No one is free from criticism. Harmful ideas should be condemned, when they are demonstrably harmful. But theist beliefs are such a vast range and diversity of ideas, some harmful, some useful, some healing, some vivifying, and still others having served as potent drivers of movements for justice; that to lump all theist religious belief into one category and attack the whole of it, only demonstrates your ignorance of theology, and is in fact bigotry.
By saying that religious and superstitious beliefs should be disrespected, or otherwise belittling, or stigmatizing religion and supernatural beliefs as a whole, you have already established the first level on the “Pyramid of Hate”, as well as the first of the “10 Stages of Genocide.”
If your religion is atheism, that’s perfectly valid. If someone is doing something harmful with a religious belief as justification, that specific belief should be challenged. But if you’re crossing the line into bigotry, you’re as bad as the very people you’re condemning.
Antitheism is a form of supremacy in and of itself.
"In other words, it is quite clear from the writings of the “four horsemen” that “new atheism” has little to do with atheism or any serious intellectual examination of the belief in God and everything to do with hatred and power.
Indeed, “new atheism” is the ideological foregrounding of liberal imperialism whose fanatical secularism extends the racist logic of white supremacy. It purports to be areligious, but it is not. It is, in fact, the twin brother of the rabid Christian conservatism which currently feeds the Trump administration’s destructive policies at home and abroad – minus all the biblical references."
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/5/4/the-resurrection-of-new-atheism/
There is nothing inherently “good” about religion at all. Honestly, I believe it cheapens the human race. It says that humans aren’t strong enough on their own. They NEED the guidance and help of invisible beings to do the things they do.
I was a heroin addict for over a decade. I am now clean, and even off the methadone. I purposefully avoided things like NA because I got myself clean. God had no part in it. God doesn’t deserve the credit. I put in the work.
But the main problem with religion is that it is an override switch for critical thinking. Things that are obviously, and proven to be helpful and right. They can become muddy at best and downright wrong when viewed through the lens of religion. Think, abortion, and stem cell research. Good people get hurt when viewed through the lens of religion. Think LGBTQ, or people of a different religion.
In the end the small positives aren’t worth the negatives, and for those “good religious people” you still support machines that are into child marriage, child molestation, keeping women down, and hurting other humans just because your god said it’s cool.
I went to some AA meetings at one point in my life. It’s sickening to see people cheapen their success by thanking god, instead of their own willpower.
You made the decision, thank yourself, or the people around you.
Hey, you want to give the credit away for your accomplishments. That’s your choice to make. You worked for that sobriety. You can give the credit to whomever you like.
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So, i noticed that a lot of what you mentioned has been a European thing. I grew up in the US in a city that is majority black. Because I’m white I got int a lot of fights. So, my dad moved me to a southern baptist private school.
My new school the mascot was a confederate soldier. Our symbol was a confederate flag. Our basketball gym had confederate flags 2 stories tall painted on the walls. They used the Abeka book system, which teaches young earth creationism, and a generally more extreme version of American exceptionalism among other problematic views. I took bible for a school credit. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that there were only 3 black people in the entire school k-12.
The Ku Klux Klan is also a christian organization. I had a relative that cheated on his wife. The KKK showed up and beat him so bad that he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. They fancied themselves a Christian morality police. Obviously that was a long time ago, but if conservatives in the US have their way anything is possible.
When I was homeless and drug addicted. I used to have to beg for money, and occasionally you’d get someone that would tell you to “go ask a church for help. They’ll help ya”. Well, I have asked churches for help. I asked a few mosques too. Hell, I actually had a mosque give me some food one time. But of all the churches I asked and admittedly it was over 10 which is a super small sample size. Not a single one ever helped and 1 was kind enough to offer to call the police on me if I didn’t leave immediately.
Down here if you go to church and you’re white it’s like a secret handshake that says “I at least hate gay people but probably black people too”. I’d also like to point out that I’m painting a pretty broad stroke with that statement. Obviously not ALL christians in the southern US are racist homophobic bigots, but I’d bet my life that over half are. I’d bet 2 toes and a finger it’s close to 75%.
Churches down here promote homophobia. That’s almost all churches down here. It’s so rare to find a church down here that’s ok with the LGBTQ community that when one pops up they advertise it. They’ll say something like “Everyone is welcome regardless of race or sexual orientation”. Kinda weird that even has to be said in 2023 but here we are.
Here is a local version of what I mean. https://pilgrimuccbham.org/about/
In the end I can’t speak to the history of the church. I mean I could, but is Saturday and I have kids to feed. I feel though that the recent past and present right around me is bad enough.
