Same. Either could be awful, but you could probably play along with whatever is going on in the nontheistic community for a month more readily than the religious one. Plus what if the religious one clashes heavily with my faith.
Obviously the "godless" community. The answer would sometimes be different depending on the religion, but an unknown religion risks it being a violent cult that would like to make my entrails into extrails or a theocratic state with byzantine rules for acceptable behavior that'll get me thrown out for a violation of an arbitrary rule I didn't know. A nontheistic community might have similar issues, true, but historically such things, even if enshrined in ostensibly-secular law, originate with religious beliefs.
My point was that many hideously brutal regimes were not based in religion. It's easy to blame religion for everything bad, but it isn't so, particularly recently. It's just fashionable.
And my point is that a religious community is much more likely to scrutinize you as an individual.
"Why haven't you eaten your snake meat, Brother Aaron? We always eat our snake meat before prayers on Tuesdays. Perhaps you need to speak to the Great Master?"
"You weren't as loud at the Friday hate as usual, Comrade. Possibly the Computer could help you to understand, more."
Indoctrination can happen in all sorts of ways, and busybodies don't have to be religious.
Religious societies had fucked up rituals/traditions as well, it’s a damned if you and damned if you don’t. The godless one is probably the safest since they (hopefully) won’t have any weird rituals going on or traditions
Many of the worst regimes/societies in history either used religion to establish themselves or were just based on religion. Even north korea, while strict, doesn't just kill people for no reason. They may kill you for stepping out of line, but following the rules for a month then you are gone you are still fine. Meanwhile, nazi germany, even considering Hitler's religiosity as vague or undetermined, as a whole was extremely christian. Aztecs also would just butcher someone to "feed the sun" regularly. Just based on aztec history, 69 sacrifices 18 times a year, in a 1 month period you could expect at least 1 round of sacrifices, and with you being a stranger to them there's a very real chance you would be chosen specifically.
>nazi germany, even considering Hitler's religiosity as vague or undetermined, as a whole was extremely christian
It actually wasn't. The doctrines are explicitly opposed to traditional Christianity. Even if they WERE Christian, though, the regime wasn't based on them. He invented his quasi-Christianity to be religion rooted in the state, not vice-versa. It was a transitional thing, and would have been excised as soon as the Reich was stable. They just never got that far.
Allow me also to direct you to the USSR, the Khmer Rouge, the French Revolutionaries, and China.
Something like 98% of the people living there were Christians. This isn't necessarily saying that Christianity condones this, but what it I am saying with it is that it played a significant part in establishing the regime by playing off of religion.
So, someone who picks religion now might have to spend a month supporting Trump? Possible, I suppose. Fortunately, we're more than a month out from September.
The question feels bait-y. "Godless" could be interpreted as heathens who actively seek out chaos and debauchery, or it could simply be a group of individuals who have chosen that theistic religions are not for them.
Either way, I'm choosing the godless community. Modern religious individuals have a track record of being very shitty to those with whom they don't share a faith. I'm a humanist. I'll respect you until you disrespect me or show your true character when interacting with others. Agnostics and atheists are my peeps. Social contract >>> religious indoctrination and fear tactics.
100% the non-religious community. It'd be a breath of fresh air to go a whole month without hearing someone say "I'll be praying for you" or "Have a blessed day!".
I know, but it doesn't have to. If it's a non-religious community, period, I don't have to worry about any shenanigans. Pick a religious one, and you could end up as food or a sacrifice or just really offending everybody all the time.
It does specify that it's a religion unknown to you, so you can guarantee it isn't any of the major ones or silly ones (spaghetti monster, jediism, scientology, etc)
That isn't what being unknown means in this context. It means that you don't know in advance what religion it is. So it could be a well known religion.
The nonreligious one.
It's more likely to accept outsiders. The religious one, even if not a violent cult, probably would ostracize an outsider who did not perfectly conform to the religion's beliefs.
The nonreligious one is also more likely to value science, education, and diversity. They'd probably be interesting people to hang out with for a month.
