So I thought about this in the shower amd it makes sense to me, like praying and stuff never worked for most people I know, so a direkt link to god gotta be unlikely. That made me conclude that religion is probably fake, no matter if there’s a god or not. Also people speaking to the same god being given a different set of rules sounds stupid, so at least most religions must be fake.
Unless, hear me out, god is a golden retriever and needs to be reminded how much of a good boy He is
this golden retriever has committed many atrocities in the old testament
“Bad god!” hits god with a rolled up newspaper
It was a Chihuahua back then
Clearly he wasn’t trained properly as a pup
Sadly the doggo walked all over the holy keyboard and wrote the old testament
My go to phrase for Mormons is something like “I believe that, if there is a God, he wouldn’t be so vain as to require constant worship, and instead he would just want us to ‘live in his image’”.
It’s fun watching the cogs turn in their heads when you say something like that.
Pretty sure there are lines in the Bible that directly state it is enough to pray in your heart, without any outward symbols or churches or the like. So yeah, that’s not only a witty comeback, but also a good point from the consistency view
I remember a song from my childhood which was sung in the church regularly. And a part of it says something along the lines of “where two or three come together in my name, I’ll be among them”. Which seems to be a “quote” from Jesus. It’s not only written in their books but also in their songs but the whole “we need your money to build bigger churches otherwise God can’t hear us” scheme is still going…
Yes there are, it’s one of Jesus’ teachings.
Little know trivia in the Book of Mormon, you get a chance to convert after death if you haven’t already!
Yeah, a couple family members converted a few decades ago and the Mormons sent us all a request to list all our ancestors so they could retroactively ‘save’ them. Most of my family being Lutheran, that didn’t go over well lol.
My grandpa, my uncle, and a few other family pranksters got together and gave them the most outrageous list they could come up with. I had a Mormon kid as a friend when I was young, and some days I wonder if they looked me up, and actually believed I was related to the King of Sweden.
I know LDS members in my family think they traced their lineage from present day all the way to Adam and Eve, so whatever you put, wasn’t nearly as outlandish as you think, lol.
Book of Mormon
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IMO, if God exists it’s nothing at all like what any religion says. If a god exists at all, there are only two possibilities I think it could be:
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Non-intelligent happenstance. The universe itself. The laws of physics. Whatever; it’s a concept and not a literal entity.
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An intelligence that created humans and/or other life here or there, but is not really “God” in anyway described by man. They’re just highly intelligent beings that bioengineered us long, long ago.
The existence of an afterlife though is more complicated. There’s two possibilities, at least IMO:
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There is nothing after death. No soul that lives on or moves on. There is just the meat in our skull hallucinating things based on external stimuli from reality to make sense of it all until the electrical signals stop and we cease to exist.
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There is something beyond current understanding where consciousness comes from and it can exist in some form after death. Whatever it experiences after death would be something of an afterlife; though it is probably nothing at all like what any religion describes. It may not even be possible to describe it at all because it’s just super weird.
I like to muse on the idea of an afterlife, being that I’m not religious. I’d like to think maybe every life is just an expression of the universe and that we are all the same; and that same either experiences things outside of our existence or understanding, or we simply resume experience but elsewhere, kinda like reincarnation. I’d also like to think we’re all from a higher dimension experiencing reality as if it’s an episode on Netflix, or like the game Roy from Rick and Morty, that would be fun.
Die and come back to reality where you’re a 10 year old kid in a sci-fi arcade on a family vacation during summer break.
As long as I’ve got the high score I’m thrilled
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I find the argument for an afterlife humorous. Spend any time with a pet sleeping beside you and watch them dream. We are no different at the core. There is an abstract ‘conscious’ involved with dreaming. Do they have a god in their dreams. Is ours better than theirs, who is to say. I attribute such a thought to absurd human hubris.
Modern humans have existed in some form for only 100k years, while 99.9% of all life that has ever existed is extinct. What kind of omnipotent god is that shitty at dust, ribs, and apples that they failed at everything.
The real clincher for me was simply realizing the fundamental nature of stars and the processes that fuel them. That lead me to ask, if god really exists, why didn’t they note a single scientific anomaly that is undisputable. Absolutely everything found in any religious writing is fundamentally human. There are clever observations, but every single thing mentioned could be observed or fabricated. There is no higher evidence whatsoever, no ontological knowledge of the universe.
The only people that speak in riddles are con artists. Religion is the highest level of achievement in the skills of con artistry. The best criminals are those you’ve never heard of, but the pinnacle of achievement is those that do it in plain sight.
I think all religions were either started, or greatly fuelled, by psychedelics. For example: the description of the apocalypse in the Bible sounds like a bad trip, animals morphing into each other and all. Ah yes, a “vision of the end”- did it happen right after eating some funny mushrooms or perhaps some nice cactus eh?
also i think jesus had early onset shizoaffective disorder like his mum before himbut that’s by far my edgiest takeI don’t think Jesus ever existed. Show me 12 guys that experience something absolutely world changing, and none of them write anything about it for decades and then tell me they were factually motivated. This is the premise we’re dealing with.