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I’m just going to say that as far as what you covered in that last comment there’s not really anything I disagree with. I only have one small criticism, and honestly it’s something that I’m sure you would have gotten to in a deeper explanation.
As far as eugenics and the negative side of Darwinism goes. I feel that science as an idea is free to change and expand. But, religion as a belief is far more rigid and set. This allows us to come back later and correct the science, but not the religion.
But yeah. I basically agree with the other things.
It’s arguable whether anything is inherently good at all.
The idea that belief in a god cheapens the human race, or that belief in a god makes people weak isn’t any different from saying belief in natural forces that we analyze scientifically cheapens the human race or makes people weaker in some sense.
Scientific arguments can be made for why your success isn’t truly your own either. I.e. socioeconomic class, geographical proximity to resources, nature vs nurture arguments etc.
On top of that, not all theists would say you don’t deserve credit for your hard work.
Failing to think critically is not an issue solely held by theists. Atheists can and regularly do fail at this. Normal people of all types fail at this often. The assumption that theism implies a failure to think critically is just wrong. Most theistic beliefs can easily be made consistent with scientific thinking for what it’s worth.
I don’t think religious institutions are the only institutions that do these things. Perhaps I am wrong? But to claim these crimes are solely a theistic thing seems incorrect to me.
But even if they are, the institutions themselves and the religious beliefs are distinct. All religions really try to do is to explain things we don’t really have answers for. This is not inherently bad, atheists do this about as much as theists as far as I can tell.
Nothing is inherently good. Life is a crapshoot. But religion likes to say that it is good.
Your second point. I’m guessing you’re equating science and religion? Which is a terrible argument. We can see and do science using our own brains and so, I’m just going to leave this one alone.
This one is true. I was homeless and ran into a girl that had a crush on me. She said that she would pay for my treatment if I was serious about getting clean. Another opportunity wasn’t going to come like that, and everyone I grew up with was already dead from overdoses. So, she paid for it and I did the suffering. After all no man is an island.
The theists that would say I don’t deserve credit for my accomplishments are the self hating humans I was referring to. They think we are too weak to do anything for ourselves. It also gives them plausible deniability when they do something fucked up. The good and the bad. It was all me baby.
Failing to think critically is something that happens to all of us from time to time. The difference is that religion is used to cause a mass directed lapse in critical thinking. As an example “god doesn’t like gay people because it says so in the bible. so all gay people bad”. When someone thinking critically would just judge individuals based on their own merit. Regardless of who they decide makes them happy.
Last point. Whew. Man. Just to be clear. I enjoyed reading your counter points. I thought all of them but one were pretty good, and that one may just be me misreading it.
So, you aren’t wrong. Boy Scouts comes to mind. But I feel like there is something especially egregious about someone telling you they’re going to save your soul, but the whole time they’re fucking your kid. Ya know what I mean? Not very holy of them.
I’m not so much trying to equate science and religion but to argue against the claim that religion specifically is the issue, as far as your comment about certain religions taking credit for your own work. All sorts of institutions besides religion and science can and will attempt to do this.
I still think this is an overgeneralization of theistic positions. I get that some theists would do this. They are shitty for that. But plenty of non-theists would do the same. There have been millions of theists throughout all of human history. It just doesn’t make sense to me to chalk this kind of thing up to being uniquely a theist thing.
I understand your point here, but this seems more like a point against abuses by religious institutions specifically. There’s a difference between some extremist christian cult telling people they ought to murder gay people and some random innocent person believing the earth was created by a small women on mars who dispenses cotton candy from her hair. Condemnation of religion by many people often includes the latter case I mentioned despite it being pretty harmless.
I totally agree with you on this.
Ok, I see what you’re saying, and I agree. But, the difference is a chain of tangible things coming together to exert force one way or the other in my life.
VS.
An invisible force with no other proof than “because they work in mysterious ways?”
For instance. I am a white male, and I have a genetically? high tolerance to opiates (I only say genetically high tolerance because most of my friends are dead). I also won the genetic lottery. Not like the billion dollar genetic lottery, but like a really good scratch off genetic lottery. I am fairly charismatic. I live in a major city center in the US. All these things and more came together to for instance get someone to like me enough to pay for treatment. Keep my criminal record minimal.
I agree with all those things. But, at the end of the day. I still had to make the decision and have the constitution to stick with it.
But I definitely see what you were saying now, and I agree with you. Except I can follow the science one. The religious one is still just kinda silly.
So, on to the next thing, and I agree with what you’re saying. I’ll give you that one. I don’t really see any flaw in your thinking on that one. People just kind of suck. Heh
Yeah, I really was just talking about abuses. Because, truthfully if religions were happy to stay out of politics, and mind their own business. I wouldn’t care one bit. The only reason I am as outspoken against religion as I am is because their choices affect mine and countless other lives across the world daily, and not in a good way, or even a way that the majority wants. But here we are.
