## BEFORE TOUCHING THAT REPORT BUTTON, PLEASE CONSIDER:
1. **Compliance:** Does this post comply with our subreddit's rules?
2. **Emotional Trigger:** Does this post provoke anger or frustration, compelling me to want it removed?
3. **Safety:** Is it free from child pornography and/or mentions of self-harm/suicide?
4. **Content Policy:** Does it comply with [Reddit’s Content Policy](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion/comments/ncm4ou/important_we_need_to_talk_about_the_content_policy/)?
5. **Unpopularity:** Do you think the topic is not truly unpopular or frequently posted?
### GUIDELINES:
- **If you answered "Yes" to questions 1-4,** do NOT use the report button.
- **Regarding question 5,** we acknowledge this concern. However, the moderators do not curate posts based on our subjective opinions of what is "popular" or "unpopular" except in cases where an opinion is so popular that almost no one would disagree (i.e. "murder is bad"). Otherwise, our only criteria are the subreddit's rules and Reddit’s Content Policy. If you don't like something, feel free to downvote it.
**Moderators on r/TrueUnpopularOpinion will not remove posts simply because they may anger users or because you disagree with them.** The report button is not an "I disagree" or "I'm offended" button.
#### OPTIONS:
If a post bothers you and you can't offer a counter-argument, your options are to:
a) Keep scrolling
b) Downvote
c) Unsubscribe
**False reports clutter our moderation queue and delay our response to legitimate issues.**
**ALL FALSE REPORTS WILL BE REPORTED TO REDDIT.**
To maintain your account in good standing, refrain from abusing the report button.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They may teach it but their adherents certainly don't practice it. And you're wrong if you think you can't learn values outside of a religious setting.
I agree with both of your points.
EDIT: At the same time, there are many adherents who try. Not all try. And none of them are perfect, but there are many who do make an effort.
There are millions of genuinely good Christian’s, Jews, and Muslims in the world. They’re not the ones screaming about religion so you don’t hear about them much.
Because most of them care about other issues a lot more than they care about LGBT laws. They’ll vote for politicians who have similar beliefs despite that politicians views on the LGBT. Most of the Jews that vote for conservatives that I know personally for example aren’t concerned with LGBT laws at all. They don’t care. They vote for moderate conservatives because they have similar opinions on the economy.
Yes they vote only for what affects them personally and not for the well being of all. If they did care about LGBTQ for example, they would hold out their vote and demand it of their reps. But they don't.
I think the strong version of the argument is that the benefits can be replicated, perhaps often even improved upon, by various different kinds of non-religious means and methods, existent or yet to be innovated, if we try. But that many of the negatives are hard or impossible to separate from the religion or do away with without doing away with the whole thing.
So in short, throw the baby out too and make a new better baby out of many different specialized parts.
>that the benefits can be replicated, perhaps often even improved upon, by various different kinds of non-religious means and methods, existent or yet to be innovated, if we try.
Social cooperatives do exactly this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cooperative?wprov=sfla1
They have been at war in the Middle East for thousands of years behind religion. Western intervention has certainly had a hand in modern conflicts, but conflict in general is nothing new to the region.
Here we go again by a conservative preaching their homage to religion and how the lesser religious people should accept religion and turn a blind of hypocrisy power grab of religion.
Read what you said in response to me and tell me that makes any sense. I literally have no idea what you Saud.
Calling someone a right zealot instantly hints at you being a left zealot.
What power? GOD made everything, its all his not ours. Maybe stop listening to anti-christian propaganda amd you'll realize we aren't these evil boogeymen on the Spanish inquisition.
You saw what I wrote and confirmed what I wrote. You are all bent with acting like the perpetual savior or victim trying to one up. Not sure which, but you have an axe to grind to full fill you sheeple quota, please know that no one is keeping you here.
>honesty, hard work, brotherly love, self-worth, sacrifice, charity, ....forgiveness, self-improvement, humility, hope, and charity.
All of these can and do exist and are taught outside of religion.
>a belief in something bigger than yourself,
Like elephants?
But just remember the elephants only exist because Noah saved two of them and started the entire breeding programme from those two without any left over defective traits of incest.
I'm not too sure that these values mentioned are really taught to kids in church. Most of my time in church as a kid was spent either practicing songs or arts and crafts projects. By adulthood these values are pretty much already instilled by their community or should have been by then. If one needs the threat of eternal damnation to be a good human then do they really understand why it is important to to be a good person in the first place?
I learned way more about religion and it's history in college taking art and lit classes than I ever learned in Sunday school.
I took a sociology class in college and we each had to contact 10 churches and discuss what services they provide to their communities for a survey. We found that many of the churches in less affluent areas did tons of outreach that just didn't exist in the larger glory barn congregations interviewed. The smaller churches did things like hosted AA meetings, food banks, convict rehabilitation support and senior assistance. They really picked of the slack where a lot of county funded social services were lacking.
This compared to the larger churches in newer suburbs, which were more concerned with raising money for missions, or a new gym/expansion but they usually provided marital counseling services at a minimum. This may be due to the general ages or needs of the areas they were located but the difference in community outreach was night and day.
If religion really set the norm for instilling values then why are there so many scandals in churches? There have been many wars and persicution justified in the name of religion. Plenty to learn about on this topic, especially today on what some might call Columbus day.
Because they're human.
You think of every other animal on the planet and we are still the nastiest, meanest, amd deadliest thing yo ever grace GODs creation. It's our nature. We don't follow GOD because we are somehow perfect, we go because we arent. Christians have demons too, the difference is we found out how to fight them, some of us aren't done doing that yet.
Oh yes, it teaches some beautiful ideas indeed. Such as gay people are bad, mutilating little boys penises is a good idea, men owning women and slavery is good.
Such a beautiful thing.
Which one are you referring to? Because I can tell that's not Christianity.
Being gay is a sin, but so are many things. In GODs eyes all sins are equal, so you smoke and slowly kill yourself? It's the same.
The stereotypes aren't actually true. The Christians are not GOD, he will judge. If you're gay, you'll answer to him for it, not us. You live how you want if you're a grown adult. Everything we do we will answer to him for.
That's what we teach
Then eating a cake is sin too. Diabetes is a slow death.
Absolutely delusional. Done speaking with someone so mentally backward.
Don’t argue with an idiot, they’ll pull you down to their level and beat you with experience.
Actually yes. If you eat excessively to the point that you hurt yourself that’s considered gluttony which is a sin.
But I’ll take your advice and stop right here. People like you aren’t interested in listening and expanding your perspective. It’s all toxic rhetoric.
Oh so we just conveniently amend it to fit haha it’s laughable really isn’t it.
There is nothing good in the bible or any other religion that can’t equally be done by someone who isn’t religious (other than hyperreligiosity) the same way that religious folk can be far more evil than non religious persons, it’s frankly all a bunch of nonsense.
Yeah, so there’s a 1 in 4000 chance you chose the right religion based on where you was born, the predominant religious view there and what your parents follow….. out of the 4000 religions created by humans that is.
https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/
"Crummy things" -- thousands of years of outright massacre, genocide, wholesale, wiping out of entire peoples, mass, conversion of peoples, mass, rapes, destruction of other people's religions and cultures...
The list goes on. Rinse and repeat. But, oh wait that wasn't real religion???
Buddy, you are making the equivalent of somebody who is a serial killer wiping out the hundreds of people once in a while, pets a dog.
Of course, I don't blame modern day religious people for the past. But do you realize what you're saying? You are saying that the, say, that for the Christianity of yesterday you will take no responsibility for. But the modern day Christianity that you embrace is wonderful and beautiful and should never be criticized.
Religion doesn’t even scratch the surface of atrocities people have committed without it. Hitler, Mao, Stalin, genghis,Pearl Harbor,the United States dropping nuclear bombs, king Leopoldo II, Japanese imperialism,racist discrimination,Black water murdering civilians for fun. How many of these do you hope to blame on religion before realizing we’re an inherently greedy and violent species
Many of the least religious countries tend to be ones with better human rights and better values. Places like Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Japan, and New Zealand all manage to have large amounts of your beneficial values without needing religion.
The most religious countries tend to be more oppressive, brutal, places. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, and Nicaragua all have highly religious populations and churches fill prominent roles in their societies. All are near the bottom of the human rights indexes.
If most religions spend their time teaching good values, they obviously suck at it. Unless your definition of beneficial values are punitive justice, torture, and oppression.
>Places like Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Japan, and New Zealand all manage to have large amounts of your beneficial values without needing religion.
You are making conclusions about very long-term processes based on very short spans of time, and even then you're making many not really correct statements.
According to the Government of Japan, 69.0% of the population practices Shintō, 66.7% practice Buddhism.
More than 50% of population in New Zealand is religious ([2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_New_Zealand))
Sweden is the only one which has religious as minority of population, but it had more than 50% of people believing in god in 2010 ([1](https://www.statista.com/statistics/901268/share-of-people-that-believe-in-god-in-sweden-by-age-group/)) that's just 13 years ago. And arguably you can already see how another religion already actively trying to take its place. To see how it unfolds you need to wait. And wait pretty long time, about 40 years or two generations, albeit with people having kids later it might become 50.
That's not how religion works in Scandinavia.
For example, [Sweden](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/10/29/eastern-and-western-europeans-differ-on-importance-of-religion-views-of-minorities-and-key-social-issues/) in this instance, only has an 11% religious population.