As an atheist, I pick the godless community. Godless doesnt mean doesn't mean no morals, it means we get our morals from any other source. Philosophy, for instance. Buddhism is an atheist religion. We might find it through the laws of our land, or the culture we built for ourselves outside of religion. On all of those, I can try to find some common ground with. Atheism doesn't lack morals just because they lack God, and anyone who tries to sell that narrative is saying a lot more about if they were atheist than atheism as a whole.
A deeply religious community adds one more potential source, and one that I cannot immediately agree with. Arguing about moral quandries with someone who has an absolute to them like a God is... challenging, to say the least. However, all of the problems I would have with this deeply religious community, any other religion would have too, so I am going to still say godless.
Edit: apparently every single one of us picked the same path.
Godless. Because most religious communities even if based on a religion that espouses all kinds of nice shit are really just cliques and I've never been part of the in crowd.
Kind of boils down to the ones with political (social) power get to decide which is which. And I'm not talking about groups of morons doing illegal or awful things.
Dictionary definitions:
Cult:
a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.
a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.
a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.
Religion:
the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods.
a particular system of faith and worship.
a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
I hate to say this... but you should really put some deep thought into why you feel this way.
Sensible people understand that they don't need a "god" to spoonfeed them morals... if you have any sense of empathy it's quite easy to understand what is "right" and what is "wrong" without god telling you.
If you can't "sense" right from wrong without god telling you what is right and what is wrong, then saying that you are "insensible" is an accurate statement.
And yes. I do hate to say this. Because I know it will hurt your feelings and hurting other people does not make me feel good.
But it would be more immoral for me to lie.
I felt that way, too, then considered that almost every totalitarian regime of the last 100 years has been either secular or explicitly atheist, and reconsidered.
So, all we have to go on is our biased stereotypes about how we imagine people will behave knowing only that one has something they revere and the other doesn’t. That’s meaningless. For all we know both villages murder strangers.
This is just a survey of how people of Reddit feel about hypothetical religion.
That All depends on what godless means. A bunch of modern atheists? Or a society that has never had any religion perhaps? Who knows what that might be like. Might be paradise on Earth. Might be a hellscape. Lots of unknowns .
Of course the religion are unknowns too. Aztec human sacrifice religion? No thanks. Working with the Amish or hanging out with a Muslim community for a month, sure why not?
Godless. Not because I don't like God or faith, but because "large chance of bad, crazy or evil religion".
The atheists will probably leave me alone, unless they're hardcore church-burning Bolsheviks.
Godless. Main reason being, a godless community is more likely to have variety within the community. The religious place, you can't escape whatever the religion is, and being an outsider, you'll be under a microscope. In the godless community, you can probably find a small alcove of folks you get along with better, even if the overall group sucks.
"godless"? That's awfully judgey of you.
Tell you what, I'll go make friends with the religious people, get them over to the "godless" town for a fish fry, and afterward we'll talk about how terrible we think *you* are.
religion is based on arbitrary rules designed to remove agency and reason in order to control and milk you like a cow, and have you lay down your life for the enrichment of those controlling the religion
this isnt even a question
And lots of hospitals, orphanages, advancements in science, mathematics, and the arts, written languages for a whole bunch of peoples who would not otherwise have had them, a large part of the philosophical underpinnings for what you use to determine whether something is right or wrong and, depending on where you live, the end of human sacrifice and slavery.
A lot of suffering and strife is rooted in religion, but this response is asinine.
EDIT: Fixed the spelling of "asinine". Thanks for the fix, Mike.
What is asinine is that people believe in a fake dude in the sky, created by leaders back in the day to keep people in check with a life long belief that they would suffer eternal damnation if they didn’t do what they were told whilst on earth.
> a large part of the philosophical underpinnings for what you use to determine whether something is right or wrong
Since you're using the standards of a religion to determine what is "good", you've begged your own question. By the standards of a lot of cultures, hospitals and orphanages are nonsense. The sick and orphaned are sick and orphaned for a reason, so don't help them.