No worries, I see the logic in your point of view too. Thanks for hearing me out. I appreciated getting to see your view point too.
I was just telling my partner that I had a super cool discussion with someone online today. That doesn’t happen very often. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Literally all theism starts with a claim that has no proof “there is a god”.
As these claims have no proof they can immediately be dismissed.
There are plenty of claims without proof that shouldn’t be dismissed. The majority of scientific inquiry investigates claims we can’t currently prove or disprove.
There really isn’t any objective proof there isn’t a god either. If we can dismiss claims that a god exists based on lack of proof, then it seems like logically we also can dismiss claims that no god exists based on lack of proof too?
You have just repeated the fallacy of proving a negative and proven you’re not worth the time to discuss anything with.
Seems a lot more to me like you don’t understand that we can reason rationally as well as empirically.
Invisible unicorns are real and you’re a bigot if you don’t agree.
It’s not my fault you can’t argue your point any further. There’s no need to reply to me to confirm it.
This is the take I cannot stand. I don’t care what anyone’s beliefs are, but to say that religion is inherently bad, or that it is incompatible with critical thinking is offensive, and quite frankly, extremely narrow minded and stupid.
Don’t most religions condemn atheism as inherently bad, stupid, dishonest, etc?
This is not inherent to all religions. Some particular religions are intolerant of other beliefs. Some aren’t. I’m not sure of “most”, you’d actually have to start listing out religions and gathering evidence for that claim.
It would be easier to list the religions that don’t teach that disbelief is wrong. I can’t think of any, though.
Daoism. Buddhism. That’s two off the top of my head. (Both, in fact, don’t care if you participate in other religions’ rites and ceremonies.)
You’ll find that most pantheistic, animistic, and shamanistic religions aren’t as bigoted as the Abrahamic faiths tend to be (which is the faith family most westerners think of as “religions”).
I agree. It is very frustrating that many major religions are like this.
From the Christians who have been proven to molest children, and set back rights of women and LGBTQ people. To the Muslims that also do horrible things to children, and women, and LGBTQ people. To Hindus that kill Sikhs and Muslims. To Sikhs that kill Hindus. I could keep going but I think I’ve got a large enough sample size already.
Even if you’re church or whatever doesn’t do these things directly. It still helps to breed the identity that is that religion. It still helps to spread the hate associated with that religion. In a lot of cases it sends money to fund the people that are fighting.
As far as religion messing with people’s ability to think critically. If you think religion doesn’t mess with that. I can’t help you. It’s literally in the news all day everyday. Pretty much everything that has to do with hate towards the LGBTQ people in the US was initiated by fear mongering politicians, and given legitimacy by religion.
Offensive to who? He was talking about religion, not a person. It doesn’t seem like you understand how being offended works. When you add nothing of value and go on the attack you lose all credibility. You should downvote yourself.
There are already some good rebuttals to your comment here, but I’m going to add another. The entire language of your argument is geared toward the theistic religions. You claim God did nothing to help you overcome your addiction. As an aside I could argue, from the theistic perspective that God did help you overcome your addiction, and you’re just not aware of it. But more to the point I can point out how, in the pantheistic model of theology the universe and everything in it is God, and therefore you are God who got a part of themself clean without the help of a concept of God, in order to claim that God doesn’t deserve to claim credit for getting them self clean.
Please ignore those arguments in themselves, I’m not trying to debate religion. I pointed that out to highlight that what you positioned as an argument against religion as a whole doesn’t even make sense, and is completely irrelevant, to one subset of religions. If you have grievances with the theistic, maybe even more specifically the monotheistic religions, then why not take those grievances up with who they belong?
And also ignoring that atheism is a religion.
And speaking of LGBTQ, I once worked at a summer camp that was run by a Christian church. The pastor and her wife had programs in place for the purpose of protecting and helping LGBTQ youth. Justice and injustice can come from theists and atheists alike.
So, I have been typing out responses to each person. You are the last one, and kind of like you said. I have covered pretty much everything, but I want to leave you with one final thought.
Let’s pretend that I start a business. Let’s say that I call this business “Save The Whales”. Now I start running advertisements and I say that for a small donation every Sunday I will feed the whales. So, people start donating and things are going well. Until, you find out that only 10% of the money you donate actually feeds the whales. The other 90% goes to killing whales.
The point to this is that regardless of what you claim to be. You are what you do. Religion often talks a big game about love, and tolerance, and forgiveness. But then says unless your gay, or black, or whatever. Where as it may not say it in the book. Religion is what its followers do.