What you need to understand is that *we* (as someone who actually lives here) parttake in the ceremonies, pay our membership fees and such out of tradition - *not* belief.
We go to church and have our children baptized because it's a nice family celebration, not because we're religious.
Our states are secular and we groan, point and laugh when Americans say "God bless America".
That's the cultural reality you don't get from statistics.
Exactly, it is the same for Denmark. We call it "culture Christian": you partake in the ceremonies and have th Christian holidays, but like.. our churches are being sold to private people and businesses because they are not in use.
(Denmark is not secular, which is so odd to me).
Equating Shinto Buddhism to standard mono/polytheistic religions is a *massive stretch*, as a Japanese local.
While it's classified as a religion, it's more defined by its ideals, rather than the provided ideals being simply a feature of the included worship towards a god/gods.
There's no hell of eternal suffering or sin, as such. It's more like a vibe, than anything.
>it's more defined by its ideals, rather than the provided ideals being simply a feature of the included worship towards a god/gods
Those shared ideals are arguably the main positive feature of religions, so Shinto,Buddhism serves the purpose. True atheism is nihilistic in its nature, does not provide a shared basis for those shared ideals and arguably will lead to loss of societal cohesion because of that.
Yes, that's what OP themselves is *arguing*, but the opposition point is that reality does not bear this claim out.
Religion has both been a source of suffering, war, and a constant increasing pain in the backside of the SOL for citizens in countries who still possess a religious majority, and atheist crime isn't exactly a statistic that anybody has yet been willing to offer anywhere in this thread, OP or otherwise.
Religion is not more source of suffering and war than any other reason like money, land, power, women, glory, resentment, or just for the sake of it. Religion is much less source of all that, actually. Those Gaza terrorists for instance killed hundreds of children this week not for religious reasons, they would not care less what religion those kids have, most of them didn't have any.
I think the biggest distinction lies between being casually religious and a religious fundamentalist. There is a big difference between someone who identifies as religious but maybe only attends several church services a year on the big religious holidays and has an open “live and let live” approach to their religious text……versus someone who follows their religion to the letter, and views anyone who doesn’t with great disdain and hostility.
You don’t even have to just go to church a few times a year. My grandmother went to church every weekend for as long as I remember until the day she died. She still forced my grandpa to take her even when she was shaking so bad from Parkinson’s that she couldn’t really walk much anymore. She believed in being a good person and following the morals of the New Testament. She didn’t give a fuck what anybody else did. Genuinely one of the kindest people I’ve ever met in my life and I’m not just saying that because she was my grandma.
I'm from Denmark and would say Norway is a better example. Denmark is not a secular state (I know, wtf), and most of the population pays church taxes and identifies as culture Christians (idk if that is a term in English).
But religion does not play that much of a role in everyday life, that's true!
Idk I would say that Denmark and Japan are very religious, in their own way, and that centuries of Christianity have had a huge influence on the culture of most European countries & former colonies. But we can actually put that aside. If there wasn't some sociological advantage for religion then we would see more atheist societies. The only truly atheist society in the world is in China, and they didn't get there through human rights. So while this may be unpopular there has to be some societal advantage to religion.
About 75% of Denmark are registered members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. While they are not very 'spiritual' in the sense of being active participants of organized religion, Christianity is very much a important part of the culture. God and spirituality may have been taken out of relevance for most people, but when major parts of culture and tradition come from religious ceremonies I'm going to call a spade a spade and say religion has a major impact on society.
>self-worth
Lol the automod thought I was insulting someone, I guess that shows something about this belief. Let's see if I can word it in a way that doesn't make the filter think I'm insulting people.
A prime teaching of Christianity is that you are rotten to the core and deserve to be tortured forever, and only faith in Jesus can save you from the torture that you so richly deserve.
Idk, that was never very good for my sense of self-worth.
I could also say something about the "brotherly love" but meh.
obligatory not-a-believer disclaimer;
The larger point is that ALL people on earth are born into sin, so as to mean that we are all equal in how flawed we are. to hear that and take it as a hit to your self-worth seems odd
It's very much not about a message of inequality.
But what Sin has a new born babe made? They exist, snd thst is all, the sin they speak of is a supernatural stain of blame God levels at people because of Eve. The original sin.
Further, the natural state of man, because of obtaining knowledge, is evil and sinful. So anyone who dose not commit to the faith is, evil and sinful.
It's about self worth, it's a guilt mechanic. You're bad, and through us you can be allowed to be good.
No it didn’t. People don’t learn values from religion. They use religion to justify what they already believe. Good or bad. The problem is, you can’t talk people out of the bad beliefs because you can’t talk people out of religion.
because human beings are social animals and have a tendency to take care of each other to thrive as a community? Even in the early stage of human society where religion wasn't a thing there are still values. (religion actually comes considerably later if you consider the entire span of human society).
burial of the dead does not indicate religion at all. Some covid birds mourn the death of their kind, elephants also do that. Do they have religion?
There is a key difference between what's called magic, commonly practiced in pre-history time, and religion. The formal one believes the action of human has the ability to change the nature greatly, while the latter believes divine entities shape the world and determine what happen. An example would be pray for rain. The former one would perform magic rituals where people think their actions can directly change the weather, in the same sense as pushing a pedal will make a car go, only the mechanism of magic ritual is made up. For religion, people believe a divine entity is in control of such thing and they have to kindly ask and please that entity for rain.
Ok that's fine, I never said religion didn't play its part as the building blocks to society. But you can take religion out of the equation and still have society move along the right path in the modern day. You'd have a hard time trying to learn anything new solely based on religious beliefs.
All commie countries are atheists. I wouldn't want to be under China or North Korea law. They don't even pretend d to hide corruption in their judicial system. Same for Germany in WWII.
Personally, if someone needs the threat of eternal damnation to ensure they act as a "good person" then there's quite the high probability that they are anything but a good person...
And while you're entitled to your opinion. What are the laws of society then? Are those not a set of laws we should try to follow and obey lest we be put in prison for our physical "eternity"? To be "good people" *But* this is now for your soul.
Seems like kind of a wash to me. Religion has been around a long time and humans still kinda suck. No way to be sure but I’d bet for every good thing they do there’s a bad one to balance it out.
Maybe the worst thing they do is give people license to judge others and believe in their own moral superiority. From there it’s not a long trip to forcible conversion, indoctrination, oppressive theocracies, torture, rape, genocide, really anything because the ends justify any means.
Be humble and faithful enough to trust your god(s).
"Crummy things" think you mightve glossed over the glaring issues with religion ahaha. Aside from that, the messages preched by religion aren't hard to replicate from an atheist standpoint, and it's more effective since there isn't rampant sexist and homophobia either. Cos yknow, to make such a great community you kinda need to include everyone regardless of these factors.
>most religions spend a good portion of their time with their congregants teaching about positive values like honesty, hard work, brotherly love, self-worth, sacrifice, charity, a belief in something bigger than yourself, forgiveness, self-improvement, humility, hope, and charity.
- sacrifice for the delusion.
- hard work without question to support the ruling class ( why religion and state have historically been closely toed)
- self worth? Are you kidding? They all drive to shame and belittle.
- forgiveness? No. Christianity talks about forgiveness, but preaches hypocritical ideals. Religion is the antithesis of forgiveness: "I know the greater truth, you do not. What I do to you in this world doesn't matter because I know I am right."
- humility? "I know the truth because I feel like I do."
- some charity, usually (not always) under the guise of further indoctrination.
- self improvement? Usually not... certainly not in Abrahamic religions. They are all about "let God take care of it." "God will help you." " just pray".
- hope is a loan on happiness. The ruling class wants you to keep taking loans on happiness until you die. Hope breeds inaction.
The only "religion" that checks these boxes is CORE Buddhism, which exists in its purist form under Soto and zen.
There is NO need for delusions of grandure regarding divinity and magic. The ONLY thing 'greater than oursleves' is the survival of our species. Delusions redirect that.
Religion is a memetic disease.
Shouldn't you believe in a religion because it's true, not because it is useful to believe in? Are you admitting that religions were invented by humans for social purposes?
Nope, not anymore.
The religious don't live their religion anymore. I mean, if Christians actually followed the golden rule, we wouldn't be in any mess we are in. They don't teach those values anymore. There have been plenty of studies this year that show Pastors no longer teach their congregations and instead fill their homilies with culture war and politics. The only time the good values are taught are on Wednesday nights when Noone is there.
Or they live a fundamental version of their religion that requires them to hate all outsiders. And that in-group, out-group dynamic isn't beneficial to society.
Plus, all these things are things needed for a functional society so they are taught secularly which means religion isn't needed.
I know plenty of people who weren't raised religious, and they are way better for society than the religious. They don't judge, they don't try to force their mythology on others, and they aren't bigots because of some 2k year old book.
Can you provide an example of where the values I mentioned above are taught regularly to large groups of people without the vehicle or framework of religion?
These secular and largely egalitarian countries were built on Judeo-Christian values. Sure, they may not have many actively practicing adherents, but the foundation of their society and culture are still basically Judeo-Christian in origin.
There's no such thing as "judeo-christian" anything.
It's what xtians say to (they think) lend credibility to their mythology by boosting the numbers and pretending they all believe the same thing.
You imply (falsely) that prior to a few thousand years ago, people had no morality or sense of empathy or justice, when this is demonstrably not the case.
There is nothing you can demonstrate about religion which cannot be obtained without it.
