Religion is just ceremony and doctrine surrounding belief.
A bit like having cake and a party, because you believe the earth completing a lap of the sun dated from the day of your birth is worth celebrating.
Or having someone arrested and taken to court and sent to prison for stealing from you, because you and many others in society believe in concepts like personal property, and justice, and morality. You know, all those things you believe in that definitely exist, even though you’ve never seen a photo of morality, or seen a scientific study proving that justice exists. But they must do because old books say so, and so do your peers, and anyway our whole society would fall apart if people stopped believing in them.
Humans, simply put, are weird. We’re a species composed of mental disorders unique to us and nothing else in nature. To single out religion as being especially weird and worthy of contempt is… well… a bit weird and worthy of contempt, IMO
Bread, wine, communion, annual religious festivities are also all real. Gods may not be real, but neither are a lot of human concepts. Good, evil, justice, aesthetics, mathematics, class, debt, trust, freedom… any number of things we believe exist but do not have any physical presence in the universe, no proof outside of human inference and intuition (and the occasional bit of paperwork) that they exist.
They all, however, have their uses, and their effects are made manifest by our actions, for good and ill.
“Those who dance are thought insane by those who cannot hear the music”
So celebrating murder is the benchmark for insanity? Public executions used to draw big crowds, nothing to do with religion. Armies still give ceremonial medals for particularly inventive or brave killing, again, nothing to do with religion. Luigi Mangelone is celebrated by many for murder… admittedly the murder of a corporate ‘hands off’ serial killer, but still - its celebrating murder.
Again, I say, people are strange enough already - religion is barely even the icing on the cake.
I’m not so much defending religion as opposing your point of view that it’s a marker of insanity. In fact, most things that bring people closer together as a cohesive community are positive, whether that’s hobbies, interests or beliefs. Its only when it spills into doing harm to others that it becomes a problem (e.g. in certain aspects of sports, nationalism, and religion) but I still don’t think it’s a greater marker of ill mental health than a lot of other things we take for granted
Then allow me to refine my point to specify organized religion’s teachings. Sure, many develop a community, but they develop a community that specifically judges and ostracizes anyone not conforming to their extremely narrow belief system.
Most of organized religions leverage those negative aspects to further control their ‘flock’. There are many aspects that are outright horrible for individuals, not the least of which is believing things for the simple fact that an authority said so.
I’m not against people building community. I am very against people building insular, hierarchical, tyrranical systems that brainwash people into foolish or down right horrible behavior.
The Jehovah’s Witness are pretty bad for all that… as are Scientologists, a load of cults, Elan Schools, and arguably even the military and manosphere. Many of these don’t necessarily bring religion into things.
Our shared objection is the human capacity for imposing power, subjugation and control of others. Where we differ is that Religion is any more a factor in that than anything else.
I’ll grant you there’s probably quasi-religious elements to more cults across history than not, mind. I guess its an easier path than most to abuse of power, if you can convince people and even more powerful entity is on your side
Religion is just ceremony and doctrine surrounding belief.
A bit like having cake and a party, because you believe the earth completing a lap of the sun dated from the day of your birth is worth celebrating. Or having someone arrested and taken to court and sent to prison for stealing from you, because you and many others in society believe in concepts like personal property, and justice, and morality. You know, all those things you believe in that definitely exist, even though you’ve never seen a photo of morality, or seen a scientific study proving that justice exists. But they must do because old books say so, and so do your peers, and anyway our whole society would fall apart if people stopped believing in them.
Humans, simply put, are weird. We’re a species composed of mental disorders unique to us and nothing else in nature. To single out religion as being especially weird and worthy of contempt is… well… a bit weird and worthy of contempt, IMO
Cakes, parties, planets, the Sun, rotation, years, are all real. Your gods aren’t.
Bread, wine, communion, annual religious festivities are also all real. Gods may not be real, but neither are a lot of human concepts. Good, evil, justice, aesthetics, mathematics, class, debt, trust, freedom… any number of things we believe exist but do not have any physical presence in the universe, no proof outside of human inference and intuition (and the occasional bit of paperwork) that they exist. They all, however, have their uses, and their effects are made manifest by our actions, for good and ill.
“Those who dance are thought insane by those who cannot hear the music”
Yea go ahead and get back to me when a birthday party involves killing someone and celebrating it.
So celebrating murder is the benchmark for insanity? Public executions used to draw big crowds, nothing to do with religion. Armies still give ceremonial medals for particularly inventive or brave killing, again, nothing to do with religion. Luigi Mangelone is celebrated by many for murder… admittedly the murder of a corporate ‘hands off’ serial killer, but still - its celebrating murder.
Again, I say, people are strange enough already - religion is barely even the icing on the cake.
Yea people are crazy, so why would you defend something that makes them even less attached to reality??
I’m not so much defending religion as opposing your point of view that it’s a marker of insanity. In fact, most things that bring people closer together as a cohesive community are positive, whether that’s hobbies, interests or beliefs. Its only when it spills into doing harm to others that it becomes a problem (e.g. in certain aspects of sports, nationalism, and religion) but I still don’t think it’s a greater marker of ill mental health than a lot of other things we take for granted
Then allow me to refine my point to specify organized religion’s teachings. Sure, many develop a community, but they develop a community that specifically judges and ostracizes anyone not conforming to their extremely narrow belief system.
Most of organized religions leverage those negative aspects to further control their ‘flock’. There are many aspects that are outright horrible for individuals, not the least of which is believing things for the simple fact that an authority said so.
I’m not against people building community. I am very against people building insular, hierarchical, tyrranical systems that brainwash people into foolish or down right horrible behavior.
The Jehovah’s Witness are pretty bad for all that… as are Scientologists, a load of cults, Elan Schools, and arguably even the military and manosphere. Many of these don’t necessarily bring religion into things.
Our shared objection is the human capacity for imposing power, subjugation and control of others. Where we differ is that Religion is any more a factor in that than anything else.
I’ll grant you there’s probably quasi-religious elements to more cults across history than not, mind. I guess its an easier path than most to abuse of power, if you can convince people and even more powerful entity is on your side