I can‘t respect religious believe from an intellectual point of view and I believe that religion does more harm than good in general.

But, I do respect the opinion that some atheists have, about religion being good for some people and that it can improve their lives.
I strongly disagree but I respect this opinion.

I have recently realized this after watching some stuff about atheism and theism.

i do not at all respect that opinion, i deem it factually false.

1) for any actual benefit that religion can offer, there are non-religious methods that are far more effective and do not require indirectly supporting religious institution. for example: meditation instead of prayer.

2) in the same way that those people are helped by religion, they can be hurt by the same religion. take "using it as moral compass" for example. "thou shalt not kill" is a great commandment, but what was the literally first thing moses did after receiving this very specific instruction? hint: it was not very peaceful.

Religion is an inherent human tendency. You can't escape it
Even if you get rid of every religion in the world, humans will come up with new false gods

@tosensei yes I agree, but a crucial realization for me was that I should make a distinction between if I agree with an opinion and if I respect that opinion. In fact I always have been making this distinction but I wasn‘t aware of it.

@azuredivay Even if I‘d like it to be possible to free the world of religion, I have to agree somewhat.
There will always be religious beliefs.
And it bothers me less now than it used to be.

I could accept religion if it would stay where it belongs: in people‘s personal lives.
Problem is, it‘s in the government and in the politics. It has too much power and it‘s being abused to manipulate and control people.
It‘s also the main driving force of the anti-science movement where people are actively fed with misinformation. Example are denial of the globe earth, evolution, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, etc.

And religions are practically immune to criticism. You can say and do anything, no matter how dumb or dangerous it seems, if you do it in the name of your religion, you get a free pass. If you give any reason other than religion, you are treated like an idiot and you are either ignored or instructed to stop. That is how it should be.

Dear lord, help this spiritually underdeveloped young man.

It's a master of time maybe. Stephen Hawking did acknowledge God in the end :) In your face with your "intellectual blabla".

The most infuriating thing is when people say that you need to respect what other people say or do solely because it‘s their religion.

No you don‘t.
Stupid claims and actions should be called out for what they are, regardless of their roots in a religion or not.

Like when someone says that he needs to amputate one of his fingers to feed it to the pigeons in the park so that the pigeons don’t starve.

If that person then says that it is its religion, then suddenly it‘s acceptable? And not even acceptable but also needs to be respected?
That‘s the insane world that we live in right now.

The thing that scares me most about theists is the way I am playing computer games.

In a computer game, I am confident. In the Batman Arkham games, if a Riddler trophy exists. I know I can get it. Riddler trophy is an obvious trap? I spring it, because something in my arsenal is getting me out of it again. Maybe the floor is going to be electrified, so I just make sure I won't touch the floor. There is a way out.

When I am stuck in games, don't know the way forward, I look for landmarks. Because I know developer design stuff to be looked at. If there is a big tower in the distance, I think it might become important and walk towards it.

And if they ask me to volunteer for a crazy mission, I'll do it, because it is more fun than just sitting around and twiddling thumbs.

I do not believe anything will soft-lock me. That would be bad design. Or give me a final game over.

And that's because I believe in a designer in those games. Believers must feel the same when voting.

@TrayKnots not sure if I understand.
Intelligent design is not the central part of religions. Actually religions have many camps on this question internally. Some of those believe that god just created the universe and then let it do its thing, including the formation of galaxies, our solar system and evolution.

@Lensflare

Sure, let's take the deists with their clock maker god. That's the most hands off version of god we can assume. The engineer who planned out the universe, then sparked it.

That's exactly what a computer game. The programmers and designers are not around when I play it. I am alone. Just their design is here. Their plan. They cannot stop me from running around that pillar 200 times. They aren't here. But, their design is here. And that's enough to be sure that I am confident there is a way out.

And most widely spread religions believe in a more hands-on god than the deists.

The very instant Slotin's screwdriver slipped, he knew he was already dead. It's eerie how you can look perfectly fine but have three days left to live, powerless to change that. But you, me and every other living human being on earth is just like Slotin — walking dead. You just don't know when and where death comes for you, only that she will come.

Knowing that is one thing, but knowing that while scraping salt off of the bottom of a dried out lake for 12 hours a day under scorching sun with your children just to have food is a whole another thing.

There is a reason they say that there are no atheists in the war zone. Less fortunate people need to believe in god to have at least something to help them cope with the hell they see every day and the dread they feel for the day it all ends.

If I tell them to just tough it out on their own without god, I would feel like certain conservative subgroups that tell people rejected by society to "just start a business or something".

@kiki What is more cruel: To lie to people and let them believe in god so that they can endure better their miserable existence, or to tell them the truth?