We were all stupid gullible little kids learning this stuff. Most people are only doing it for the social network, but don’t understand it as such. The bias of disregarding all the opposing evidence causes cognitive dissonance and most of the bad behaviors of present society.
Pragmatically, a group of nobodies managed to survive Rome destroying their civilization because of stupidity and rebellious nationalism. This diaspora was a refugee crisis everywhere else. No one wanted them and their religion was a joke. They had no where to go, owned nothing, and were not even citizens of the lands they inhabited. Most were likely slaves. After a few decades, some started rebuilding a life. It was the perfect opportunity to fabricate some new religious thing if you were a displaced nobody. That diaspora wanted meaningful purpose to make them feel nostalgic over their religious past. The gospels are the tales of some nobodies that didn’t have to work because they sold themselves as the product that filled the niche needs of the more successful among that diaspora. They got put up in people’s houses and fed well. They likely did so until they got caught by some Romans while trying to grow their religious support base, or because they were overstaying their welcome everywhere they went. Like Paul was probably put on a boat knowing that he wouldn’t be able to return, probably a boat likely to sink, and one sent into a storm on purpose.
It is easy to say all the things that “thousands witnessed” when all those thousands are dead or displaced and unable to dispute anything you’ve said. None of them wrote down any part of their accounts for several decades. What kinds of reliable stories can you tell after several decades. To top that off, there are elementary school level copying errors that are blatant in nature. They are exactly what I expect from a con. You don’t have a case where there are 12 unique accounts or 11 if you want to be pedantic. I can easily picture myself in this circumstance, and I can easily see myself performing this exact con if my alternative was starving to death. There is nothing remarkable about the story. At the time, there were very few people that supported or believed it. A couple hundred years later it picked up steam. That too is obvious. Polytheism is like an anarchic political party. Any fool can conjure a political movement that has potential to overthrow governments using an obscure god of convince and a plausible story that feeds what others want to hear… Look at Julius Caesar. He largely used his religious role as pontifex maximus to gain power as a populist. Monotheism is far easier to control. The true purpose of religion is quite simple. It is a self sustaining way to suppress the peasantry. This is the common thread throughout all of history. Religion functions as a morality police system with a corpus that is just long enough to occupy the minds of the average person. It is a source of tribal isolation. It is not a meritocracy, so it will not evolve much with time. Conservative sadism and ignorance are an effective way to oppresses or suppress progressive societal elements that might question the corruption and ineptitude of the upper class. Religion creates little gullible pockets of people that are easily manipulated by the upper class and authority.
So no, there is no evidence for anything more than opportunistic cons and pragmatic government if you really strip away all the layers and look at it objectively. It is a system of feelings over logic because feelings disregard facts and make up their own like imaginary friends no one has ever talked to, or a magical future if you just go about your insignificant life while telling you it will be better next time. Or shit, how about we really rub it in: in the next life “the meek will inherit the earth.” That’s right, act as low as you can little peasants, and be happy about it. It will be better next time. Your imaginary friend said so about this place no one has ever seen or been to. The majority of humans believe shit like this. If you know this stuff well, you know I did too.
You can’t fix stupid in anyone else; only within yourself. Fighting or arguing with anyone that places emotionally derived belief over fundamental logic is a pointless and destructive waste of time. Sharing reasonable logic with those on the edge can be helpful, but like, I came up with all of this on my own completely independent of external sources.
wonderfully written! yes I absolutely agree with that perspective. Additionally having a mascot in the form of a guy who wholeheartedly believes he’s the son of the God (and is also god in a way because we can’t get polytheists about it of course) is a great marketing move. People always have a hard time trusting and identifying with some ethereal entity up in the sky, there’s a reason why all gods have human (or animal) faces, if Jesus was fully made up or inspired by a mentally ill guy who was completely delusional but still kind that’s another thing lol
I don’t think Jesus ever existed. Show me 12 guys that experience something absolutely world changing, and none of them write anything about it for decades and then tell me they were factually motivated. This is the premise we’re dealing with.
I’d agree with the statement “the twelve apostles didn’t exist,” especially seeing how in Luke they go from the ten to the twelve and the various gospels can’t even agree on the list of them.
But show me the invented religious figure where the earliest surviving records are disputes over who they were and what they were talking about. Pretty much every cult around a real person ends up that way after the person dies or is imprisoned. But not the made up figures so much.
Show me 12 guys that experience something absolutely world changing, and none of them write anything about it for decades and then tell me they were factually motivated
Literacy and writing were uncommon then, though.
