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.
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. That’s not an outdated or childish belief system. You’re conflating Abrahamic religions and mysticism with all religion and you don’t seem to have invested much time in understanding religion as a tool and concept outside of those areas.
Respecting people’s cultures and religion boils down to respecting people - if you believe that people shouldn’t be generally respected then your views are no more developed than that of a selfish child and you are the thing you’re complaining about.
You’re technically right, but the vast majority of religious people fit OPs description and you know it. They’re not talking about people like you.
I actually disagree on the majority. As someone who grew up in the Christian south I’m well aware of the misguided beliefs people can have but a majority of religious practitioners are not extremists and are much more malleable on individual topics and beliefs than many in the atheist community would care to accept - I say this as someone who considered themselves an atheist for a time but stopped when I realized religion has many benefits when used as a tool and any community, including atheists, is prone to having toxic extremism that makes the whole seem worse than it is. Take Islam for example, there are two major divisions of Islam, Sunni and Shia, and most people in the west think the extremist views of the Shia are what most Muslims believe but in all actuality they only make up about 15% of Muslims. The extremists are what get attention, not the majority of folks that use their religion and culture as a tool for living lives they think are good, beneficial or fruitful.
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You’d be surprised how many religious people are also skeptics and scientifically minded, open to changing their minds with new evidence.
Those skeptical religious people need to clean their house then.
What makes you think they aren’t? They aren’t the ones you’re noticing.
“Religion is constantly used…”
Just religion people nothing else…
How do you construct a moral framework with science and statistics? I’m not saying it can’t be done, but I would like to hear how you think it is possible to do so, and how you think we ought to go about it. I have thought about it a little, but I don’t see an obvious way to go about it. That is to say that how you would go about it is not obvious to me. I don’t very well understand what you are imagining.
The following are just ideas you might use as a jumping off point or an example. I don’t expect you to answer all of the questions or anything like that, that would be unreasonable. I don’t have a problem if you don’t touch any of these examples. Just explain how you think we ought to approach this. How would you change the law with respect to murder or assault? How would you change the tax code? How would you change law with respect to financial institutions? How would you resolve the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians? Why is religion impeding us from making these changes?
I’m concerned you seem to imply here that we require some abstract deity to determine what our moral guidelines should be. Take the following hypothetical: if it was proven tomorrow beyond any reasonable doubt that no deity exists or has ever existed and all religious texts were hogwash written by crazed lunatics, would it be ok then to go out and do whatever you felt like, whether that was murder, robbery, or something else?
In other words, is it solely a belief in a deity that is keeping you from going out and committing extremely immoral acts?
To answer your question though, you would use philosophy, of which science and statistics play a role, and common sense. It doesn’t take a genius philosopher to figure out that maybe we shouldn’t randomly kill other people.
I’m concerned you seem to imply here that we require some abstract deity to determine what our moral guidelines should be.
No. That was not my intention. I’m trying to better understand where and why you (or anyone) think religion is holding us back and how we can move forward.
“How do you construct a moral framework with science and statistics?”
How do you construct a moral framework with essentially a book comprised of a roughly translated 2000-year-old telephone game that originated with goat herders in the Middle East? What a total bullshit argument.
Very easily, because the Bible does make moral claims, based on having an external source of morality. Empirical observations cannot. Essentially all moral philosophers agree that an external source of morality (or an embedded source, like naturalistic evolution) is far stronger than trying to shoehorn empiricism into ethics.
What a total bullshit argument.
It isn’t an argument or a rhetorical question.
It’s not just about being an extremist, it’s about applying fairy tale logic to your very real life. I agree with OP, these people need to be shunned.
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Lots really aren’t
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Moral philosophy actually. Opposition to abortion is derived not from the Bible, but from opposition to killing, a sense of duty via effective altruism, and the definition of a human. In fact most “Christian ethics” is not literally derived from the Bible (it’s a wildly ethically inconsistent composition), it’s derived from Aristotelian virtue ethics.
Just because religion has been used to justify bad things doesn’t mean all religion is bad, or even that all bad things are excused by religion. The reasons people do bad things are legion.
Also, just because they use that excuse doesn’t mean it’s the actual reason.
Name one good thing that people could not have done without religion?
Should we apply that logic to Nazi beliefs? I’m not taking sides here, but it’s not so black and white.
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Not relevant.
Taoists have never been accused of cramming their beliefs down other people’s throats. They are obviously not included in the discussion of religions that do do that.
Sure it’s a generalization. That’s the point of memes.
