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.
I’m 14 and this is deep.
It’s a lot easier to control and oppress people when they have the fear of god in them.
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?
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.–
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The more you think about it all, the less sense it makes. Congrats on discovering the tiny seed of free-will we all have inside us.
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.
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.
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
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 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.
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
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.
Religion has always been nothing more than a way to control people.
“I talked to God and he said that if you don’t listen to the rules that I wrote in this book then he’s going to torture you forever”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.
Do you shower in whiskey?
Religion can still be legit IF
- the goal is moral good - most modern religions have a similar moral basis, as do agnostics and atheists
- non-interference - in this life, it’s all up to you
- nobody can speak for whatever supreme being and it has better things to do than speak to us
- outside of that moral foundation, it’s all more of a tool than a goal. Rituals and daily rules help you stay on the path but aren’t goals in themselves. For example if you adhere to your variation of communal prayer, you are spending time uplifting your thoughts to the moral foundation, and developing a harmony with your community. It’s a tool, a practice, to develop better habits toward your goal
Compare it to diet plans. There are many variations where the goal is to eat fewer calories but with rituals to help develop better habits and learn portion control. They are all legit approaches and you can reach your goal of a new life with whichever variation works best for you
I know this is just a showerthought, but what do you define as religion? The term religion doesn’t necessarily need a God.
Or do you mean the 3 mainstream monotheistic religions? (Christianity, Judaism, Islam)
God with a capital G usually refers to “the” monotheistic God that we understand in those three Abrahamic religions you mentioned. usually you would say “god” otherwise, as it’s just a descriptive feature of other religions rather than the name used to call a specific name of “God”.
On the internet? In general I take someone that spells “God” with a capital to be a theist (usually only 2 of 3 monotheistic believes, because Muslims usually use “Allah” probably). Or perhaps raised as a theist, lost their faith, but not bitter against their old faith. while if someone uses “god” they are probably not a theist.
Makes sense to me too: I as a theist would refer to “Thor” as a “god” because to me it is not an entity that exists. It would only make sense for someone that is an atheist to not use a capital to refer to my “God”: They don’t believe it to be a real entity after all.
E: although, I guess fictional characters do use capitals, so maybe I’m wrong.
It has nothing to do with belief(although I’m sure some militant atheists chose to use lowercase universally, they’re likely just grammatically ignorant) . It’s noun vs descriptor. Abrahamic God (and Muslim doesn’t matter either… it’s the same entity in all three) is literally it’s name. A proper noun. In your example of Thor, god is just a description, not his proper name. But Thor is not a good example as he’s actually a demigod, but demigod is never capitalized as there is no god called “Demigod”. Odin is the god of war and the dead… and ruler of valhalla as a more accurate entity to discuss.
God is a god. My god is God. Both of these previous sentences are grammatically correct. The Bible itself even makes these distinctions. Example:
John 10:33-36 (KJV):
33The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. 34Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?Other sources agree.
https://www.learnreligions.com/god-or-god-to-capitalize-or-not-to-capitalize-249823
Other examples of the phenomenon… “The other day, Mom cooked with the other moms.” You call your mom “Mom” as a proper noun. Where mom is a general descriptor for the other women your mom was cooking with. “Is she your mom” vs “Mom is calling for you”.
One of the main reasons the Pope is anti-drag is that he thinks playing fancy dress up times should be reserved for only high members of the Vatican.
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.