If jesus could do that stuff he could just give people knowledge of writing instantaneously i mean their really is no excuse when someone is literally omnipotent
Or more likely, Jesus was an eminent rabbi of the era, that oral stories expanded for hundreds of years, until he became a literal avatar of a god.
Or maybe he was a fraudster like another magician of the time - Simon Magus, who is mentioned in the Bible. Simon was an escape artist, and had a levitation illusion. That’s not far from water to wine or walking on water.
You were born into a planet where the moon perfectly eclipses the sun and where the next brightest object in the sky goes on a katabasis that inspired entirely separate intelligent cultures from the Aztecs to the Sumerians to develop the idea that the dead could come back to life.
The fact that solar eclipses were visible meant that we started to track them, discovering the Saros cycle and eventually building the first analog computer to track them.
The fact that the odd orbit of Venus as viewed from the Earth dipping down below the ground before emerging again leading to cultures imagining the dead being raised has resulted in widespread hyperstition of resurrection.
You were born into a generation of humans when a three trillion dollar company has already been granted a patent on resurrecting dead people using computers and the social media they leave behind.
Absolutely none of the above features of your world can be attributed to selection bias by something like the anthropic principal, but absolutely can be explained by selection bias if you are in an ancestor simulation - for life to exist unusual celestial features contributing to life recreating itself is unnecessary, but any accurate ancestor simulation should exhibit features of a world that lead to it eventually recreating itself.
The physics of your universe behaves as if continuous at both macro and micro scales, up until interacted with, which is very convenient given state changes by free agents to a continuous manifold would require an infinite amount of memory to simulate.
But yeah, sure, the idea of an afterlife is humorous. Humorous like the Roman satirist Lucian in the 2nd century making fun of the impossibility of a ship of men ever flying up to the moon.
It’s a lot easier to control and oppress people when they have the fear of god in them.
“Give me your entire life and I’ll give you rewards beyond your wildest dreams… that you can only see after you die.”
One of the greatest grifts in all of history.
I can’t think of a better one overall
I’m just going to drop this here:
Interesting website. They have a page about prayer too https://whywontgodhealamputees.com/superstition.htm
I agree with this and do not dispute it.
However, I think there is value to the human mind in performing ritual, meditation, and positive thinking. We can think ourselves into feeling better. The placebo effect works, even in you know about the placebo effect.
Jesus didn’t know about these things 2000 years ago, but the stories about him make him seem like a worldly rabbi. He might have seen evidence of people getting better from disease through the power of prayer. (Never amputees, though.) The human body can fight disease; it can never regrow a limb.
The human mind also tends to remember positive experiences, and tends to ignore things that don’t seem to work. This is how fake psychics and cold readers work. You send out a bunch of guesses, and get a couple of “hits”, and the client remembers the hits. We all remember the hits. It’s harder to remember the misses. (Side note: I experienced a palm reader at a party and experienced this first-hand, and despite knowing their techniques, I still felt it a little.)
All this makes me believe that our brains are generally susceptible to a construct like religion. And that there could be some value in meditation, ritual, and positive thinking. However religion is frequently a grift and makes people do bad things - it doesn’t have to be, though. Being quietly spiritual is ok, which is what Jesus taught.
Religion is a way to avoid accountability.
It is the ultimate giving up of your personal free will… and they make it a fucking SELLING POINT.
Like door to door lobotomy salesmen.
Well I never thought that prayer ever made sense in the first place at least with the God I was raised to believe in. I was told God had a perfect plan which included all of us and he wasn’t willing to deviate from that plan even to spare his own son from suffering. Given that, I stopped praying because it made no sense to me, there is already a plan, the plan won’t be changed so there’s no sense asking for anything.
That was my logic as a kid at least but now I don’t pray because I no longer believe.
People universally agree that Jesus Himself is a great dude - despite (because!) He told the over-religious Karens to fuck off, and just plainly do such things as take care of widows & orphans. So wherever you may end up, maybe start with that and see where it takes you?
Using the term “universally agree,” on the fast and loose I see.
Obviously… sort of. Fascists hate him for bucking authority, neoliberals too bc how dare He prioritize anything at all over profit - like why take care of the poor when you can (literally) fuck them over, even use them as slaves?
Though I would think the word that they would take issue with would be the “great” part rather than the “universally agree” - they can all see who He is, bc His actions made that plain leaving no room for doubt (like He could be a loon but… whatever the reasoning, at least He lived authentically according to whatever principles He expoused) - they just don’t agree that those properties are themselves what they want to see put into the world.
There’s no evidence that Jesus ever existed at all; so for a lot of people, they’re indifferent.
First sentence in wiki: Jesus
Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically.
Obviously you know better that there is no evidence, which I find amusing, given that you could not be further from reality.
article whether Jesus actually existed as a person
Seems like people downvoting me also do not like that fact that the person existed.