When I was 5 my mother kidnapped me and ran to Florida. We were in church every time the doors opened. When I was six she got sick. I had to learn to cook, but we were still going to church. When I was seven she died. I didn’t know this then, but she couldn’t afford her insulin. I watched her die slowly just she and I. Where was god?
When I moved in with my dad. We kept going to church. I started being sexually abused by a neighbor when I was 9. Where was god?
I mean if god deserves credit for my sobriety. When I was old enough to make my own decisions. Then certainly god deserves credit for the things that happened to me as a child when I had no clue right?
As I said previously I’m not interested in debating religion in itself, but I guess I could give my two cents anyway. If you don’t believe in any deitys, that’s totally fine. It’s completely valid to have those beliefs.
Or on the other hand if you do believe in a higher power, or powers, then it becomes a question of what ontology you believe in. Somewhat similar to what I mentioned previously, I lean more toward a panentheistic framework, with somewhat of a gnostic leaning. By gnostic I mean to say that I do not accept the idea of omnipotence, omniscience, or omnibenevolence. In that model, “God” is everything, though I believe there’s room for polytheism within that framework - that there are potentially countless beings, corporeal and incorporeal.
In my view there’s no disparity to reconcile, because everything in life works the way it works and we have no way to know if it could be otherwise. Maybe there are just fundamental constraints on what a physical reality can be? Maybe some beings are malevolent to humans, others benevolence, and sometimes one group has more success than the other?
So I would agree that the deity of the Abrahamic religions is a cruel one. I have my criticisms of their ways, many criticisms. But I don’t use those criticisms to attack theistic belief as a whole, because I know there are a wide diversity of beliefs out there with fundamentally different ways of viewing and relating with life.
I believe that we are nothing more than accidental chemical robots. When our batteries run out our systems cease to function and we exist no more. Life is like a game of pac man. Over several generations it’s pretty cool to see how high of a score we can get, but in the end there is no real reason or goal to our existence. I believe that absolutely no god exists.
With that being said. I also think that anyone that claims to know the answer is full of shit. Along with any religion that claims to know who his is. I’m willing to concede that having a nebulous idea about what god might be is fine.
For that matter, as I have previously stated. As long as religions stay in their lane and out of my life and affairs I don’t care what you believe. I only have a problem when your religion affects the freedoms and rights of other people.
I’d also like to point out that you mentioned abrahamic religions, but hindus and to a lesser extent sikhs are also problematic.
So, to wrap up this mental diarrhea. Believe whatever you want as long as you don’t mess with my life. Heavens Gate is a great example. If you and a bunch of friends want to castrate yourselves and commit suicide to jump on a comet. Be my guest. Just don’t take kids with you, and don’t lobby to have abortion made illegal. That’s literally the simplest terms I can put it in.
If you don’t want people to hate you. Leave people alone.
I decided that god didn’t exist when I was 8 for obvious reasons. But I never cared if people were religious or not. That is until I became older and realized just how much religion affects our lives. It’s disgusting how many lives are put at risk daily because an imaginary sky daddy might get pissed.
By all means your beliefs are fine, and you have every right to express them. What fundamentalists and evangelicals are doing to attack our rights is awful and I look forward to every ounce of power that we can take away from them — hopefully permanently. Church and state should be separate, and the state’s goal should be supporting diversity of belief and practice within a secular framework.
Here’s one of the problems I’m having right now though: there is so much hatred and stigma directed toward non-atheists as a whole these days, particularly in online spaces, that there’s been a sort of soft-censorship going on. In many public spaces, a theist can’t openly talk about their beliefs without immediately being mocked, stereotyped, and stigmatized into silence by antitheists. It’s roughly on par with the people who claim that anyone lgbtq+ can do what they want as long as they keep it out of public.
People should not have to seek isolated pocket communities just to be able to express their ontology.
Yeah, I mean it’s one of those things where you get a knee jerk reaction out of a lot of people just by mentioning religion. I don’t know in what ways or spaces you’re trying to talk about your religion. Nor can I speak for other atheists.
What I can say is that if you aren’t one of the big religions, I personally don’t care. Personally, I like the idea of quantum immortality. I don’t think that’s what happens when we die. But man that’s a fun idea.
Anyway, maybe next time try leading with “I’m not one of the main religions”. See if that helps. Maybe, try saying “I have some ideas that I’d like to share”. Instead of whipping out religion and waving it about. Because in the end that’s all that any of us have is some ideas, and anyone that says differently is a liar.
Anyway, I don’t know in what context you’re trying to talk about your religion. For all I know you could be trying to recruit people and they’re telling you to kick rocks. Who knows?
At any rate. I hope you find some people willing to talk about your religion with you.