This is just silly. Your group of people has never done anything bad so it’s all okay is never a good argument since people are all pretty much the same (I mean it’s wrong to treat people differently depending on the actions of people within the same wider group)
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Based on the definition of Taoism given in this thread, it’s not even a religion.
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There’s Taoism as philosophy and as religion.
As a philosophy you are correct, there’s no need to have magical thinking.
But pretending that magical thinking is somehow only an ‘Abrahamic’ thing and not part of Taoism is wild, and ignores Taoist texts like A Chart of the Magic Art of Being Invisible from the Han period when the beliefs were promoted under the false promises of acquiring magical powers through commitment to its teachings.
Maybe you don’t believe that cultivating a practice of physical alchemy is going to let you turn invisible or become immortal, but it wouldn’t be true to say that the umbrella of Taoism doesn’t include those beliefs.
The Abrahamic Sadducees in antiquity didn’t believe there was life after death or that a God was watching and caring what people did or didn’t do. But their existence doesn’t negate the Pharisees believing that bringing animals for the priests to slaughter and eat was a cosmic exchange for committing sin. Similarly, less theistic practice of Taoism doesn’t mean that the broader religion isn’t filled with supernatural beliefs.
And no, I agree with OP that there’s no need to respect the belief that you’ll be able to turn invisible.
That’s a huge logical fallacy: one can respect "people’ or even a person themselves without being required to respect a belief system or an individual’s choice to follow its dogma. Secondly, you’re jumping to a number of conclusions on your own, and come off far more judgy than a Taoist, by your definition, should be. Maybe, go touch some grass, tiger.
Lastly, try anti-theism on for size, instead. All gods are a distraction from humanity itself, and are all tools for control. Full stop.
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.
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.
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
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.
I think you have hit on a good point here, and an area society still needs to mature in.
For years we hated the gays, different skin colors, different cultures. We grew past it and came to the (general) agreement of “you do you” as it doesn’t affect me and its not my right to dictate what you feel or who you are. Religion is a significant steeping stone as it does actually affect others and is deeply woven into society and government, but needs to be the same. Your religion is your religion, and you should be free to practice it bound by societys laws and ethics - but it should not affect those who choose the atheist path.
Raised as a Buddhist, I learned that while religions might be a problem of others, whether it’s also your problem is only up to you.
Also: sometimes problems are problems only if you make it so.
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.
If that’s all your “religion” consists of, then I wouldn’t categorize it as a religion. In my view, belief in supernatural processes as a requisite component of religion.
you don’t seem to have invested much time in understanding religion as a tool and concept outside of those areas.
You’re wrong. I know a lot about the benefits of religion–as well as how all of those benefits can be acquired without it.
Respecting people’s cultures and religion boils down to respecting people
No, it doesn’t. I can respect a person who happens to be racist without respecting their racism. Likewise, I can respect a religious person without respecting their religious beliefs.
Respect is for people, not ideas or beliefs.
“All right," said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”
MY POINT EXACTLY.
With all the deserving credits to the late and great Terry Pratchett.
YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?
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Numbers wouldn’t exist in the universe dust but inarguably exist. Pretty prose and storytelling nothing more.
I leave it up to everyone to interpret it, but my personal interpretation is that there probably ain’t no thing such as gods, but there also ain’t no such things as “justice”, “mercy”, “duty”, “good”, or “evil”.
Yet I choose to believe that some acts are better than other.
I believe that helping someone achieve their goals is usually better than hurting them.
Why? Is there a “scientific fact” that makes it true? No, there isn’t. Science doesn’t care if earth is full of life or if it’s a glassed sphere in an infinite void. Both “work” just fine for science.
So my “choice” to prefer one of those is arbitrary (scientifically speaking).
Now why is my believe in that “big lie” any more sane than other peoples believe in the “small lies”?
My belief can’t be scientifically falsified (or proven).
And their belief in a benevolent sky daddy also can’t be falsified or proven.
Science doesn’t care if earth is full of life or if it’s a glassed sphere in an infinite void.
You have a very poor understanding of what science is. Of course it does care, because those two things are different, and the purpose of science is to collect all information there is, discern everything, catalogue all differences of all things.
Yet I choose to believe that some acts are better than other.
That’s simply morality, a human behavior. You needn’t “believe” that morality exists, as humans behave in such a way as to create morality.
So my “choice” to prefer one of those is arbitrary (scientifically speaking).
But the fact you did so isn’t - unless you suffer from a mental illness, you were bound to choose something. That’s simply how your brain evolved.
Now why is my believe in that “big lie” any more sane than other peoples believe in the “small lies”?