Notice how it says people agree but doesn’t say there is any evidence.
The best we have is letters from a whole generation after his death, and it’s only people saying “these guys say there was a dude a while back” , second hand comments, no living first hand account.
The best we have is letters from a whole generation after his death
Not really even “letters”. But literally 2 accounts. One we’re attributing doesn’t even mention the correct name at the time. Jesus was often referenced as Yoshua at the time… So why the fuck did the account call him James? And the second account doesn’t mention a name at all.
Edit: I need to clarify something since my phrasing is self-defeating (on purpose)… “often referenced as Yoshua at the time” as believed by biblical scholars who are almost universally religious. But the point remains. If the information we have now doesn’t line up with what the accounts state (or the bible)… then how much of this shit is just made up bullshit?
And the 2 accounts are Tacitus (116 AD)
Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius
Testimonium Flavianum
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ.And by the way… Josephus’ account is under heavy scrutiny and is general considered unreliable at best… and downright forgery at worst. The wiki articles linked are a good read and well sourced.
A really damning case in my opinion is:
that although twelve Christian authors refer to Josephus before Eusebius in AD 324, none mentions the Testimonium.
So other early authors that were Christian referenced Josephus works, but ignore the one that actually mentions Jesus directly? That seems odd no? Almost like the work was fabricated AFTER 324AD.
Scholars agree on stuff there is no evidence for…? What? Did you even read the article?
That’s literally what first-hand evidence is: an account from someone who met someone irl - e.g. John, Peter, Luke, Mark, etc.
Also in that historical context, the fact that there are letters at all is somewhat astounding, if Jesus were just some rando. At the very least they seemed to think that He was important.
The letters were not written until later though - b/c why would they be, if you had John + Peter + Luke + Mark all in one room, why would they be writing texts / emails / chats at one another? They still wrote it within their lifetime though, so “a whole generation after his death” is disingenuous - time passed, but those people who met Jesus were still alive, and wrote the letters, thus making them first-hand recordings of fact.
Not that I’m advocating that you become a Christian over all of this, just wanting to get that part of the story straight:-).
None of those are first hand. The gospels were written by other people more than a generation (60 years) after, not by people who were alive in that period of 30 years.
Wikipedia is a much better source then this Ayn Rand simp site.
That’s a new creative way to “tell me you didn’t read the link; without telling me you didn’t read the link.”
EDIT: Check the sources on these wikipedia articles… Every citation is from an author that has already made up their mind, and is writing for a similar audience. There’s an obvious pro-religion bias within every citation.
Of course, because a prophet named Jesus may have existed. Jesus was a popular name and being a “prophet” was a popular career at that time. There were probably thousands of them running around.
Now the biblical Jesus? No, there is absolutely zero evidence he existed.
That is literally what the article is about and you still try to twist things to make sure this one specific person never existed. But why?
People agreed with this so much that at the time, they murdered him for it.
“People” didn’t disagree with him; the Roman governor did. And it wasn’t even a matter of disagreeing with Jesus’s message; Pilate just saw him as a troublemaker.
No, Pilate literally washed his hands of the matter and was only talked into it by the crowd. He said he could find no wrongdoing and only ordered the crucifixion to be done with the matter.
Meh, for them it was a Tuesday - it’s just how authoritarians are - and rightly so even, if you believe that way (it is internally consistent I’m saying). Overzealous mods banning people and murder are differences in degree, not of kind.
But, if you believe the lore, Jesus being “God” meant that He actually had the upper hand and while he could have stopped it, chose not to, instead allowing them their freedoms even at that cost and significance, to both Himself personally and others in the community and even around the world. It’s a fascinating tale! One that I believe but regardless even, there’s depth there.
Or you could go the other route and presume that Jesus was not any kind of “god”… in which case he lacked the upper hand - or did he? He could have altered his behavior to fit in with the authorities of his day, but chose not to. Like Robin Hood, he dared to defy those conventions that he considered wrong, and died as a result, knowing that would happen.
So either way, he was genuine. How could you look at the likes of Mr. Rogers or Jesus and think “he’s a bad dude”? Except ofc if you want to keep people in slavery and ignorance, i.e. the religious leaders. Jesus was a revolutionary, a bad dude as far as they were concerned, but a good one for anyone who enjoys the idea of someone being authentically whoever they want/need to be, or for an authoritian who believes in God, there’s really a quite narrow range in-between occupied afaict solely by piss-baby fascists who believe neither, and in my comment I was not caring about those who preach intolerance.:-P But obviously you are right, they do exist.
Whatever someone’s “religion”, I say:
Pretty sure the story isn’t that he let them kill him just to respect their freedom and significance…
Of course not. The point would be to offer people the choice - the consequences of any action are never up to us, only the decisions.
You argued both sides of “jesus is god” and came to the same conclusion. You realize that’s an argument against God, right? If the story works without him being “divine”, there’s no reason to assume he was.
