Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy the beauty of the morning. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church,” he recalled.

Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades.

“Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches. “I can’t buy into that,” he said.

  • paddirn@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    124
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    I don’t mind people going to Church and practicing their religion, as long as they stay in their lanes and they’re not trying to force their religious beliefs on everybody else. Trying to better yourself and your community is great, there’s a ton of really nice people out there who go to Church and are just all around good people. It’s all the assholes that think their belief trumps everyone else’s rights that need to eat shit.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        18
        ·
        1 year ago

        None of my family were pilgrims. I don’t think you can just ignore the tens of millions of immigrants from Europe who weren’t pilgrims

        • vonbaronhans@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          40
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          I think their point is that the pilgrims set the cultural precedents for what would later become America, to which later immigrants would be beholden.

          I don’t know how true that is, but I think “protestant work ethic” is at least one example of that sort of thing.

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            17
            ·
            1 year ago

            The Pilgrims didn’t come here first (of the Europeans). They were beaten by multiple different European groups.

            Like, not just “would they have wanted to” but would the Native population have repopulated the shoreline by then and repelled any settlers like they did the vikings?

            I don’t know. Why don’t you ask the French traders that came before or the Spanish pushing upwards from the entire continent they had control over?

            The pilgrims were successful at gaining a foothold because they showed up in a place and time the local population had mostly just died off from sickness and the survivors initially helped the pilgrims.

            Not relevant to your argument. Also I am fairly confident you are mixing up the Pilgrims and the Purtains. But hey facts don’t matter anymore so believe whatever you want.

    • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      32
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      “Staying in your lane” is the exact opposite of what Christians and Muslims are explicitly ordered to do. Convert acquisition is the primary objective of both faiths.

        • Konala Koala@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Well, I heard somewhere that it is written in the bible that those who scorn the bible will be visited by apocalypse, fire, earthquake, and flood which will obliterate your cities, but for those who believe in the bible will save themselves and find true redemption.

          And I also heard somewhere it may have also stated in the Bible that the power and the greatness of God cannot be denied. Those who reject the Path to enlightenment must be destroyed.

        • M0ty@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          It talks to Jews in ancient Israel about gods of nations that surrounded them.

            • M0ty@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              5
              ·
              1 year ago

              Good job on discovering dispensationalism. About LGBT, there isn’t a single place in Bible, old or new testament where isn’t put in a positive light

              • SuddenlyBlowGreen@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                6
                ·
                1 year ago

                About LGBT, there isn’t a single place in Bible, old or new testament where isn’t put in a positive light

                That’s just simple not true.

                In the old testament it says that all homosexuals must be killed, and in the new testament that homosexuals cannot go to heaven.

                How is that a positive light?

      • electrogamerman@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Exactly this.

        Dont forget the part about having as many children as possible and convert them too.

        There is no religion telling their servants to love their children even if they are not religious.

    • kromem@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      1 year ago

      Honestly while I get that the whole “you do you” mantra is the politically appropriate line these days…

      No, I’m fucking not ok with people practicing their religions.

      I’m really not ok with people telling their children that it’s not only possible for dead bodies to get back up and float up into the sky, but that it 100% happened and is the only reason they aren’t going to suffer eternally.

      I’ll not ok with getting together to talk about how men are inherently better than women and that it was fine that an old dude raped a 9 year old because she was mature for her age.

      I’m not ok with passing along the instructions that who your parents were defines an appropriate social caste for the rest of your life based on the supposed mechanics of resurrection.

      These are not appropriate things for a modern society, and honestly I’m tired of pretending that it is fine.

      Yes, I think the right to have the government not interfere in religion is important, but that’s a separate issue from whether or not I’m ‘fine’ with the superstitions from an age when people peed on their hands to clean them continuing to be given a social pass purely out of respect for ancestral tradition.

    • electrogamerman@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      The thing is the whole purpose of religion is to force beliefs into others to attract them into the religion and make them pay money. THAT’S LITERALLY WHY RELIGIONS WERE INVENTED.

      There is no “Im religious but I let other live their lifes.” They are constantly being told to invite friends and family to convert them and to have 10 children, so the children can be converted too.