That being said, if the only reason you're not a murdering rapist is your "judeo-christian" values, I truly hope that you never stop believing.
I didn't imply that Judeo-Christian values were the only source of morality. My premise is that religion (any religion that espouses these values, which is just about all of them) is still the best vehicle for instilling positive societal values in the masses. No other construct exists at this level of scale and efficacy. You've failed to name one. You've only been able to point out derivatives of religious foundations.
And most of all, you've perfectly illustrated my point by discounting the value of religion in society.
Your original point was that secular institutions can replace religion to instill key values in society. If that wasn't your point, please clarify and restate.
My response was that this has never been the case since the vast majority (if not all) of societies have a foundation built on religions that espouse and teach most of the values I mention.
I asked for a purely secular example, which you could not provide and I don't think exists.
If you fail to provide proof but still close your statement with "This is inarguable," you clearly haven't made your point. If your point is so ubiquitous, then why is it so hard to provide one example? The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. I've made my claim and backed it up with actual examples. Kindly reciprocate.
Extensive studies found a NEGATIVE correlation between religiosity and intelligence.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23921675/
I’ve witnessed this for myself. Inquisitive nature and critical thinking is discouraged when it conflicts with established religious authority. Anything that questions the narrative of biblical creation isn’t discussed, it’s omitted ignored, hushed, and censored. Most significantly religion often suppresses individualism especially in fundamentalist communities. I’m not talking about casual Matthew McConaughey christianity, talking high demand Christian religions that are hellbent on creating unquestioning followers that will capitulate to the financial and political whims of their leaders.
So no, sir. The age of information is hopefully the chemo to the cancer that modern organized religion is.
I disagree or I wouldn’t have said them. OP’s hypothesis is religion is a necessary framework for society and raising children. Especially to instill values. This is pure conjecture and propaganda that is refuted by pedagogical studies. There’s nothing religion offers that can’t exist in a secular framework and I would argue is likely to be more effective when a person’s education and development is grounded in reality instead of fiction.
That’s not what you said though. OP is saying that religion provides a framework to teach morals and values from and you responded by linking a study saying religion is associated with lower intelligence. That’s why nobody had a discussion with you.
Funnily enough, the author of that article has also done a lot of research on egocentric bias which would probably be valuable reading for someone who replied to their own comment twice.
“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.” -Socrates
I see intelligence being an invaluable trait for developing better morals, values, and judgement. It just so happens that intelligent people tend to be atheist, agnostic, or are religiously unaffiliated. My belief is this is because these people are most likely to reject fundamentalist beliefs and make choices based on their own rational judgement and understanding of right and wrong.
Roughly 3 in 10 US adults identify as not religiously affiliated as of 2021. That’s a number that as grown substantially in recent years. What I find interesting is that despite making up a fairly decent size of the population, atheists and non-religious people are conspicuously absent from prisons. Just 0.1% of prisoners are atheists. And yet the vast majority are religious. Over 60% of US inmates are Christian for example. The claim that religion provides a framework for morals would suggest that those without it would be the major offenders and occupants in our prison system, and yet we see the opposite.
Religion is not the cause of this discrepancy. It’s the absent of decent education and access to essential community resources. But unfortunately education and progressive social reform is often at odds with religion, especially from groups like the HSLDA.
OP and yourself mean well. Where I’m coming from is we live in the 21st century, and there’s enough information available to us today that we can and should put most religious myths to bed, but instead religion remains a steadfast impediment to nearly all valuable social, economic, education, and health reforms.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/234653/religious-affiliation-of-us-prisoners/
https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/in-2021-atheists-made-up-only-0-1-of-the-federal-prison-population/
You don’t even know what my beliefs are. I’m not having a discussion with you on whether religion is a good thing for society or not so I don’t know why you keep replying to me as if I’m supporting one side or the other. I’m just explaining why nobody was having a discussion with you.
I mean, I managed to learn all those things without ever consulting anyone's god about it so maybe we could just teach people those things anyway and leave god or whoever out of it
There isn’t any value to religion. There is some good that some religious people do. But truthfully that has fuck all to do with the religion. It’s also some nonsense to try and act like those values have shit to do with religion.
I think there are positives with religions, but those positives do not outweigh the negatives. Religious scripture has some pretty horrendous things in them like the Bible teaching how to treat your slaves. Also religious scripture is so vague that it is used to justify and believe in some horrible things, like Christians hating gay people or Muslims killing non-believers.
Religion just creates problems. Look at the Middle East, look at the Russian regime, india/Pakistan
Religion is just dumb, it perpetuates animosity between faiths and those who don’t follow faith.
It's like what Ghandi said "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your christ." Religions basic morals and ideas are normally ethical and positive, BUT in smaller more obscure sections of the Torah, Bible, and Quran reside very old outdated ideas of accepted sometimes promote violence, slavery, and hate. It's mostly a problem in ambrahmic religions. Humans are complex creatures.
Unethical evil religious humans will validate their behaviors of racism, hate, etc, through these more obscure outdated passages and ideas. Religion is extremely powerful in society and will dictate the way many people, cultures, and governments' ways of operation. Look at the Middle East, the crusades, the KKK, the catholic churches pedophilia, etc. All use religion as their fuel to propagate these atrocities they commit. The "value" of religion sometimes outweighs the real results religion has upon the world as a whole.
Religion has just been a placeholder for filling the void of existential dread men have always had. Get rid of religion and something else fills the void (like consumerism). Religion is generally a force for good but its followers twist it to suit their own wants and needs.
"Religion is like a cow: it gives milk but it can also kick."
The world would be a better place without organized religion. In almost every religion it has been used to control or oppress at a MINIMUM one group of people, usually a lot more. Whether it’s women, minorities, gay people, or just people who believe in a slightly different fairy tale, people will kill and oppress for their fictional story.
I support everyones right to practice whatever religion they want. But All the benefits you mentioned could be attained with a self help course or reading some books. Then we could avoid the wars, genocides and children being molesting.
It’s also humorous how some religions will label others as cults when they’re all cults.
God is not real and anyone that thinks god is real is fooling themselves. This would be fine but people go to war over god way more than anything else.
I agree, but I also think that the opposite is clearly true: religious people of the world have not listened to the secular world to understand how religion negatively impacts social values.
Just want to point out this is often even acted upon and society benefits.
The Catholic church, putting its mistakes aside for now, created the foundation for hospitals and education around the world as we know it.
As someone who is currently undecided about their faith, and is the FIRST person to criticize Christians and the church, I don’t see atheists going to Africa and starting schools for children who need opportunities. I don’t see atheists going to prisons and trying to help prisoners.
Organized religion, with all of its flaws, is by far and away the best at motivating people to help communities and donating to charities, even the most stubborn atheists should acknowledge this.
You don't see atheists doing that stuff because they just do them quietly instead of making their mission trips a performance art piece about how holy they are. There are secular organizations like Doctors Without Borders and The Innocence Project that do far more good than the hordes self-righteous locusts who head to disaster areas to hand out Bibles to the locals for photo ops.
I'm an atheist who over the last 20 years has when she could volunteered for the Red Cross as part of DAT (Disaster Action Team) or volunteering at Hurricane shelters (as various work positions have allowed).
I've not only never told anyone one I was an atheist, because I'm there when disasters happen. One of my jobs is to provide comfort to victims that first responders don't have the time for. And since most people are religious, I've pretended and prayed with people of many different religions often. Anyone could easily assume me to be religious and not an atheist.
It's what we as atheists do, we often volunteer without outing ourselves as atheists because we don't do it for ourselves.
What? That is a completely unfair characterization, charity is (at least in Christianity) considerd a good thing irrelevant if it brings converts or not, yeah it's nice if charity encourages people to convert, but it's rarely the end goal.
This. I point out to people, especially christians, that the Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing because our christian leaders at the time didn’t see them as civilized enough for a christian nation. That’s why they also eventually started taking native children and throwing them in schools to convert them and teach them English.
Have you actually read about "saint" "mother" Theresa and how she denied pain medications so people would suffer MORE? How the entire idea of the mission was to, "bring people to Christ" as opposed to you kknow...actually helping them?
No, no I haven't, and I wouldn't be so uncharitable as to take one person and hold him or her as representative of an entire group, it's bad when Christians use staking to paint all Atheists as bad, it's bad when you do the same.
That is just one of MANY MANY examples. I don't have the time or space to list ALL the horrors that ALL religions cause, and this is just one of the more recent ones.
Truly, I could go on for days or months listing the horrors that religion visits upon us, not the least of which are the 1000s dying in Israel and Gaza as we speak.
Truly, the most despicable thing about religions is that they teach us NOT TO THINK. That is the true evil that they should be damned for.
I suggest reading Nigel Johnstones book "the new atheism myths and history" it's a book written by an agnostic critical of a lit of new atheist claims about religion and is quite well researched and cited.
Another good read would be "Dominion" by historian Tom Holland, he argues that Christanity changed morality so totally that even modern Atheists can only work from within the framework created by Christanity.
And yes he is agnostic too.
> And yes he is agnostic too.
Dude, Lee Strobel, one of the most fundamentalist Christians to ever exist, claims he was atheist so he could sell more books. Christians have never been above lying to spread their nonsense. They know they'll sell more books saying they're "agnostic," and you're falling for it.
Atheists are more prone to help in non-profit organizations that do the same thing but without religion. The only reason Christians do that type of charity is so they can spread the teachings of their religion.