Also, like I mentioned in the other comment, Pontius Pilate washed his hands of the situation and only ordered the crucifixion because the crowd demanded it. You can question “how could they think that”, and argue that it’s “really quite a narrow range of people”, but the story is still that there were enough of them to demand the crucifixion of Jesus, and succeeded soo… What’s your argument here?
I think you are presuming the consequent here. It may help to strip the story of all emotional connotations and just treat it as a logical game - hard to do tbf but it would help. So like, if you start with a story where it is a given that a real God exists, then a lot of freaky stuff can happen downstream from that… bc the Truth is just stranger than fiction, I mean regardless of this stuff even it just is.
e.g. in The Matrix movie, you can go your whole entire lifetime and never once see The Architect, nor anyone you’ve ever met or even heard of either… and yet he exists all the same. Saying like “well then why have *I* never seen him” represents an assumption that may not be valid - in that case, that you would or even could ever do so (by what, walking to work, eating noodles, drinking at a pub, reading a book, intoning a chant in an old language?).
Anyway I cannot prove the existence of God so I’m not even trying to do that here, just to show you a peek into the idea that presuming that He does not exist in the first place relies on some heavy assumptions, that cannot be proven. Or maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill here, and misunderstanding you, especially if English isn’t your first language. But those are some thoughts that I can offer to help get you started on your pathway to better understanding it from the outside, just in case they may help.
Oh no, I believe in a deity, I just believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving being that created the universe. Have you heard the goodness of his noodliness? Forever and ever, r-amen.
Because if you can see how ridiculous that argument is, you can see how ridiculous I think yours is too. English is my first language and I grew up in the church. That’s why I don’t care about your ‘arguments’. I’ve heard them before. I’ve used them before. Then I grew up and learned better.
You’re correct that you cannot prove a negative, which is why the burden of proof is on someone making a claim. You claim there is a god, but cannot prove the existence of him, so I have no burden to believe you just like you have no burden to believe me when I claim there’s an all-powerful coalescent ball of spaghetti that controls the universe. “Just assume it’s true and then marvel at how cool and strange things would be” isn’t actually a persuasive argument.
Jesus was a cool guy, but lots of people are killed for standing up for what they believe in. We don’t make religions out of them, though.–
And nowadays, over-religious Karens (and political despots and greedy evangelicals) use Jesus to oppress and exploit others. If this Jesus had the power the fables claim, he would put an end to all of that shit, stat. Looks around and gestures
First part:
Second part:
But I am not prepared to take the latter on faith alone - b/c free will is a bitch. Allowing a Lord of the Flies type of situation means… well… this.
Do you ever wonder how life must have been in The Matrix? Like, I’ve heard that the Bay of Pigs scenario brought us within like a hairsbreadth of WWIII, and it was only narrowly averted by what amounts to a probabilistic confluence of factors, but if you modeled it multiple times you could end up with VERY different outcomes - like after the fighting settled USA on top, or Russia on top, but the vastly most likely ofc would be nobody on top but everyone (1st-world participants anyway) obliterated, etc. So would The Architect there allow those permutations, or did he guide them towards a desired end? And if so, why bother, if he got what he wanted regardless? Or perhaps he didn’t really care one way or the other, so long as sufficient people were alive to steal their energy from, but b/c of the latter he would work to prevent such a worst-case (to the machines’ purposes) outcome. But if the Russians were capable of threading that needle, and taking over the USA without obliterating too many human lives, then was there an incarnation of The Matrix where Neo (or you know, The One by whatever name) was born to a Russian province, a conquered USA? Fun thoughts…
But anyway, regardless of all the religiosity add-ons (people that try to use Him for their own selfish agendas), Jesus was just a most excellent dude!
As for whether He is (a) “God” or not, people ofc disagree. I think yes, but I also join with others of many faiths who regardless or even outright because of their religion - including atheism - try to be the change that we want to see in the world, without getting hung up on our philosophical differences. Ironically the main camp in opposition to that are fascists, which at this point heavily features evangelical so-called “Christians” in the USA (who are also so-called “Patriots”, so-called Pro-“Life”, so-called “defenders” rather than destroyers of democracy - they really aren’t big on telling the Truth, even/especially to themselves!).
This is the part where shit gets tough, b/c words no longer have meaning, if we (the tolerant) allow (tolerate) people (esp. the intolerant) to call themselves whatever they wish. Ofc nobody for one second would confuse Trump himself as an authentic “Christian” - they just use him for their own ends - but what then is a “Christian”? Is it someone who, like Jesus, is most excellent to one another by showing LOVE (kindness, patience, gentleness, compassion, etc.), or is it rather someone who Karens people, literally killing them… or worse (diddling kids, slavery, wage theft that is… is that even any different?!?)