I‘d say that the former is more cruel.

Theists like to claim that without believe, there can only be desperation, hopelessness and insignificance.
But any atheist that you ask will tell you otherwise. Our lives are not less fulfilling than those of theists, we just don’t draw meaning from fairy tales but from whatever that we find to be meaningful, which is a personal and individual thing.

@kiki and btw that‘s exactly how religion was used in the past to abuse people and make them do whatever the mighty people wanted.

The people would work themselves to death for the mighty and rich. And they would willingly accept and endure it because they believed in a better afterlife where they would be rewarded for their struggles.

That‘s disgusting.

@Lensflare I too want truth over lies, and I agree that religion was and is still used to exploit people, but abolishing that exploitation is a societal responsibility, not personal one. The truth is, the higher the education rate/living standards are, the fewer people get into religion. And despite things like Russia-Ukraine war and what happens in Gaza, the world as a whole keeps moving towards education/disease eradication/better living. If we don’t destroy ourselves/the climate, in a few hundred years time, religion will be studied in museums, not churches.

Oh, I almost forgot about death. It’s universal, it doesn’t discriminate, it comes for everyone. Do you expect every single person to just live with that dread?

Religion has its time and place. Are wars/repressions/exploitation on religious premises bad? Yes. But blaming religion here is like blaming the gun instead of the shooter. Those who oppress will find their justification regardless.

@kiki you don‘t have to be dreadful of death. Death should be talked about to take the fear out of it, not lied about.

Religion is not the only answer to fears and suffering. And it‘s a very bad answer.

Often religion is even the source of fears and it uses fear as a tool to spread itself. Like that famous threat of eternal torture in hell if you dare to not believe in god.

> Religion has its time and place.

If it ever was true (which I‘m not sure about), this time and place is long gone.

@Lensflare some Mexicans still fear death despite their state of the art death-related celebration traditions, so we’re yet to find the universally appealing, accessible and reliable way to not fear death.

The time and place for religion might be long gone where the most fortunate of us exist, but certainly not where I’m from.

Again, the world in general gets more developed/open-minded and less religious. I too agree that religion simply isn’t needed in a society where everyone is included, no one is discriminated against, everyone is reasonably healthy and the inequality is minimal, and we do observe that in practice.

Our difference is perhaps that I value peace over truth. I don’t think that the world can survive another war to end all wars, or a worldwide consciousness revolution. I’m willing to settle for The Good Enough thing that works reasonably well. Maybe this is why I use JS and avoid pure functions.

Religion is a theater of the class war and it can be used to defend every ideology and its opposite - fascism, conservatism, progressivism, pacifism, anticolonialism, hell, there even was a christian sect that believed in living like adam and eve, so naturism.

Spiritualities exist. Religion are structure and thus only exist in our minds, the exact same way as science does. Science and rationalism are good to predict and explain the world of course. It's useful from a practical point of view. From a spiritual point of view though, it's once again, neutral. Free yourself from fake duality and start living life to the fullest.

@antigermgerm

> Spiritualities exists

I call bullshit. Spiritualism is just religion, less well defined, less organized. Less work. It is more bullshit than religion. It is weak and doesn't even have thesis about the world.

It is some, something here, maybe, bigger than me, energy goes through everything, cycle, do or do not, there is no try, wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff.

And it does not get separate treatment from organized religion. It's a weaker thesis, further in the dark, less willing to debate.

@kiki that‘s the thing that I was referring to in this rant: I see that you have this opinion that religion can be good for some people in some time or part of the world.
And I respect this opinion.

But I disagree because I don‘t think that you need to choose between truth or peace.
And I think that truth brings more peace than the lies of religion.

Atheism won‘t solve all of the problems, but it will solve more than religion does.

@Lensflare

> religion can be good for some people in some time or part of the world

That's actually a fair question and one that both theists and atheists do not clarify enough.

We need to differentiate between:

Is religion doing good? That could have categories like: Good for addicts. Good for the poor. Good for communities. A net good influence on the world.

And the other question: Is religion real. Every religion poses a thesis how the universe works. If it is turtles all the way down or a guy rode on a winged horse into heaven, it is a thesis about the universe.

We have to acknowledge that those two questions are unrelated. It can be false and we are still evolved to get psychological comfort from it or it can be social glue. My personal hypothesis: It provides reducible complexity for memetic evolution.

So, we have to binary questions and that means 4 possible combinations of answers.

@tosensei moses after that: do as I say, not as I do.

@Lensflare what evidence is there to say that one particular religion isn't the truth. It's likely the fact that there's so many religions with so many fragmentations but not concrete proof that every one of them is a lie.