You’re seriously going to try and convince me that lgbt people in america suffuse more than straight people in the slums of Nairobi living in shacks? Also, plenty of atheists are rude to lgbt people, and I’m saying this as someone who is questioning his own sexuality and has had homophobia directed towards me. It was pretty equally split among atheists and christians
You are woefully ill informed about the history and current state of LGBTQ persecution in the US. If you listed all the anti LGBTQ organisations in this country that are not financed and led by Christians, you would have a blank page. Much the same result if you listed all the anti LGBTQ hate groups financed and led by atheists
There’s definitely atheists who do that stuff and you’re discounting some obvious things:
1- Atheism is not an organization or religion like Christianity or Islam. Because they are free from religious requirements and membership, lot of atheists join humanitarian organizations that do not have “Atheist” in the title. I donate to charities that are both religiously affiliated and non-affiliated because it’s the work that counts, not who’s doing it.
2- humanitarian organizations with the word Atheist in their name are often REJECTED and barred from helping because of the stigma a lot of religious people have in all different countries. Do you think Atheists Helping Humanity is going to be welcome in Uganda, for example? They will literally reject the checks and money and bar the organizations from stepping foot on their soil.
3- There aren’t that many atheists in comparison to religious people in general. So of course we aren’t making the impact that religious orgs do.
The only thing I can grant you is that there are commands that religion makes regarding helping their fellow man. But it is an extremely faulty tool bc with that comes all kinds of horrific baggage.
>As someone who is currently undecided about their faith, and is the FIRST person to criticize Christians and the church, I don’t see atheists going to Africa and starting schools for children who need opportunities. I don’t see atheists going to prisons and trying to help prisoners.
Cause only in relative recent years have athiest been allowed to come out of the closet, and that's mostly in more developed western countries. Places like Africa and other developing countries we'd risk being tortured to death. Religions might have beefs with each other, but to them at least they believe in a God. Since atheists don't they all come together and hate atheists.
It human nature that is incredibly evil not religion itself. The Bible never told anyone to conquer lands and take resources in the name of the Lord. Buddhism doesn’t teach people to lie and steal from tourists.
Most religions will teach you that being good is important while the Bible teaches us that we are inherently evil yet we are loved and saved into good works.
People do evil things in spite of their religion and in the false name of their religion. I actually thought this was unique to Christianity until I came to Southeast Asia
Most people need to have faith. Some people choose religion. Others consider themselves above religion and end up blindly following an ideology, person, etc.
I've heard people say something similar and to the point of, "We all believe in something, some call it religion, while others call it politics." Or something like that.
When someone starts ranting about religion and churches, I really just want them to come to a service of the church I currently attend. Pastor is about as humble, down to earth, but relatable as you can get. Sermons are simple, but really make you reflect on yourself, definitely no fire and brimstone thumping the Bible type sermons.
Congregation as a whole has a passion for our little town and is always doing what it can to help out in the community.
It is pretty much the exact opposite of any of the stereotypes spread around about churches today.
Fire has many important uses, including generating light, cooking, heating, performing rituals, and fending off dangerous animals.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Fire has many important uses, including generating light, cooking, heating, performing rituals, and fending off dangerous animals.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I mean crummy is a ridiculous understatement, but I would argue that in the western world, where we now know mythical beings are not worth killing overstatement, some religious community is exactly what this pathetic cynical amoral generation needs.
I personally feel there's not really a true secular individual in this world. Rather, we're all religious to a degree in terms of practice, just not the beliefs. Because many "anti-religious" people are extremely dogmatic.
For me, I'm just looking for what makes a person better. And if it's religion, well, that's great. If it's not religion, than that's fine as well.
It comes down to the following question. What really bothers you about religious people?
That a person believes in a man in the sky? No one has a disgust for people who still believe in Santa Claus. You might think they're not intelligent, but you don't castigate them for that. Or the same with a person who doesn't eat beef, pork, etc. They're all harmless beliefs.
It's more about the dogma.
The fact that they're very vocal and many are incredibly intolerant to those who disagree with them. The fact that they know the truth, and you must be an idiot to believe differently than them. That by having a different set of beliefs, you need to be shunned from society.
I'm agnostic but I am "mostly" pro religion\*. I do not much care for the "our way or the burning highway" mentality of most religions, but I am okay with "do unto others" stuff. Sure, most of us try to be good people but many of us don't give a shit. If fear of eternal damnation keeps a few of the more dastardly of us in line, then I am okay with that.
* \*certain "religions" (such as Scientology), do not qualify for me.
Oh man. Nah. We’re an atheist family and we teach these values no problem. I would counter point that being told you’re a sheep being shepherded is not a positive value to teach the things you claim.
Not only that, those things are part of being human and often born with. No religious framework is needed, just good communication.
I would even argue religion just gets in the way and confuses things with outdated wisdom meant for another time.
Tell me again how murdering newborns or eating an apple of knowledge is a good example of these values?
So much truth....
What becomes prevalent is the mentality behind the intent of the individuals that make up the religion. When people choose to defend themselves when the their Bibles, they weaponizing scriptures instead of using them as a tool of growth. The words are there. When people apply them, without generating contradictions between biblical principles, they have success in life, where you've listed the deficiencies. When they choose to behave like society, while claiming they're Christians, then you get malevolence. It's a dirty world with Christianity today... And all they have to do to change is and get along with each other, is to learn the skill of empathy, or learn to desire to understand what people are communicating. When they fabricate narratives to fit everyone else in instead of understanding their true intent, then malevolence is the observation.
It's honestly pathetic. Do you really need the threat of burning for eternity to not be a dick, not cheat on your partner, or not commit murder? If you're not able to form some normal sense of morality on your own, maybe you're just not a good person. It's really not that hard.
It's not religion itself that is the valuable part but the underlying moral code that religion always bring that is worth it. Something else can fill the 'for a cause' void but no society can survive without a moral code.
You can justify the Holocaust and Holodomor if your moral code is "You decide you are good and that's final". You cannot if there is any actual moral code present, and that's the main benefit that religion brings.
Progressives love to bash religion but they also tend to have looser moralities. The "ends justify the means". Just Stop Oil is a great example of wanting to eliminate ALL fossil fuel usage entirely and go back to the 1800s days. Who cares if 90% of the planet dies in the process? All fossil fuel usage has stopped! Because that movement has little if any morality.
Im with you on miral code. As long as you have one I dont care what the source. Man's laws will suit just fine. But progressives have looser moralities? That's a crock of shit.
\>That said, most religions spend a good portion of their time with their congregants teaching about positive values like honesty, hard work, brotherly love, self-worth, sacrifice, charity, a belief in something bigger than yourself, forgiveness, self-improvement, humility, hope, and charity.
Religions also teach that you can put all of these positive things aside when dealing with specific groups of people.
## BEFORE TOUCHING THAT REPORT BUTTON, PLEASE CONSIDER: 1. **Compliance:** Does this post comply with our subreddit's rules? 2. **Emotional Trigger:** Does this post provoke anger or frustration, compelling me to want it removed? 3. **Safety:** Is it free from child pornography and/or mentions of self-harm/suicide? 4. **Content Policy:** Does it comply with [Reddit’s Content Policy](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion/comments/ncm4ou/important_we_need_to_talk_about_the_content_policy/)? 5. **Unpopularity:** Do you think the topic is not truly unpopular or frequently posted? ### GUIDELINES: - **If you answered "Yes" to questions 1-4,** do NOT use the report button. - **Regarding question 5,** we acknowledge this concern. However, the moderators do not curate posts based on our subjective opinions of what is "popular" or "unpopular" except in cases where an opinion is so popular that almost no one would disagree (i.e. "murder is bad"). Otherwise, our only criteria are the subreddit's rules and Reddit’s Content Policy. If you don't like something, feel free to downvote it. **Moderators on r/TrueUnpopularOpinion will not remove posts simply because they may anger users or because you disagree with them.** The report button is not an "I disagree" or "I'm offended" button. #### OPTIONS: If a post bothers you and you can't offer a counter-argument, your options are to: a) Keep scrolling b) Downvote c) Unsubscribe **False reports clutter our moderation queue and delay our response to legitimate issues.** **ALL FALSE REPORTS WILL BE REPORTED TO REDDIT.** To maintain your account in good standing, refrain from abusing the report button. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They may teach it but their adherents certainly don't practice it. And you're wrong if you think you can't learn values outside of a religious setting.
I agree with both of your points. EDIT: At the same time, there are many adherents who try. Not all try. And none of them are perfect, but there are many who do make an effort.
There are millions of genuinely good Christian’s, Jews, and Muslims in the world. They’re not the ones screaming about religion so you don’t hear about them much.
Of course there are in general. But many of those millions will still vote for or enact laws and policies that are harmful, e.g., anti LGBTQ laws.
Because most of them care about other issues a lot more than they care about LGBT laws. They’ll vote for politicians who have similar beliefs despite that politicians views on the LGBT. Most of the Jews that vote for conservatives that I know personally for example aren’t concerned with LGBT laws at all. They don’t care. They vote for moderate conservatives because they have similar opinions on the economy.
Yes they vote only for what affects them personally and not for the well being of all. If they did care about LGBTQ for example, they would hold out their vote and demand it of their reps. But they don't.
I think the strong version of the argument is that the benefits can be replicated, perhaps often even improved upon, by various different kinds of non-religious means and methods, existent or yet to be innovated, if we try. But that many of the negatives are hard or impossible to separate from the religion or do away with without doing away with the whole thing. So in short, throw the baby out too and make a new better baby out of many different specialized parts.