Ironically, Jesus is only ever recorded to HATE one group of people: the intolerant religious butthurt crowd who say one thing, do the precise opposite, but expect you to go along b/c if you don’t they will literally, flat-out, straight-up kill you. As they did Him.
So yeah, I would hope that even atheists could join in on hating the “Christian”/“Patriot”/Pro-“Life” crowd, as Jesus Himself demonstrated that He did. To them I would say the message: don’t let the fascists confuse you with “words” - just b/c they call themselves something doesn’t make it true. What then is a “Christian”? Who da fuq even cares at this point, it may be a lost cause, but The (OG) Dude I thought was pretty cool:-), again imho.
I wish all (or even most) Christians were like you. We’d all get along better in the world. I can’t reconcile the state of the world with an all-powerful deity, but we are each free to see the world as we choose.
And I wish most non-Christians were more like you. Regardless of our “beliefs”, there is work to be done, to make life better for people - not “kill them all and let God sort them out later”, but right here, right now. I have found it exceedingly easy to get along with most people irl - it’s called “not being a dick”.
Tbf, “religion” itself is an extremely debilitating mental illness (inducing cognitive dissonance) when wielded by authoritarians for ulterior motives, obviously including diddling kids but even more so (at a higher scale I mean), allowing those in power to parasitize off of the backs of those who actually work in society. Ironically that can be cured by reading more of (rather than less) the texts lifted up as “holy scripture”… which is why access to that is curated and heavily obscured as people rush forward to tell you “what it really means is…” (e.g. give me money, and more importantly OBEY).
In short, greedy people have made society the way that it is now, for their own purposes, and therefore there is heavy resistance to trying to do things any other way - people are literally killed who try to buck the system (e.g. Jesus to name just one:-D). Also, religious authoritarianism is only one (particularly effective) way to implement that greed, but it is not the only way e.g. dictatorships.
As far as an all-powerful diety, I have no problem envisioning that (once you get past the fact that most religous “authorities” lie - for their own agenda - e.g. is God “good” like Santa Claus, peeping on little children to make sure they eat their veggies and get in all of their nappies; or is He rather good like Azathoth/Cthulhu, in allowing us to do our own thing even if that literally ends our planet and all life on it, whoopsie daisy!:-P), but ofc it makes just as much sense to envision the opposite too:-). We don’t need to be dicks about whether chocolate or vanilla is better - so long as we agree that murder is bad etc.
“Even” atheists? Especially atheists. As an atheist, I disagree with all Christians, but the only ones I hate are the ones who’ve discarded Jesus’s teachings. I respect real Christians.
Some atheists seem to not want to full-on “hate” fascism, I guess thinking it demeans them or some such. As such their more neutral stance makes them “collaborators” (or worse), whether they realize that or not. And thereby allows such to spread, by virtue of not being opposed hard enough.
Evil needs to be fought against - and I’m not talking some alien lifeform with red skin, a forked tail, and carrying a pitchfork, but inside of our very selves.
But I guess I didn’t express my last point very well:-D.
The idea of “the power of prayer” is stupid on the face of it. First, you’re presupposing a omnipotent diety that can and does directly effect the universe, changing the outcomes of events based on it’s desires, whims, plans, whatever. And you think THAT diety is taking requests? When “God answered my prayers”, you think that had you not requested it, it wouldn’t have happened. You think that God answers to your puny human concerns? That shit is arrogant as hell.
But furthermore, it also flies in the face of two other common beliefs about God, at least in Christianity. “God gave man Free Will” and “It’s All Part of God’s Plan™” (don’t get me started on how those are already two mutually exclusive ideas and hundreds of millions of believers just ignore that cognitive dissonance). Many of the things that one prays for, like “getting that job”, “winning that award”, “ending the war”, etc. directly involve altering the decisions and actions of others, which means that God would be stripping them of free will. Also, the most classic call to prayer is to heal the sick, or preserve one’s life. But surely if God has a plan for everyone’s life, at minimum everyone’s birth and death must also be planned. How can he answer your prayer to save your life if it’s his plan for you to die, yet still have an plan he’s always been following? The irony is that people like to pull the “all part of God’s plan” platitude particularly when someone has died before their time.
The one that really makes me annoyed, or even angry, is when something terrible happens, people are hurt or killed, and someone who was supposed to or had almost been there says something like “God was watching out for me”. It’s so self-centered and arrogant to attribute your simple dumb luck to God’s will in that situation. Because, not only does it assume you are God’s most special little guy that he’s constantly paying attention to and protecting, but also that God willfully condemned those others who did fall to this terrible fate that he supposedly saved you from. It’s all arrogance. I can’t stand it.
Like Carlin said
Well suppose the thing you want isn’t in God’s Divine Plan? What do you want Him to do? Change His plan? Just for you? Doesn’t it seem a little arrogant? It’s a Divine Plan. What’s the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayerbook can come along and fuck up Your Plan?