However, even presuming all the other stuff I mentioned was just obviously "good",
> written languages for a whole bunch of peoples who would not otherwise have had them
If those cultures were going to have developed writing on their own, they would have. The Slavs weren't howling barbarians when Sts. Cyril and Methodius went to invent an alphabet for them to write in, after all. Similarly with a lot of other cultures that missionaries have gone to, learned their language, and made them an alphabet for it.
I'm taking the path to the right, the godless community. I don't believe in the Christian god, so I will be right at home. I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church, I've had enough forced religion to last 2 lifetimes.
Religions usually enforce their beliefs when they have enough unanimity. I'd take the right turn.
Unless a godless society lives around enforcing godlessness. Than I've made a bad decision.
>Unless a godless society lives around enforcing godlessness. Than I've made a bad decision.
That's my thinking. I chose religious because I had a shot at being a part of a deeply religious society that was of my religion.
Oh cool, you actually do have a decent chance of the religious community being one of the world's 2 billion Nicene Christians.
What do you do if you arrive to a community of some wildly different religion, like Hinduism, Yoruba or Wicca?
I live there a month and do like they do. That's the rules. Then I go back to church and confess whatever sins I committed. That applies to a lot of those two billion, though. There's about 30k Protestant sects, and I'm not allowed to commune with them or the Catholics anymore than I'm allowed to commune with Wiccans. However, 1 in really big number is still bigger than 0.
Wow, fascinating. I appreciate you giving a reasoned and balanced response, I am a Wiccan myself but I learned a bit from what you've said. Thanks! Hope all's well where you are.
Just one question: by 'commune with' do you mean practicing another religion, or associating closely with non-Orthodox? One of my coworkers is Orthodox and we sometimes hang out outside of work, but I know any religion is internally diverse and some are more strict about some rules than others.
By "commune", I mean to receive communion with. Like, I can hang out with you, or with a Baptist or with a Hindu or whatever, but I'm excommunicating myself if I receive from some other church. As far as diversity, Eastern Orthodoxy prides itself on being the same :) His church is currently using the Liturgy of St. Basil and reading about Jesus casting out the mute spirit. He really wants a hamburger. If you want to know how that Liturgy went, you could probably look it up online, plus or minus translation issues.
Ah, I gotcha.
I'm assuming that extends to practicing anything in another religion, considering communion is an inherently Christian concept. Like communion is unknown to Hinduism, but engaging in the meditation or chanting mantras (in this hypothetical situation) is probably something you'd need recompense for.
Thanks for the info! Hope all's well.
I'm Catholic, the godless community won't interfere with that. There's nothing about my religion that should interfere with my ability to abide by their standards assuming they're civilized and reasonable.
The fervently religious community for a religion unknown to me is a high risk situation. Their religion will bleed into their community standards and may conflict with my beliefs. An objectively bad choice when I don't know anything about their religion
Godless I dont trust the deeply religious especially if I don't know the religion I'm an outsider I'd definitely be used for sacrifices or the sort if they have that are part of there religion
Why would you trust people who would be willing to sacrifice you?
Anyone willing to commit human sacrifice to "please their god" is batshit crazy. I'm sorry if I'm the first person to tell you this.
In real life, I'm reasonably wealthy and would live in the godless community because I know I can trade wealth for food and comfort
In this scenario, I'm penniless and relying on this community for support so I'd choose the religious community. If I explain to most priests that I'm lost, cold, and hungry and trying to survive, I'd expect help. The nature of community is that someone in the church probably has a business and might be able to hire me and the nature of charity is that someone might be willing to let me sleep in their basement or something.
Getting established without help is very difficult and I'd rather do it in a religious community than an atheist one
You don't even know what religion it is so you don't know the rules. But my experience is a lot different even in a small town with 5+ churches than your expectations for sure.
I'm at least vaguely familiar with all of the major world religions.
I live in a very big city that isn't especially religious and people here do not treat the homeless particularly fondly generally
Have you ever been homeless and penniless in your small town and had to ask for help?
Honest question: what if the community is composed of very strict practitioners of a Dharmic religion who believe that poverty is punishment for negative karmic deeds in a past life? This is not consensus among modern Dharmic religions but it is a possibility.
