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.
this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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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.
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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.
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
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
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It’s nothing new either. Kings were given divine rule before capitalism was a thing for centuries before.
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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.
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
And they need your money!
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
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.
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Just like they leave behind their other imaginary friends
my mom: "I just want a community to hang out with on Sundays and sing comforting hymns with. I don't know why instead, everyone has to be weird about it."
If that's all churches did nobody would be celebrating their demise
I'm a proud atheist. And I get where she is coming from. Community is lacking and that's sad.
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She should try joining a D&D group instead.
lol she'd make a great cleric
cleric character who is fed up with corruption and bigotry in their church and goes on a divine quest to establish the Church of We Just Want To Hang Out and Sing Hymns Without Anyone Making It Weird
Not me. I was born a snake handler and I’ll die a snake handler.
The thing I notice is there’s not really a good substitute for talking about the big questions yet.
I mean, I’m not missing any religion, but practically there was an hour or so a week dedicated specifically to thinking and talking about life from a non-materialistic perspective, and I think a lot of people now just - never do.
Isn't that what we do on lemmy?
Not really! I mean like - why does life exist? Is there any relevance in the idea of reincarnation? Does time exist outside of us? What is "good works"?
Someone hold forth on a personal story that exemplifies something good.
You'd think we have enough stoners to get something like that going, but not really. And the esoterica side of Lemmy is very tiny and not well-attended.
tbh I think tumblr's got more of a corner on that kind of work/vibe.
Not that Lemmy can't or won't become that but at the moment it's more like alternate reality reddit which atm is just fine for most people.
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I did, then returned but... Not to the hateful, exclusionary version taught by parentals.
I believed in Santa longer than I believed in God. I don't know how that happened.
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Not surprising.
From personal experience, you find out pretty quickly that most of your peers are hypocrites that are rewarded, rather then punished.
Most people have already left, they just don't realise. If you don't go to church or mosque (probably not Buddhism or Hinduism) you already essentially betrayed the values you once were told to hold, but people are scared to admit because of metaphysical punishments in the afterlife
If not that, then public repercussions prevent them from admitting, and what once held the place of religion in communities is quickly being replaced with ideology instead, it provides community, tenets to follow, laws to abide by, and gives purpose for those who lack it
This started way in the past, and Russia would have likely also been more atheist than orthodox if the USSR didn't turn priests into martyrs by forcing a non religious status quo onto everyone and becoming a dictatorial tyrant with so called dictatorship of the "proletariat" which usually only turns into a dictatorship where only bureaucrats and party members exist in.
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I lately have started making my own ideas of systems for my kids. My name is just a bit spooky when handling religious topics.
"childhood religion" comes off as an oxymoron.
Childhood - indoctrinated religion
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