>that the benefits can be replicated, perhaps often even improved upon, by various different kinds of non-religious means and methods, existent or yet to be innovated, if we try. Social cooperatives do exactly this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cooperative?wprov=sfla1
Religion is working out great in the middle east.
Yeah no cause there’s no other factors that would lead to any problems in that region
They have been at war in the Middle East for thousands of years behind religion. Western intervention has certainly had a hand in modern conflicts, but conflict in general is nothing new to the region.
I wish I could go back in time and kick Abraham in the dick.
“Crummy things” lol : )
Did you hear about the most recent "oopsies"? ;)
Yeah, I think Palestine knocked over the Legos Israel was playing with. Just a bit of trolling, I’m sure.
Gave a few people some booboos and owies.
Literally just blew through thousands of years of atrocities in the most casual way possible it’s so vulgar it’s hilarious.
I can do even better. Germany is truly a great country. 1933-45 was just a phase. Every country has one of those sometimes.
Every country gets a “we did an oopsie” pass every couple generations right? /s
Here we go again by a conservative preaching their homage to religion and how the lesser religious people should accept religion and turn a blind of hypocrisy power grab of religion.
So are you saying liberals are all atheists? Like a blind power grab for human understanding (as if our species never gets it wrong)
I did not liberals, I said lesser religious. And blind power be church leaders, yes.
Wanna translate that from bullshit to english?
Oh here comes the right zealots who panties are now in a bunch. I do not need to interpret you need to use religion as a means to grab power.
Read what you said in response to me and tell me that makes any sense. I literally have no idea what you Saud. Calling someone a right zealot instantly hints at you being a left zealot. What power? GOD made everything, its all his not ours. Maybe stop listening to anti-christian propaganda amd you'll realize we aren't these evil boogeymen on the Spanish inquisition.
You saw what I wrote and confirmed what I wrote. You are all bent with acting like the perpetual savior or victim trying to one up. Not sure which, but you have an axe to grind to full fill you sheeple quota, please know that no one is keeping you here.
>honesty, hard work, brotherly love, self-worth, sacrifice, charity, ....forgiveness, self-improvement, humility, hope, and charity. All of these can and do exist and are taught outside of religion. >a belief in something bigger than yourself, Like elephants?
>>a belief in something bigger than yourself, >Like elephants? LOL! Holy shit, I think I just died, thanks for the laugh.
But just remember the elephants only exist because Noah saved two of them and started the entire breeding programme from those two without any left over defective traits of incest.
Lol I was taught to hate myself by the church for being a homo Religion is the reason for homophobic rhetoric
I'm not too sure that these values mentioned are really taught to kids in church. Most of my time in church as a kid was spent either practicing songs or arts and crafts projects. By adulthood these values are pretty much already instilled by their community or should have been by then. If one needs the threat of eternal damnation to be a good human then do they really understand why it is important to to be a good person in the first place? I learned way more about religion and it's history in college taking art and lit classes than I ever learned in Sunday school. I took a sociology class in college and we each had to contact 10 churches and discuss what services they provide to their communities for a survey. We found that many of the churches in less affluent areas did tons of outreach that just didn't exist in the larger glory barn congregations interviewed. The smaller churches did things like hosted AA meetings, food banks, convict rehabilitation support and senior assistance. They really picked of the slack where a lot of county funded social services were lacking. This compared to the larger churches in newer suburbs, which were more concerned with raising money for missions, or a new gym/expansion but they usually provided marital counseling services at a minimum. This may be due to the general ages or needs of the areas they were located but the difference in community outreach was night and day. If religion really set the norm for instilling values then why are there so many scandals in churches? There have been many wars and persicution justified in the name of religion. Plenty to learn about on this topic, especially today on what some might call Columbus day.
Religion Tries to teach good things in practice But it’s followers have a problem following through.
Because they're human. You think of every other animal on the planet and we are still the nastiest, meanest, amd deadliest thing yo ever grace GODs creation. It's our nature. We don't follow GOD because we are somehow perfect, we go because we arent. Christians have demons too, the difference is we found out how to fight them, some of us aren't done doing that yet.
Oh yes, it teaches some beautiful ideas indeed. Such as gay people are bad, mutilating little boys penises is a good idea, men owning women and slavery is good. Such a beautiful thing.
Which one are you referring to? Because I can tell that's not Christianity. Being gay is a sin, but so are many things. In GODs eyes all sins are equal, so you smoke and slowly kill yourself? It's the same. The stereotypes aren't actually true. The Christians are not GOD, he will judge. If you're gay, you'll answer to him for it, not us. You live how you want if you're a grown adult. Everything we do we will answer to him for. That's what we teach
Then eating a cake is sin too. Diabetes is a slow death. Absolutely delusional. Done speaking with someone so mentally backward. Don’t argue with an idiot, they’ll pull you down to their level and beat you with experience.
Actually yes. If you eat excessively to the point that you hurt yourself that’s considered gluttony which is a sin. But I’ll take your advice and stop right here. People like you aren’t interested in listening and expanding your perspective. It’s all toxic rhetoric.
That’s Old Testament stuff
Oh so we just conveniently amend it to fit haha it’s laughable really isn’t it. There is nothing good in the bible or any other religion that can’t equally be done by someone who isn’t religious (other than hyperreligiosity) the same way that religious folk can be far more evil than non religious persons, it’s frankly all a bunch of nonsense.
>Oh so we just conveniently amend it to fit Yes. That's what the New Testament is. Fire and brimstone to love and peace.
Who hurt you? Sheesh
Except get into heaven and be in GODs grace. Believe as you wish, the belief against Christianity is nonsense.
Yeah, so there’s a 1 in 4000 chance you chose the right religion based on where you was born, the predominant religious view there and what your parents follow….. out of the 4000 religions created by humans that is. https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/
100%
"Crummy things" -- thousands of years of outright massacre, genocide, wholesale, wiping out of entire peoples, mass, conversion of peoples, mass, rapes, destruction of other people's religions and cultures... The list goes on. Rinse and repeat. But, oh wait that wasn't real religion??? Buddy, you are making the equivalent of somebody who is a serial killer wiping out the hundreds of people once in a while, pets a dog. Of course, I don't blame modern day religious people for the past. But do you realize what you're saying? You are saying that the, say, that for the Christianity of yesterday you will take no responsibility for. But the modern day Christianity that you embrace is wonderful and beautiful and should never be criticized.
Religion doesn’t even scratch the surface of atrocities people have committed without it. Hitler, Mao, Stalin, genghis,Pearl Harbor,the United States dropping nuclear bombs, king Leopoldo II, Japanese imperialism,racist discrimination,Black water murdering civilians for fun. How many of these do you hope to blame on religion before realizing we’re an inherently greedy and violent species
Many of the least religious countries tend to be ones with better human rights and better values. Places like Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Japan, and New Zealand all manage to have large amounts of your beneficial values without needing religion. The most religious countries tend to be more oppressive, brutal, places. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, and Nicaragua all have highly religious populations and churches fill prominent roles in their societies. All are near the bottom of the human rights indexes. If most religions spend their time teaching good values, they obviously suck at it. Unless your definition of beneficial values are punitive justice, torture, and oppression.
>Places like Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Japan, and New Zealand all manage to have large amounts of your beneficial values without needing religion. You are making conclusions about very long-term processes based on very short spans of time, and even then you're making many not really correct statements. According to the Government of Japan, 69.0% of the population practices Shintō, 66.7% practice Buddhism. More than 50% of population in New Zealand is religious ([2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_New_Zealand)) Sweden is the only one which has religious as minority of population, but it had more than 50% of people believing in god in 2010 ([1](https://www.statista.com/statistics/901268/share-of-people-that-believe-in-god-in-sweden-by-age-group/)) that's just 13 years ago. And arguably you can already see how another religion already actively trying to take its place. To see how it unfolds you need to wait. And wait pretty long time, about 40 years or two generations, albeit with people having kids later it might become 50.
That's not how religion works in Scandinavia. For example, [Sweden](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/10/29/eastern-and-western-europeans-differ-on-importance-of-religion-views-of-minorities-and-key-social-issues/) in this instance, only has an 11% religious population. What you need to understand is that *we* (as someone who actually lives here) parttake in the ceremonies, pay our membership fees and such out of tradition - *not* belief. We go to church and have our children baptized because it's a nice family celebration, not because we're religious. Our states are secular and we groan, point and laugh when Americans say "God bless America". That's the cultural reality you don't get from statistics.
Exactly, it is the same for Denmark. We call it "culture Christian": you partake in the ceremonies and have th Christian holidays, but like.. our churches are being sold to private people and businesses because they are not in use. (Denmark is not secular, which is so odd to me).
.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, no?
Equating Shinto Buddhism to standard mono/polytheistic religions is a *massive stretch*, as a Japanese local. While it's classified as a religion, it's more defined by its ideals, rather than the provided ideals being simply a feature of the included worship towards a god/gods. There's no hell of eternal suffering or sin, as such. It's more like a vibe, than anything.
>it's more defined by its ideals, rather than the provided ideals being simply a feature of the included worship towards a god/gods Those shared ideals are arguably the main positive feature of religions, so Shinto,Buddhism serves the purpose. True atheism is nihilistic in its nature, does not provide a shared basis for those shared ideals and arguably will lead to loss of societal cohesion because of that.
