We’re in the 21st century, and the vast majority of us still believe in an utterly and obviously fictional creator deity. Plenty of people, even in developed countries with decent educational systems, still believe in ghosts or magic (e.g. voodoo). And I–an atheist and a skeptic–am told I need to respect these patently false beliefs as cultural traditions.

Fuck that. They’re bad cultural traditions, undeserving of respect. Child-proofing society for these intellectually stunted people doesn’t help them; it is in fact a disservice to them to pretend it’s okay to go through life believing these things. We should demand that people contend with reality on a factual basis by the time they reach adulthood (even earlier, if I’m being completely honest). We shouldn’t be coddling people who profess beliefs that are demonstrably false, simply because their feelings might get hurt.

  • CarlsIII@kbin.social
    132·
    1 year ago

    As a Taoist, I don’t believe in any deity and my beliefs boil down to letting people be who they are meant to and want to be and supporting them as much as I can in their personal journeys.

    I’m not familiar with Taosism, but the way you described it doesn’t in any way sound like a religion to me, but rather a philosophy.

    • stringere@reddthat.com
      1·
      1 year ago

      Poly-theistic and non-theistic Taoism exist. Buddhism, too.

      Got me curious so I looked up non-theism:

      Nontheistic traditions of thought have played roles[1] in Buddhism,[10] Christianity,[11][12] Hinduism,[13] Jainism, Taoism, Creativity, Dudeism, Raëlism,[14] Humanistic Judaism,[15] Laveyan Satanism, The Satanic Temple,[16] Unitarian Universalism,[17][18] and Ethical culture.[19]

      Sorry the citation links didn’t come through.

      In other matters I’m going to spend the next little while reading about Dudeism and abiding.

      • CarlsIII@kbin.social
        3·
        1 year ago

        I believe you, but the way they described it, it doesn’t sound like a religion at all. They basically said “I don’t believe in any gods and people should be free to live how they wish”; that’s very much the opposite of religion

      • lunaticneko@lemmy.ml
        1·
        1 year ago

        Not an authority but I was raised as a Buddhist child. Just clarifying a little here. Yes, Buddhism is non-theistic, in the sense that it does not regard any being as supreme. (Not even the Buddha.)

        In Buddhism, heavenly beings exist but they are not supreme or authoritative. They are also subject to old age, decay, death, and reincarnation. Basically they’re just another part of cosmology, and of course you get reborn into different things.

        In fact, there are instances where heavenly beings asked the Buddha for advice. Of course those are just tales, but it kinda illustrates hoe Buddhism works.

        But they are no gods and have no authority over man.