We likely rely on religions and beliefs less these days because we have easier lives and have more understanding of the world we live in but that's not evidence of no God. I couldn't imagine living in a time where I could get a small cut while doing an everyday thing and die from it because there's no medical knowledge. Why would a superficial cut kill me? It could be something bigger than me if I don't know about bacteria or viruses.

@cmarshall10450

That's true.. But there is also no evidence of no anti-God. An anti-God is a godlike entity, that if it exists in the same universe as a God, would immediately eradicate the God and itself, leaving the universe free of gods or magic.

@cmarshall10450 yes, the multitude and variety of religions suggests that none of them holds the truth. I never had a different opinion about this.

@TrayKnots yes the questions if a religion has truth in it and if it is useful/does good are different (but not completely independent).

I can imagine something good coming from a lie. But I refuse to believe that there are no better options which utilize truth or at least knowledge rather than lies or fairy tales.

I‘m seeing it like with Santa Clause. We tell those lies to our children to make them happy, which is a good thing. But doing the same thing to grown up people? That‘s disrespecting the intellect of them. Humanity seems like it doesn‘t want to grow up.
If you think that‘s a bad comparison, I challenge you to point out to me why.

@Lensflare

Challenge accepted.

> But I refuse to believe that there are no better options which utilize truth or at least knowledge rather than lies or fairy tales.

This is a statement of what you wish, rather than truth.

> If you think that‘s a bad comparison

Claim: All false believes are bad.

Prove: Santa Clause is bad for adults.

You cannot prove by singular example. I, on the other hand, just require a single counter example, to shatter this.

False believe: "We are one being. We have control over ourselves."

Why false:

- Check decision making studies. Decisions are made before conscious awareness.

- Check split brain studies, when hemispheres are split, our other side will react to orders, yet, we will make up reasons for why, because we have not realized researchers communicated with our other brain half.

The lie of the single entity is defined as the healthy brain state. It is good.

Lighthearted split brain: CGP Grey: Your are two

Tolerance is difficult but usually worth it

@TrayKnots the challenge was to point out how the believe in the existence of Santa Clause is different from the believe in the existence of God. :)
(Or why is it a bad comparison/analogy)

@MammaNeedHummus tolerance is a bitch. Now I gotta smoke almost a gram to get buzzed

@TrayKnots in my view religion is just the social aspect of spirituality. Religion is the toilet and spirituality is the poo.

@TrayKnots and atheists are constipated

@Lensflare

How is it different to believe in Santa Clause?

The answer is being found in memes. Are you aware of Dawkin's original meme?

Basically, meme compete for brain time. They behave like genes, but are independent. (Their independence is often challenged, but Dawkin has good arguments based on celibacy.)

Memes must survive against other memes. As a children meme, it has a different niche. That's how it is different.

But that's the same difference as believing solipsism is wrong. Different memetic niche. And I assume, you and I agree that solipsism is wrong and that this is purely based on a believe, and nothing else?

@antigermgerm

Whatever... Idc, spiritualism and religion are the same for me, even though I liked your flowery poetry.

@TrayKnots Sorry I‘m not able to follow your reasoning. I‘m vaguely familiar with Dawkin's memes but I fail to see the connection here.
Obviously Santa applies to kids and that‘s what makes it niche, but that‘s the question: Why is it that believe in Santa is something for kids and believe in God is not?
If one fails to explain WHY it‘s different (not just HOW), one has to conclude that religion is nothing more than a fairy tale for kids and grown up people should be asking themselves why they don‘t believe in Santa but they believe in a God.

@Lensflare

If I gave you a specific, would you not just say, but we could do that for Santa?

Let's assume I said: "We build bombastic buildings for worshiping gods."

You would probably say: "What if we build bombastic buildings for Santa, wouldn't that work?"

And I would answer: "Sure, but now you don't have the observation anymore, that Santa is not good for adults. That was based on the current situation and must be reevaluated, which is near impossible, because that's just a theoretical and religions are practical and we still argue, but hey, sure."

So, after Santa told us, whether we are allowed to masturbate or whom we are allowed to marry and whom not, whether pork is okay and what to do when we fail to follow an arbitrary list of rules and how to show our devotion, forming an in-group of believers insulated against the rest, I guess at that point, nothing differentiates Santa from religion.

Before that, all the points I just mentioned and more.

@TrayKnots santa exist. Who else would bring me food every morning?

@antigermgerm

I thought the same thing. But it turns out, that white-bearded fat guy, that's actually the head shrink of the asylum. And those people bringing the food, those are just orderlies. They are malnourished because of the cost of living crisis and not because they are elves.

I know, I was just as shocked as you are.

@Lensflare ppl in general are too stupid to live with the truth. Educated people aren’t, so there are more atheists among them