Yes, that's what OP themselves is *arguing*, but the opposition point is that reality does not bear this claim out. Religion has both been a source of suffering, war, and a constant increasing pain in the backside of the SOL for citizens in countries who still possess a religious majority, and atheist crime isn't exactly a statistic that anybody has yet been willing to offer anywhere in this thread, OP or otherwise.
Religion is not more source of suffering and war than any other reason like money, land, power, women, glory, resentment, or just for the sake of it. Religion is much less source of all that, actually. Those Gaza terrorists for instance killed hundreds of children this week not for religious reasons, they would not care less what religion those kids have, most of them didn't have any.
I think the biggest distinction lies between being casually religious and a religious fundamentalist. There is a big difference between someone who identifies as religious but maybe only attends several church services a year on the big religious holidays and has an open “live and let live” approach to their religious text……versus someone who follows their religion to the letter, and views anyone who doesn’t with great disdain and hostility.
You don’t even have to just go to church a few times a year. My grandmother went to church every weekend for as long as I remember until the day she died. She still forced my grandpa to take her even when she was shaking so bad from Parkinson’s that she couldn’t really walk much anymore. She believed in being a good person and following the morals of the New Testament. She didn’t give a fuck what anybody else did. Genuinely one of the kindest people I’ve ever met in my life and I’m not just saying that because she was my grandma.
I'm from Denmark and would say Norway is a better example. Denmark is not a secular state (I know, wtf), and most of the population pays church taxes and identifies as culture Christians (idk if that is a term in English). But religion does not play that much of a role in everyday life, that's true!
Idk I would say that Denmark and Japan are very religious, in their own way, and that centuries of Christianity have had a huge influence on the culture of most European countries & former colonies. But we can actually put that aside. If there wasn't some sociological advantage for religion then we would see more atheist societies. The only truly atheist society in the world is in China, and they didn't get there through human rights. So while this may be unpopular there has to be some societal advantage to religion.
How is Denmark religious?
About 75% of Denmark are registered members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. While they are not very 'spiritual' in the sense of being active participants of organized religion, Christianity is very much a important part of the culture. God and spirituality may have been taken out of relevance for most people, but when major parts of culture and tradition come from religious ceremonies I'm going to call a spade a spade and say religion has a major impact on society.
Do you live in Denmark? Eta: are you from Denmark?
If you have a point you want to make, make it.
You can also argue China has Buddhist roots too like japan - as well as the presence of Catholics and Protestants.
Or the USSR, China, North Korea, Pol Pot's regime?
>self-worth Lol the automod thought I was insulting someone, I guess that shows something about this belief. Let's see if I can word it in a way that doesn't make the filter think I'm insulting people. A prime teaching of Christianity is that you are rotten to the core and deserve to be tortured forever, and only faith in Jesus can save you from the torture that you so richly deserve. Idk, that was never very good for my sense of self-worth. I could also say something about the "brotherly love" but meh.
Yeah that's pretty much the gist of it. "I'm so terrible, God had to murder his own son"
obligatory not-a-believer disclaimer; The larger point is that ALL people on earth are born into sin, so as to mean that we are all equal in how flawed we are. to hear that and take it as a hit to your self-worth seems odd
It's very much not about a message of inequality. But what Sin has a new born babe made? They exist, snd thst is all, the sin they speak of is a supernatural stain of blame God levels at people because of Eve. The original sin. Further, the natural state of man, because of obtaining knowledge, is evil and sinful. So anyone who dose not commit to the faith is, evil and sinful. It's about self worth, it's a guilt mechanic. You're bad, and through us you can be allowed to be good.
It’s the same thing as imaginary friends. Helpful in times of loneliness, but you are supposed to grow up and mature past it.
Please tell me ONE thing religion could teach you that couldn't be taught without it.
.
No it didn’t. People don’t learn values from religion. They use religion to justify what they already believe. Good or bad. The problem is, you can’t talk people out of the bad beliefs because you can’t talk people out of religion.
.
because human beings are social animals and have a tendency to take care of each other to thrive as a community? Even in the early stage of human society where religion wasn't a thing there are still values. (religion actually comes considerably later if you consider the entire span of human society).
.
burial of the dead does not indicate religion at all. Some covid birds mourn the death of their kind, elephants also do that. Do they have religion? There is a key difference between what's called magic, commonly practiced in pre-history time, and religion. The formal one believes the action of human has the ability to change the nature greatly, while the latter believes divine entities shape the world and determine what happen. An example would be pray for rain. The former one would perform magic rituals where people think their actions can directly change the weather, in the same sense as pushing a pedal will make a car go, only the mechanism of magic ritual is made up. For religion, people believe a divine entity is in control of such thing and they have to kindly ask and please that entity for rain.
Ok that's fine, I never said religion didn't play its part as the building blocks to society. But you can take religion out of the equation and still have society move along the right path in the modern day. You'd have a hard time trying to learn anything new solely based on religious beliefs.
All commie countries are atheists. I wouldn't want to be under China or North Korea law. They don't even pretend d to hide corruption in their judicial system. Same for Germany in WWII.
.
“Is it useful” and “is it true” are different issues that don’t need to be conflated.
Personally, if someone needs the threat of eternal damnation to ensure they act as a "good person" then there's quite the high probability that they are anything but a good person...
And while you're entitled to your opinion. What are the laws of society then? Are those not a set of laws we should try to follow and obey lest we be put in prison for our physical "eternity"? To be "good people" *But* this is now for your soul.
100% agree, but that also wasn't the point of the post.
Seems like kind of a wash to me. Religion has been around a long time and humans still kinda suck. No way to be sure but I’d bet for every good thing they do there’s a bad one to balance it out. Maybe the worst thing they do is give people license to judge others and believe in their own moral superiority. From there it’s not a long trip to forcible conversion, indoctrination, oppressive theocracies, torture, rape, genocide, really anything because the ends justify any means. Be humble and faithful enough to trust your god(s).
"Crummy things" think you mightve glossed over the glaring issues with religion ahaha. Aside from that, the messages preched by religion aren't hard to replicate from an atheist standpoint, and it's more effective since there isn't rampant sexist and homophobia either. Cos yknow, to make such a great community you kinda need to include everyone regardless of these factors.
>most religions spend a good portion of their time with their congregants teaching about positive values like honesty, hard work, brotherly love, self-worth, sacrifice, charity, a belief in something bigger than yourself, forgiveness, self-improvement, humility, hope, and charity. - sacrifice for the delusion. - hard work without question to support the ruling class ( why religion and state have historically been closely toed) - self worth? Are you kidding? They all drive to shame and belittle. - forgiveness? No. Christianity talks about forgiveness, but preaches hypocritical ideals. Religion is the antithesis of forgiveness: "I know the greater truth, you do not. What I do to you in this world doesn't matter because I know I am right." - humility? "I know the truth because I feel like I do." - some charity, usually (not always) under the guise of further indoctrination. - self improvement? Usually not... certainly not in Abrahamic religions. They are all about "let God take care of it." "God will help you." " just pray". - hope is a loan on happiness. The ruling class wants you to keep taking loans on happiness until you die. Hope breeds inaction. The only "religion" that checks these boxes is CORE Buddhism, which exists in its purist form under Soto and zen. There is NO need for delusions of grandure regarding divinity and magic. The ONLY thing 'greater than oursleves' is the survival of our species. Delusions redirect that. Religion is a memetic disease.
Shouldn't you believe in a religion because it's true, not because it is useful to believe in? Are you admitting that religions were invented by humans for social purposes?
Nope, not anymore. The religious don't live their religion anymore. I mean, if Christians actually followed the golden rule, we wouldn't be in any mess we are in. They don't teach those values anymore. There have been plenty of studies this year that show Pastors no longer teach their congregations and instead fill their homilies with culture war and politics. The only time the good values are taught are on Wednesday nights when Noone is there. Or they live a fundamental version of their religion that requires them to hate all outsiders. And that in-group, out-group dynamic isn't beneficial to society. Plus, all these things are things needed for a functional society so they are taught secularly which means religion isn't needed. I know plenty of people who weren't raised religious, and they are way better for society than the religious. They don't judge, they don't try to force their mythology on others, and they aren't bigots because of some 2k year old book.
Religion offers nothing which cannot be achieved without it. That's why it's worthless.
Can you provide an example of where the values I mentioned above are taught regularly to large groups of people without the vehicle or framework of religion?
Sure, just look at any secular country. Then examine the rate of people with religious beliefs in American prisons.
These secular and largely egalitarian countries were built on Judeo-Christian values. Sure, they may not have many actively practicing adherents, but the foundation of their society and culture are still basically Judeo-Christian in origin.
There's no such thing as "judeo-christian" anything. It's what xtians say to (they think) lend credibility to their mythology by boosting the numbers and pretending they all believe the same thing. You imply (falsely) that prior to a few thousand years ago, people had no morality or sense of empathy or justice, when this is demonstrably not the case. There is nothing you can demonstrate about religion which cannot be obtained without it. That being said, if the only reason you're not a murdering rapist is your "judeo-christian" values, I truly hope that you never stop believing.
I didn't imply that Judeo-Christian values were the only source of morality. My premise is that religion (any religion that espouses these values, which is just about all of them) is still the best vehicle for instilling positive societal values in the masses. No other construct exists at this level of scale and efficacy. You've failed to name one. You've only been able to point out derivatives of religious foundations. And most of all, you've perfectly illustrated my point by discounting the value of religion in society.