Exactly. RIP, George.
That made me conclude that religion is probably fake, no matter if there’s a god or not.
That’s not it. All religions are real - regardless of whether the things any given religion worships is real or not.
Religion is as real as money, borders and race.
Your just kinda messing around with words when people think religion and talk about it like this they are referring to the beliefs like a god making the world. While yes thats also religion thats not when people mean in this context since everyone knows things like churches exist
Have you ever played a game of telephone? Even if god did speak to people why would anyone ever trust a human messenger that is so prone to misunderstanding? Unless a god arranged the stars themselves in a way that communicates a presence there’s no reason to trust human prophets about their distorted views of the divine filtered through a meager tube of experience.
I always say this. Any “real god” that created everything and gave their word to humans to pass on will be distorted by the end of the day.
Humans are greedy and selfish and they will change the word to be proven right. That is what I have faith in. The human ability to fuck up shit for selfish reasons.
Lots of good discussion going on here, majority of folks have covered off on the pitfalls and deceitfulness that comes with religion so thought I’d give an alternative perspective.
I think in some ways religion is a very helpful tool. It provides people with guidelines to live a good life - ‘as long as you do these things everything is gonna be alright’. It takes away uncertainty. It gives people purpose. Pretty sure they attribute a lot of humanity’s early adoption of cleanliness and hygiene standards to religion. The whole ‘invisible man in the sky is watching you’ thing does wonders for keeping people accountable behind closed doors.
Whether or not it’s fake is up to the individual. Personally I define religion as a ‘way of living’ (a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion). Do I subscribe to organised religion? No. Do I think that it’s fake for those that do? Definitely not. Can different faiths be praying to the same god/s? Yes, I think it’s possible, we are all connected.
What I’m getting at here is that even if you think it’s fake, it’s important to continue questioning and exploring the spiritual or religious aspects of the human condition and develop your own understanding for yourself.
Religion has typically been used as a tool for controlling the masses but to dismiss it solely as a manipulation tactic is an injustice. There is more there to be uncovered if you are willing to look.
The world needs more faith.
Counterpoint: faith and religion have caused more wars, misery, and death than any other single source in human history. We’ve had literally thousands of years of being led by religious leaders, maybe it’s time to try something different. The world needs LESS faith.
I am in complete agreement with your statement, excepting the final line.
Organised religion leading society’s and their involvement in government is definitely detrimental.
What I aim to bring to light here is that religion, belief and faith in something greater than oneself is (in my belief) healthy for humanity when it is driven by personnel introspection.
I feel that all too often we have very intelligent people who completely ignore the entire prospect or field of spirituality due to the negative light it is cast in.
I’m also happy for people to ignore it but speaking from my own experience, I never thought to investigate this side of the human condition as I had wrapped all notions of spirituality up with the atrocities and lack of logic or reasoning of organised religion. Religion was bad and stupid and I wanted nothing to do with it. But I’ve since grown and adapted my world views & hope to share my experiences from an empathic viewpoint to maybe assist others who can relate.
When I say we need more faith, I don’t really mean faith in any particular god, entity, alien or higher power. I mean more so that faith in oneself, faith in the connected nature of all things and faith in the universe, this form of faith is a very empowering source of energy that we as a collective can draw upon.
It’s open to interpretation and appreciate your response.
It sounds like you are replacing the words faith with confidence or certainty. You can be confident in yourself but you can’t have faith in yourself because faith necessitates not having knowledge otherwise it would be knowledge.
I can’t really say much more about your idea of faith since most of what you said is the standard vague wishy washy stuff that doesn’t tell me anything exact
As an agnostic, faith isn’t confidence. It provides the wanderlust to go on along with a small ego boost for following morals.
It provides people with guidelines to live a good life - ‘as long as you do these things everything is gonna be alright’.
which is a fucking lie. the most decent people I’ve known have been plagued by disease and preyed upon by the strong and greedy. do these things and MAYBE, if you’re really fucking lucky, you won’t die an excruciatingly painful death and/or have your loved ones murdered and your life’s work stolen.
those seem like the odds everyone gets, regardless of faith.
The world needs more faith.
no, the world needs justice, balance. waiting for faith to solve things isn’t going to help anyone.
They are lies to some and to others they are promises.
I don’t disagree that organised religion can and is very manipulative.
Sorry, I wasn’t very clear - was less about whether or not the guidelines are real or have an impact (which is arguable either way) but more so that people want to be reassured that they are ‘doing the right thing’.
And my reason for highlighting this is to provide an understanding for the people that do follow religion - that it’s a very natural human response to look for certainty or predictability and for some people religion provides that by providing a structure for them to build their moral compass and world views around.
Again, whether or not that’s a good or bad thing is up to the individual.