Because “sanity” is a measure of how one’s brain behaves as compared to the collective of humankind - how “average” your brain is. Because morality is baked into humanity, it’s sane to make a choice regarding, say, murder being wrong or not. Believing in flying unicorn robots that sing heavy metal, on the other hand, isn’t.
And their belief in a benevolent sky daddy also can’t be falsified or proven.
Fallacy: Non Sequitur. Give me a description of a god, any god, and I’ll disprove them. No god can be described and exist, and a god which can’t be described might as well not exist.
You have a very poor understanding of what science is. Of course it does care, because those two things are different, and the purpose of science is to collect all information there is, discern everything, catalogue all differences of all things.
If all there is a lifeless ball in space, what would science “care”? There would be no one to do science and “science” as a concept can’t care.
But the fact you did so isn’t - unless you suffer from a mental illness, you were bound to choose something. That’s simply how your brain evolved.
And now we’re slowly getting to the crux of the matter: just as our brain evolved to produce morality of some kind, it also evolved to make up stories (grand and small) to try to explain the world.
Some of those “stories” eventually formed into what we now call the scientific method (i.e. try to make sure your stories are verifyable and falsifiable and produce “facts”.
Some of those stories were used as a social tool to develop some shared morality, to agree on which acts were good and which ones aren’t.
And some of the latter category turned into religion.
Because “sanity” is a measure of how one’s brain behaves as compared to the collective of humankind - how “average” your brain is. Because morality is baked into humanity, it’s sane to make a choice regarding, say, murder being wrong or not. Believing in flying unicorn robots that sing heavy metal, on the other hand, isn’t.
Can you seriously look at human history and say with a straight face that religion (and made up stories) aren’t just as “baked into” the human brain as morality is?
It’s one thing to argue that a neutral, as-objective-as-possible brain should disregard religion (and I pretty much agree with that), but it’s an entirely different thing to argue that “humans believing in religion is abnormal” in a historic scale … that’s just being blind to the facts.
And their belief in a benevolent sky daddy also can’t be falsified or proven.
Fallacy: Non Sequitur. Give me a description of a god, any god, and I’ll disprove them. No god can be described and exist, and a god which can’t be described might as well not exist.
Last Thursdayism or the five-minute hypothesis is one great example. They don’t usually mention a god in the common phrasing, but it’s easy to rephrase it to include one: “There is a god that created the universe exactly 5 minutes ago with all the signs and properties that make it look like it’s a lot longer. That god created you and all your memories as well as all the uncountable cosmic radiation rays that have yet to hit earth and everything else as well. After that creation that god stopped interacting with the universe.”. Go ahead and disprove it.
I’m an agnostic atheist myself, but I really don’t understand the obsession of some people with “disproving god”.
If there was any kind of real scientific proof of the non-existence of god, don’t you think that several Nobel prices would have been given out for that by now?
Most current religions have developed to a state where the existence of their god is basically un-falsifiable, because if you can ever prove any specific thing about them wrong, then they can always just use the “gods ways are inscrutable” escape hatch.
That makes any god effectively un-falsifiable. And any theory that can’t be falsified is irrelevant to the scientific method.
It was more, these are all concepts and not provable things.
And what exactly makes them “not provable”?
And how do You answer questions that relate to them?
you can’t do so with pure science, so you need to pick some other system to consider them.
And some people pick ficticious stories about a benevolent sky daddy.
I pick some ficticious idea of human life ha in inherent value.
What basis do I have to judge one of those better than the other? only my own ficticious idea can give me that basis.
The fact that they are all faith based.
With careful study and consideration.
Not in the remotest. I try to believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
And there you go with denigration of those you hate. Keep your bigotry to yourself to get along in society.
No clue what this is actually intended to mean, but you are close with the fictitious idea of human life. For in fact we are nothing but animals that taught themselves pattern matching and now attempt to impose our belief in that pattern on the world.
No one has any basis for anything they belief outside of their own belief. That is the point.
I don’t know why you brought hate into this, for I don’t hate in this regard.
For in fact we are nothing but animals that taught themselves pattern matching and now attempt to impose our belief in that pattern on the world.
Yes, that is exactly my point: there is no “inherent” value in any of this. Without some value system of some kind, there’s no way to know if a given situation or behaviour is good or bad.
And what I’m trying to say is that pure science (as in the ideas behind the scientific method) do not and can not give you that value system. They are as far from having “values” as is possible.
No one has any basis for anything they belief outside of their own belief. That is the point.
Agreed.
Some people just decide to call their own belief “religion” and others don’t.
So telling someone “your made up beliefs are less worthy of consideration than my made up beliefs” doesn’t really have a strong place to stand on.