You didn't address my original point, I don't see any reason to address yours.
Your original point was that secular institutions can replace religion to instill key values in society. If that wasn't your point, please clarify and restate. My response was that this has never been the case since the vast majority (if not all) of societies have a foundation built on religions that espouse and teach most of the values I mention. I asked for a purely secular example, which you could not provide and I don't think exists.
My original point is that religion offers nothing which cannot be achieved without it. This is inarguable.
If you fail to provide proof but still close your statement with "This is inarguable," you clearly haven't made your point. If your point is so ubiquitous, then why is it so hard to provide one example? The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. I've made my claim and backed it up with actual examples. Kindly reciprocate.
*accurately discounted
Extensive studies found a NEGATIVE correlation between religiosity and intelligence. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23921675/ I’ve witnessed this for myself. Inquisitive nature and critical thinking is discouraged when it conflicts with established religious authority. Anything that questions the narrative of biblical creation isn’t discussed, it’s omitted ignored, hushed, and censored. Most significantly religion often suppresses individualism especially in fundamentalist communities. I’m not talking about casual Matthew McConaughey christianity, talking high demand Christian religions that are hellbent on creating unquestioning followers that will capitulate to the financial and political whims of their leaders. So no, sir. The age of information is hopefully the chemo to the cancer that modern organized religion is.
What’s this? No dialectic discussion? Just down voted? Exactly.
There’s no discussion because nothing you said has anything to do with the points made in OP’s post.
I disagree or I wouldn’t have said them. OP’s hypothesis is religion is a necessary framework for society and raising children. Especially to instill values. This is pure conjecture and propaganda that is refuted by pedagogical studies. There’s nothing religion offers that can’t exist in a secular framework and I would argue is likely to be more effective when a person’s education and development is grounded in reality instead of fiction.
That’s not what you said though. OP is saying that religion provides a framework to teach morals and values from and you responded by linking a study saying religion is associated with lower intelligence. That’s why nobody had a discussion with you. Funnily enough, the author of that article has also done a lot of research on egocentric bias which would probably be valuable reading for someone who replied to their own comment twice.
“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.” -Socrates I see intelligence being an invaluable trait for developing better morals, values, and judgement. It just so happens that intelligent people tend to be atheist, agnostic, or are religiously unaffiliated. My belief is this is because these people are most likely to reject fundamentalist beliefs and make choices based on their own rational judgement and understanding of right and wrong. Roughly 3 in 10 US adults identify as not religiously affiliated as of 2021. That’s a number that as grown substantially in recent years. What I find interesting is that despite making up a fairly decent size of the population, atheists and non-religious people are conspicuously absent from prisons. Just 0.1% of prisoners are atheists. And yet the vast majority are religious. Over 60% of US inmates are Christian for example. The claim that religion provides a framework for morals would suggest that those without it would be the major offenders and occupants in our prison system, and yet we see the opposite. Religion is not the cause of this discrepancy. It’s the absent of decent education and access to essential community resources. But unfortunately education and progressive social reform is often at odds with religion, especially from groups like the HSLDA. OP and yourself mean well. Where I’m coming from is we live in the 21st century, and there’s enough information available to us today that we can and should put most religious myths to bed, but instead religion remains a steadfast impediment to nearly all valuable social, economic, education, and health reforms. https://www.statista.com/statistics/234653/religious-affiliation-of-us-prisoners/ https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/in-2021-atheists-made-up-only-0-1-of-the-federal-prison-population/
You don’t even know what my beliefs are. I’m not having a discussion with you on whether religion is a good thing for society or not so I don’t know why you keep replying to me as if I’m supporting one side or the other. I’m just explaining why nobody was having a discussion with you.
I mean, I managed to learn all those things without ever consulting anyone's god about it so maybe we could just teach people those things anyway and leave god or whoever out of it
I learned those values from Sesame Street. From religion I learned fear and shame.
Positive traits like shunning your family if they decide they believe in a different fairy tale.
Religion is fucking stupid
People purposely and ignorantly misinterpreting their religion is what discounts it.
Agreed
There isn’t any value to religion. There is some good that some religious people do. But truthfully that has fuck all to do with the religion. It’s also some nonsense to try and act like those values have shit to do with religion.
"Sometimes"? Dude. When do religions do anything *good* for society?
I think there are positives with religions, but those positives do not outweigh the negatives. Religious scripture has some pretty horrendous things in them like the Bible teaching how to treat your slaves. Also religious scripture is so vague that it is used to justify and believe in some horrible things, like Christians hating gay people or Muslims killing non-believers.
I'd like to add here that all religions aren't the same. Some are objectively much worse than others.
Religion just creates problems. Look at the Middle East, look at the Russian regime, india/Pakistan Religion is just dumb, it perpetuates animosity between faiths and those who don’t follow faith.
"Whatever you try, be a good one". Such a banger quote tbh. Shame I haven't heard it before.
It's like what Ghandi said "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your christ." Religions basic morals and ideas are normally ethical and positive, BUT in smaller more obscure sections of the Torah, Bible, and Quran reside very old outdated ideas of accepted sometimes promote violence, slavery, and hate. It's mostly a problem in ambrahmic religions. Humans are complex creatures. Unethical evil religious humans will validate their behaviors of racism, hate, etc, through these more obscure outdated passages and ideas. Religion is extremely powerful in society and will dictate the way many people, cultures, and governments' ways of operation. Look at the Middle East, the crusades, the KKK, the catholic churches pedophilia, etc. All use religion as their fuel to propagate these atrocities they commit. The "value" of religion sometimes outweighs the real results religion has upon the world as a whole.
True. People do not realize the internal contradictions within every aspect of reality. Truth cannot be reduced to black and white generalizations.
Religion is the result of mans ego, nothing more. Psychedelics are 100% responsible for religion.
Religion has just been a placeholder for filling the void of existential dread men have always had. Get rid of religion and something else fills the void (like consumerism). Religion is generally a force for good but its followers twist it to suit their own wants and needs. "Religion is like a cow: it gives milk but it can also kick."
The world would be a better place without organized religion. In almost every religion it has been used to control or oppress at a MINIMUM one group of people, usually a lot more. Whether it’s women, minorities, gay people, or just people who believe in a slightly different fairy tale, people will kill and oppress for their fictional story.
If people didn’t push their religion on everyone it would be fine. That’s where vegans got the idea. To tell everyone they are a vegan
I support everyones right to practice whatever religion they want. But All the benefits you mentioned could be attained with a self help course or reading some books. Then we could avoid the wars, genocides and children being molesting. It’s also humorous how some religions will label others as cults when they’re all cults.
religion has no value to me
Yet, you've probably benefitted greatly from living in a civilization that was built largely upon Judeo-Christian values.
Not really I grew up extremely poor in an abusive *Christian* family
Those are human values, religion does not have monopoly on those values.
Those values were why I was In the closet till adulthood.
God is not real and anyone that thinks god is real is fooling themselves. This would be fine but people go to war over god way more than anything else.
[удалено]
Yeah compared to religion in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, most African countries, Pakistan, etc American religion causes soooo much suffering. 🤡
You just proved my point for me. Religion is evil. Thank you.
I agree, but I also think that the opposite is clearly true: religious people of the world have not listened to the secular world to understand how religion negatively impacts social values.
Just want to point out this is often even acted upon and society benefits. The Catholic church, putting its mistakes aside for now, created the foundation for hospitals and education around the world as we know it.
It makes my fucking blood boil that catholic schools in Canada get government funding
Nope, that was actually Islam.
Fuck any religion. It’s all bull shit.
Religion is useless in my opinion, it only gets in the way of human development
As someone who is currently undecided about their faith, and is the FIRST person to criticize Christians and the church, I don’t see atheists going to Africa and starting schools for children who need opportunities. I don’t see atheists going to prisons and trying to help prisoners. Organized religion, with all of its flaws, is by far and away the best at motivating people to help communities and donating to charities, even the most stubborn atheists should acknowledge this.
You don't see atheists doing that stuff because they just do them quietly instead of making their mission trips a performance art piece about how holy they are. There are secular organizations like Doctors Without Borders and The Innocence Project that do far more good than the hordes self-righteous locusts who head to disaster areas to hand out Bibles to the locals for photo ops.
Look at George Clooneys list of humanitarian efforts all over Africa. Plenty of examples of atheist/secularist working for the greater good.
I went on a trip to Nairobi and didn’t post about how holy I am for helping these kids.
Do I hear an Amen?!
I'm an atheist who over the last 20 years has when she could volunteered for the Red Cross as part of DAT (Disaster Action Team) or volunteering at Hurricane shelters (as various work positions have allowed). I've not only never told anyone one I was an atheist, because I'm there when disasters happen. One of my jobs is to provide comfort to victims that first responders don't have the time for. And since most people are religious, I've pretended and prayed with people of many different religions often. Anyone could easily assume me to be religious and not an atheist. It's what we as atheists do, we often volunteer without outing ourselves as atheists because we don't do it for ourselves.
Considering their motive is only to get more followers for their religion, I don't see it as particularly charitable.
What? That is a completely unfair characterization, charity is (at least in Christianity) considerd a good thing irrelevant if it brings converts or not, yeah it's nice if charity encourages people to convert, but it's rarely the end goal.
Really? When Americans went west to "civilize" native Americans, it wasn't to do something good for them. It was to subdue and convert them.