You mention justice and balance and I agree that balance is definitely required. Justice is a more complex notion, one which generally involves consequences or punishment.
I’m unsure of justice being useful, as long as we are divided and pointing fingers we will never truly meet our potential as a species. We can do amazing things when we work together.
When I say faith I am not implying that someone or something is going to intervene and save the day. I’m definitely not advocating inaction. But as I mentioned in another reply, faith in oneself and the people around them to make the right decisions and hold themselves accountable is a good starting point. Faith that this existence is just a tiny part of a much greater existence and faith that what you do matters regardless of how inconsequential it may seem.
You mention justice and balance and I agree that balance is definitely required. Justice is a more complex notion, one which generally involves consequences or punishment.
RAPISTS NEED TO FACE JUSTICE. Instead faith orgs shuffle the rapists around and defend them.
If we simply started there, the world would be a much better place.
I think the imaginary friend(s) problem is going to destroy our species if we can’t outgrow it pretty fucking quickly.
also see: palestine
I think I understand your anger.
It would be a start, you’re right.
I think that division will destroy us much faster than anything else.
As long as we’re blaming, hating, raping, murdering, deceiving and competing with each other we will destroy ourselves.
And maybe that is what’s best for the universe.
A hateful species that can’t co-operate and recognise its diversities as its strengths should not be able to leave its planet.
It will become its own Great Filter.
You are right though, there does need to be consequences and inaction is just as bad as condoning.
Hating the people that believe in something is no better than the people that are hating each other for believing in different things.
Difference is nobody hates the people that are christians at least incredibly uncommon they hate religion for all the harm its done to families and everyone. Which is why i am antitheist.
It will become its own Great Filter.
yeah, I can’t see us passing the future hurdles and it makes me exceptionally depressed. we can’t get coal rollers and vroom vroom types to stop pouring hydrocarbon byproducts into the atmosphere, how are we going to get the entire world to pull back.
we have one biosphere. once chance. and it’s already so very very very fucked. AMOC collapse, Microplastics in EVERYTHING including all testicles measured - PFAS everywhere - ice sheets collapsing - ocean temps off the charts - mexico, us south, india, pakistan COOKING… it’s all gonna get worse and still the assholes are talking about drilling more and driving their shitmobiles.
The world needs more faith.
Upvoted just on this and you’re right. I have faith but fuck religion. Religion is man made and flawed AF. I have a deep relationship with “God” and talk to them regularly. People need to drop their inhibitions and expand their minds.
I’m glad to hear that, keep that communication going! I feel the same and it makes me smile knowing that there are similar minded people out there. Thanks for the kind words stranger, lead by example.
Issue is you can believe anything from faith and thats why atrocities happen because x god told them too. Or X priest says this thats how cults exist a group of people believe crazy things with no evidence whatsoever. Which is exactly what faith is belief without evidence.
There will always be that which we can’t explain. It doesn’t matter how advanced we get. We will never know what is upstream from the most recent discovery. Evidence will never exist for everything and I personally am at peace with that. The problem as I see it is you are attributing “god” to that gap when it’s far more nebulous than that.
Yeah their is always things that we won’t know so why make up answers rather then just admitting to not knowing something that is basic humility.
Also i didn’t attribute god to that directly i attributed faith to that which is its only purpose which is why i think its entirely bad. You can replace god with alien overlord and it works the same way. Or even a vision from the future.
The question back is what harm is it to you that I attribute the creation of the universe to a giant spaghetti Monster? What harm is it to you that I attribute the vast unknowns of the ocean to Cthulhu?
The flaws you mention come from organization which I am very clearly distancing from. Faith can exist without religion and organization. Religion cannot exist without faith.
The sooner we decouple these two things the quicker we can move forward as a species IMHO
Sure until you start attributing other things to it and basing your life voting and other things on it. Plus i think its inherently harmful to believe things without reason since i think their is inherent value in only believing what we have reason to believe is true. Plus this kinda thinking is what keeps us in the stone age if we assume we know the answer we don’t progress but then we discovered stuff like lightning wasn’t from roman gods and life improved from that knowledge.
I mean your wishy washy guide to life stuff sounds cool and all. But it is just flat out wrong no questions. People have used faith to justify genocide racism sexism slavery and more.
Faith can lead to any conclusion at all thats why faith is a problem I can believe in white supremacy based on faith and I can believe in loving everyone based on faith but because you can’t verify faith both these stances are completely equal.
Ironically jesus the most well known religious figure world wide told people specifically not to wash their hands in Matthew 15.
You can believe anything from faith which is why its used for atrocities and why the world doesn’t need more faith
As it turns out, you can believe whatever you want. Religion isn’t something you can really solve with logic. It is called faith for a reason.
The fact that you can’t reasonably and logically come to the conclusion that God exists, pretty much tells you all you need to know about God and religion.
That’s not how faith works though