However, if the argument is “your made up beliefs have effects that go against my made up beliefs” then that might be an argument, but we have to be aware that at the end of the day we’re all dealing with made up beliefs.
If you don’t know why I brought hate into it, perhaps you should think about the subject more before criticizing.
Perhaps, part of your study of “some People” should include your own personal denigration of others.
Numbers are symbolic representation of the concept. Are you really going to pretend that a dust mote has no count?
What is “count”, physically? Precisely, it’s just another concept - it exists only as a perception. Thus, perception itself must be something. I.e. things which aren’t symbolically linked to the stuff that makes the universe also exist.
A dust mote can have 1264 dust particles, whether we invented the number 1264 or not.
Which is completely irrelevant. The universe doesn’t care if a Helium atom has two protons or if there are trillions of stars moving in a galaxy. Those are human concepts which we need to understand the universe.
Unpopular Take:
Having superstition, religion and pseudo-science persisting and thriving in your society turns into systemic problems eventually. Including Genocide.
Why? Because it teaches people anti-empiricism, emotional “reasoning” and essentialising people. All these are the basis for every reactionary thought, conservative brainrot, religious extremism and eventually denying reality.
Studies back this up. Most of the alt-right are very religious, “skeptic” of science or inclined to mysticism. (Remember Ivermectin and Faith Healing? I do.) This shit even goes back to the OG Nazis in the Third Reich. They loved their mystical stuff and pseudo-science.
Why thing thinking pattern leads down the drain is very simple.There is no fundamental difference between between:
People cant be together because of their sign and
People cant be together because of their skin colorBoth times the logic of this methode is the same. No truth, only vibes.
Why we should keep either is beyond me.
Ah, to be 15 again.
Good times. :)Individual people should be offered initial respect as far as they deserve. You don’t have to respect their beliefs but you shouldn’t blatantly attack them either.
As an atheist my biggest fear is that I might somehow affect their faith. It’s not my place to proselytize atheism nor is it to rip someone’s faith away.
Pretty much. I mean if people want to believe and practice various things in their free time, that’s fine as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. But religious beliefs should have no place in government or public services.
Internet atheists, or “message board atheist” are the worst. They’ve managed to change the definition of atheism from simply ‘not believing in deities,’ to ‘generalized hatred of anything that doesn’t support their own personal belief.’
(I’m hoping the irony isn’t lost on anyone here, because to me- that sounds an awful lot like hypocrisy and projection)
True atheism is just not believing in god(s). That’s it. Nothing more. And I say this as a true atheist. So to all you Reddit atheists:
How about you get that smug chip removed from your shoulder and lighten up. We’re all allowed the freedom to believe what we feel to be true. And reserve NO authority to lord it over them - pun fucking intended.
This post reads like it was written by a Fedora that came to life thanks to an incel’s wish.
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I can’t imagine anyone has worn a fedora in at least a decade
Your reply reads like a pearl-clutching religious nut.
Your comment reads like a meme hieroglyph about being butthurt.
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Yeah especially pseudo science. Like I saw a video on isntagram a while back of a Latin American family in the US whose cat was sick and instead of taking it to the vet they were just rubbing an egg on it? Because apparently the egg will soak up the “bad energy” and make the cat better? And all the comments were telling them to just take it to a fucking vet, and saying what they were doing was animal abuse and the poster was just saying stuff like “This is a traditional remedy, you need to respect our beleifs” no. No we don’t.
Here fucking here, I’m so tired of tiptoeing around Christianity and vaccine ignorance.
We should respect the other fellow’s religion, but in the same sense and to a similar extent that we respect his belief that his children are smart and his wife is beautiful.
Respect the human for being an individual human with their own beliefs and ideals.
If they can’t respect the same from you, fuck em.
Yes, you’re correct. I’m a theist, but I 100% agree that magical thinking and superstition don’t have a place in modern society.
The belief that a dead body came back to life and floated into the sky is delusional, and only not seen as mental illness because of its commonality.
Belief that commitment to Eastern practices will let masters hover in the air or turn invisible should be relegated to antiquity.
Beliefs regarding the unknown and immeasurable are one thing, but pretty much every popular religion involves beliefs regarding the measurable that are clearly false, and for it to be socially acceptable to hold those clearly false beliefs opens the door for other magical thinking beliefs like the idea there’s lizard people in skin suits running the world or that aliens built the pyramids or that the earth is flat or that drinking magic water can cure cancer.
Society is struggling with its relationship to truth in the age of social media, and I put much of the blame on religion in fostering the environment for BS to thrive.
We really should be less tolerant of beliefs that actively deny measurable reality.
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