around them?
The problem is that most of the time this isn’t true.
I found out not too long ago that my best friend is perfectly willing to vote against my right to love who I want and embrace the identity that I want, and will openly (albeit only when I ask) tell me I deserve to go to hell for it. My family is even worse.
Sorry for your loss because that’s not a friend.
You are right that they are no longer a friend, but that’s because they were brainwashed into thinking their friends perfectly normal identity is a result of Satan controlling them, or whatever. Christianity, and most other religions, cause more harm than good in our modern times.
We have outgrown religion’s usefulness as a species, but people are so afraid of death, and the meaningless of life, that they will deny reality to hold on to the hope of a better life after this one. Then, others will use this desperation to their own advantage, and convince their followers that being gay, trans, or just a little different, is an automatic heaven ban.
They’re not your friend
Exactly. Atheists don’t like missionaries, so why should we become those ourselves?
As long as nobody tries to impose their beliefs on me, I don’t care about their religion.
I have friends who are full on religious while I’m an atheist, they know I’m not a fan of their religion but they also know that I only care if it’s making them happier and helping them, which to be fair has helped them become better people, but they were always the ones that needed some external guidance so I suppose gods a better guide than a meth dealer.
They don’t try to convert me and I don’t try to convert them and we still have fun, plus I enjoy hearing the weird AF stories from the bible, like the time Jesus got pissed at an out of season fig tree for not having figs when he wanted, so he cursed to for life, hungover entitled shit Jesus has some funny stories.
I’d like to think religious people don’t necessarily believe or remember word-for-word what happened to Jesus or Muhammad or whoever but they do learn lessons from the readings that they apply in their lives in a positive way. Or at least their intentions are positive.
It’s a routine group-based literary text analysis that gives people a reason to be together, not unlike a high school first language class.
If you wanna get old school sociological about it, you could say it fulfills a social need for cohesion that non practicing people replace by placing increased importance to other routine activities such as sports watching or working.
It’s a pretty mean angle to take, but why deconvert people by pushing them into a nihilistic crisis?
It’s not like atheists think life is meaningless, kindness to be pointless, or the afterlife something to be anxious about.
I’ve found far less mean-spirited success by explaining how belief isn’t necessary for existence to be worthwhile for us. If they can come to understand how happiness is possible for someone who doesn’t believe, their own belief suddenly become a lot more optional.
Oops, now abortion is illegal and gay people can’t marry!
Strong but unfounded beliefs have consequences…
He said doesn’t negatively impact others
it never negatively impacts others until suddenly it does. It’s insidious.
Also it can affect people in ways they aren’t even aware themselves.
Fortune telling for example.
My friends mum sold her house because the fortune teller told her some vague nonsense she interpreted to mean the end of the world was approaching.
In my experience, people like that will be terrible with or without religion.
The difference of “external man in the sky” vs “internal concept of my own rightness” for how they feel ok about their own actions doesn’t make a difference when they’re still a bigoted asshat at their core.
I think you missed the bit of the above post that specified that spiritual belief was fine WHEN it’s expressed in “a healthy way and it doesn’t negatively affect the people around them” - restricting abortion and marriage prohibitions both are violations of their actual premise.
I think they’re saying there is no such thing as harmless belief in the unreal.
These people vote, raise children, form relationships and live life in general, interpreting reality with a fundamental distortion. I would agree that it’s hard to claim they won’t end up harming someone.
See that I just can’t abide. So many people just want to cut other people’s grass that they can’t frame anything they don’t like as a fundamental problem to be addressed and rooted out of society as a whole. Everybody has “distortions”. You are stuck living your life through a fixed lense perspective. Your distortion might be privilege, it might be status it might be health or ability. Even the most idiotic person out there is not invalid and undeserving of happiness. What level of acuity you have is less important than whether or not you are kind. Why should belief in the unreal be any different if they still subscribe to the modern standard of what is kind?
My time in the atheist community was very short lived because I was never atheist “enough” for not actually caring if other people believed in fairies. The gatekeeping and lack of tolerance for the legitimately harmless always felt like supremacist thinking where the rubric for acceptable to be afforded basic human respect was a coin slot’s width.
None of us live our lives doing zero damage. We aren’t omnipotent, and as such, we will hurt others during our lives. We can merely hope it will be an amount too small to matter.
I would suggest that being raised atheist leaves you better equipped to understand the world in a way that more closely matches reality, and thereby enables you to more consistently avoid causing harm during your life.
Does that mean every person needs to deconvert tomorrow? No. The process in itself can end up doing more damage than it’d be preventing.
But it does mean religion can’t continue to be the default world view, if we are to improve as a society. For a better tomorrow, it does need to be phased out as quickly as it can harmlessly be achieved.
That’s why we do have to care. Deconverting grandma doesn’t matter too much, but if a relative or friend is raising a kid to be religious, preventing that is worth attempting. Another zealot in a coming generation will do more harm than good.
No kind person means to do harm, but unless you get as close to knowing reality as you can, that won’t always be enough. And even then, you’ll probably break some hearts and say things that cause someone somewhere to need more time in therapy.
But you’ll certainly be more effective in realising the things you mean to do and say, if you don’t live life thinking prayers affect reality.
As for you experience with atheists, you’re describing anti-theists. People who hold an actual stance against religion. It sound like you found some especially virtue signaling ones, bad luck.
But an atheist is just someone who doesn’t believe, not some given type of person, ideology, or the nature of your relationship with the rest of humanity.
Religion is their Candle in the Dark. It’s cruel to blow it out when they don’t have another light.
They use that candle to burn your house down. There are better ways to light your path.
The woman crying in this comic isn’t the religion that’s “burning down your house”
She’s just some schmoe that had her light in the dark removed and now she’s scared.
I agree, there are better ways to light the darkness than religion. Candle in the Dark is a book by Carol Sagan about how science is a candle in the dark.
That women is voting against abortion and for concentration camps for the gays. Because her religion told her so.
Oh… what religion is it?
You can’t get another light until you’re in the dark.
And atheism offers any kind of light?
Atheism doesn’t offer anything. It’s a lack of belief, not a religion or anything like that.
The light has to be something internal, external, or both that makes the suffering of life worth it.