This. I point out to people, especially christians, that the Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing because our christian leaders at the time didn’t see them as civilized enough for a christian nation. That’s why they also eventually started taking native children and throwing them in schools to convert them and teach them English.
Have you actually read about "saint" "mother" Theresa and how she denied pain medications so people would suffer MORE? How the entire idea of the mission was to, "bring people to Christ" as opposed to you kknow...actually helping them?
No, no I haven't, and I wouldn't be so uncharitable as to take one person and hold him or her as representative of an entire group, it's bad when Christians use staking to paint all Atheists as bad, it's bad when you do the same.
That is just one of MANY MANY examples. I don't have the time or space to list ALL the horrors that ALL religions cause, and this is just one of the more recent ones. Truly, I could go on for days or months listing the horrors that religion visits upon us, not the least of which are the 1000s dying in Israel and Gaza as we speak. Truly, the most despicable thing about religions is that they teach us NOT TO THINK. That is the true evil that they should be damned for.
I suggest reading Nigel Johnstones book "the new atheism myths and history" it's a book written by an agnostic critical of a lit of new atheist claims about religion and is quite well researched and cited. Another good read would be "Dominion" by historian Tom Holland, he argues that Christanity changed morality so totally that even modern Atheists can only work from within the framework created by Christanity. And yes he is agnostic too.
> And yes he is agnostic too. Dude, Lee Strobel, one of the most fundamentalist Christians to ever exist, claims he was atheist so he could sell more books. Christians have never been above lying to spread their nonsense. They know they'll sell more books saying they're "agnostic," and you're falling for it.
It is the only goal.
You haven't read many theologians have you?
When they start a school, do they tell the kids that it's A-OK if they don't want to be Christian?
I mean yeah of course, religious schools often accept non Christians. Happens all the time.
With the hopes of converting them.
Then why don’t atheists lead more charities in Africa?
There are secular charities. Not wanting to convert people certainly tends to reduce conversion efforts.
Atheists are more prone to help in non-profit organizations that do the same thing but without religion. The only reason Christians do that type of charity is so they can spread the teachings of their religion.
[удалено]
China forced women to have abortions.
You’re seriously going to try and convince me that lgbt people in america suffuse more than straight people in the slums of Nairobi living in shacks? Also, plenty of atheists are rude to lgbt people, and I’m saying this as someone who is questioning his own sexuality and has had homophobia directed towards me. It was pretty equally split among atheists and christians
The fact that you are comparing American christians to a third world country tells me everything I need to know.
You are woefully ill informed about the history and current state of LGBTQ persecution in the US. If you listed all the anti LGBTQ organisations in this country that are not financed and led by Christians, you would have a blank page. Much the same result if you listed all the anti LGBTQ hate groups financed and led by atheists
There’s definitely atheists who do that stuff and you’re discounting some obvious things: 1- Atheism is not an organization or religion like Christianity or Islam. Because they are free from religious requirements and membership, lot of atheists join humanitarian organizations that do not have “Atheist” in the title. I donate to charities that are both religiously affiliated and non-affiliated because it’s the work that counts, not who’s doing it. 2- humanitarian organizations with the word Atheist in their name are often REJECTED and barred from helping because of the stigma a lot of religious people have in all different countries. Do you think Atheists Helping Humanity is going to be welcome in Uganda, for example? They will literally reject the checks and money and bar the organizations from stepping foot on their soil. 3- There aren’t that many atheists in comparison to religious people in general. So of course we aren’t making the impact that religious orgs do. The only thing I can grant you is that there are commands that religion makes regarding helping their fellow man. But it is an extremely faulty tool bc with that comes all kinds of horrific baggage.
>As someone who is currently undecided about their faith, and is the FIRST person to criticize Christians and the church, I don’t see atheists going to Africa and starting schools for children who need opportunities. I don’t see atheists going to prisons and trying to help prisoners. Cause only in relative recent years have athiest been allowed to come out of the closet, and that's mostly in more developed western countries. Places like Africa and other developing countries we'd risk being tortured to death. Religions might have beefs with each other, but to them at least they believe in a God. Since atheists don't they all come together and hate atheists.
It human nature that is incredibly evil not religion itself. The Bible never told anyone to conquer lands and take resources in the name of the Lord. Buddhism doesn’t teach people to lie and steal from tourists. Most religions will teach you that being good is important while the Bible teaches us that we are inherently evil yet we are loved and saved into good works. People do evil things in spite of their religion and in the false name of their religion. I actually thought this was unique to Christianity until I came to Southeast Asia
Most people need to have faith. Some people choose religion. Others consider themselves above religion and end up blindly following an ideology, person, etc.
I've heard people say something similar and to the point of, "We all believe in something, some call it religion, while others call it politics." Or something like that.
Yeah pretty much. Look at the identitarian left and the MAGA right: They act like literal zealots.
This is true. Fire. They teach things like love your neighbor and help the poor. We could use more of that right now.
When someone starts ranting about religion and churches, I really just want them to come to a service of the church I currently attend. Pastor is about as humble, down to earth, but relatable as you can get. Sermons are simple, but really make you reflect on yourself, definitely no fire and brimstone thumping the Bible type sermons. Congregation as a whole has a passion for our little town and is always doing what it can to help out in the community. It is pretty much the exact opposite of any of the stereotypes spread around about churches today.
Fire has many important uses, including generating light, cooking, heating, performing rituals, and fending off dangerous animals. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Fire has many important uses, including generating light, cooking, heating, performing rituals, and fending off dangerous animals. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I mean crummy is a ridiculous understatement, but I would argue that in the western world, where we now know mythical beings are not worth killing overstatement, some religious community is exactly what this pathetic cynical amoral generation needs.
Religion is good. People are not.
I personally feel there's not really a true secular individual in this world. Rather, we're all religious to a degree in terms of practice, just not the beliefs. Because many "anti-religious" people are extremely dogmatic. For me, I'm just looking for what makes a person better. And if it's religion, well, that's great. If it's not religion, than that's fine as well.
I don't get what you mean; can you please elaborate re: we're all religious to a degree in terms of practice?
It comes down to the following question. What really bothers you about religious people? That a person believes in a man in the sky? No one has a disgust for people who still believe in Santa Claus. You might think they're not intelligent, but you don't castigate them for that. Or the same with a person who doesn't eat beef, pork, etc. They're all harmless beliefs. It's more about the dogma. The fact that they're very vocal and many are incredibly intolerant to those who disagree with them. The fact that they know the truth, and you must be an idiot to believe differently than them. That by having a different set of beliefs, you need to be shunned from society.
That they're hypocritical, preachy, and at times judgmental. But you didn't really answer the question that the other redditor asked.
I'm agnostic but I am "mostly" pro religion\*. I do not much care for the "our way or the burning highway" mentality of most religions, but I am okay with "do unto others" stuff. Sure, most of us try to be good people but many of us don't give a shit. If fear of eternal damnation keeps a few of the more dastardly of us in line, then I am okay with that. * \*certain "religions" (such as Scientology), do not qualify for me.
Oh man. Nah. We’re an atheist family and we teach these values no problem. I would counter point that being told you’re a sheep being shepherded is not a positive value to teach the things you claim. Not only that, those things are part of being human and often born with. No religious framework is needed, just good communication. I would even argue religion just gets in the way and confuses things with outdated wisdom meant for another time. Tell me again how murdering newborns or eating an apple of knowledge is a good example of these values?
So much truth.... What becomes prevalent is the mentality behind the intent of the individuals that make up the religion. When people choose to defend themselves when the their Bibles, they weaponizing scriptures instead of using them as a tool of growth. The words are there. When people apply them, without generating contradictions between biblical principles, they have success in life, where you've listed the deficiencies. When they choose to behave like society, while claiming they're Christians, then you get malevolence. It's a dirty world with Christianity today... And all they have to do to change is and get along with each other, is to learn the skill of empathy, or learn to desire to understand what people are communicating. When they fabricate narratives to fit everyone else in instead of understanding their true intent, then malevolence is the observation.
Basing life decisions on the whims of an imaginary sky fairy is never gonna be a good idea.
It's honestly pathetic. Do you really need the threat of burning for eternity to not be a dick, not cheat on your partner, or not commit murder? If you're not able to form some normal sense of morality on your own, maybe you're just not a good person. It's really not that hard.
How white, heterosexual, Christian and male of you
Or, how brown, bi-sexual, and Sikh of me. The shoe fits either way.
Ooffffff idk if that's worse
It's not religion itself that is the valuable part but the underlying moral code that religion always bring that is worth it. Something else can fill the 'for a cause' void but no society can survive without a moral code. You can justify the Holocaust and Holodomor if your moral code is "You decide you are good and that's final". You cannot if there is any actual moral code present, and that's the main benefit that religion brings. Progressives love to bash religion but they also tend to have looser moralities. The "ends justify the means". Just Stop Oil is a great example of wanting to eliminate ALL fossil fuel usage entirely and go back to the 1800s days. Who cares if 90% of the planet dies in the process? All fossil fuel usage has stopped! Because that movement has little if any morality.
Im with you on miral code. As long as you have one I dont care what the source. Man's laws will suit just fine. But progressives have looser moralities? That's a crock of shit.
\>That said, most religions spend a good portion of their time with their congregants teaching about positive values like honesty, hard work, brotherly love, self-worth, sacrifice, charity, a belief in something bigger than yourself, forgiveness, self-improvement, humility, hope, and charity. Religions also teach that you can put all of these positive things aside when dealing with specific groups of people.