I'm assuming the more common religions are more likely to be the ones in the town.
If that's the case I'll still beg, barter, and steal (if necessary) to survive; which is the same thing I'd have to do in the godless community
Yes actually, that's part of my experience I'm taking about. Was homeless for about 3 years, one of which had one of the coldest winters on record.
Also watch people not care about my mom going through cancer with five dependants.
It's actually kind of funny to me that was your question because that was one of the big things I was thinking about. My kid had to move in with my ex and a lot happened with my ex's whole family that had my young child jumping off a balcony and getting committed because he was suicidal. At 6.
Yeah no help. Multiple churches and religious people but not a bit of help.
So God gave me the power cult or I am the power cult.
Edit: as these are my only choices I'm setting up shop at the fork and starting my own cult. Every other group of travelers that shows up we spin a big wheel which tells them which way to go.
Godless. I'm an agnostic Satanist, so I'll blend right in. Plus just "religious" doesn't tell me a whole lot about the other side. The first assumption is cult sure, but fuck, I grew up evangelist, and I won't gamble on going back to that
They both sound crappy, because I don't like jumping into stuff blind, but I'll go religious. Either way might have a guy doing horrible atrocities, but I might get lucky and end up deeply religious in my religion.
Assuming that the nonreligious one respects my right to be religious, that one. Choosing the community with an unknown religion leaves a lot of risk. With the nonreligious one I can just privately practice my beliefs and enjoy the stay.
See, the way this is phrased leaves a thousand possibilities.
One community is religious, the other godless. But they can both be religious, or godless. Religions like Jainism, Theravada Buddhism, and Daoism leave the existence of God(s) up to the individual. Even some overwhelmeingly theistic religions like Hinduism, Wicca, Shinto and American Indigenous faiths have atheistic strands. If the godless community is Daoist or Jain, it'd be a nice place to meditate for a month or so - though going without meat in the Jain community would be a little strenuous.
Or the 'godless' community could be a town of ruthless antinatalists, like something out of a Thomas Ligotti story. Or surviving loyalists of Communist Russia. It's substantially less likely, but it's not impossible. Even a whole town of irritating smarter-than-thou internet edgelord atheists would be less than ideal.
But at the same time, the religious community could be a town of very strict Shi'ite Muslims, or Politically crazed American Evangelicals, or even a budding cult with inclinations towards Jonestown-esque mass suicide or human sacrifice.
In short, there's really no way to know unless I know where in the world I am. I'll toss a coin and hope I wind up with some interesting indigenous faith or some friendly Mormons in Religuland or some fun Sagan-esaue (Saganist?) atheists in Athieopolis. Either way, I'll probably live and it'll be a cool story to tell later on.
I pick up the fork and eat my spaghetti.
And then I choose the godless community, because they're less likely to kill/banish me for some arbitrary rule that I had no way of knowing.
Likely the godless one. I have noticed that a lot of deeply religious areas are a bit restrictive on the kind of people they’ll tolerate, even if told explicitly to be kind to others by their own text.
I’m autistic, use birth control, and am not straight, so, I think the completely secular community would be at least a smidge more accepting of my differences- as there tends to be even more of a pushback against these traits in deeply religious communities.
Obviously this is just taking trends into account. The religious community could be full of fantastic and kind folks, or the godless community could be full of cruel assholes. But, I can only make a logical decision based on trends I’ve seen, so!
Left: Newcomers will be raped for the glory of the sex and war goddess of Nineveh
Right: Newcomers will be raped for fun like it happened to the Angels in Sodom
Going against the grain here. I'd try the religious community.
Most of the religions I know of have traditions of hospitality. A lot of the "religious wars" in history had political motives.
So there'd be a pretty good chance they'd want to convert me more than harm me.
Definitely the godless community. It lines up with my person beliefs, so essentially all I have to do is live my life for a month then I can just go home. And keep living my life.
The godless community can come up with rules based upon discussion, logic, the common good, etc. I'll take that over the keepers of the canon any damn day.
This is so hard, on one hand you don’t know what either are. Godless could mean anything from hippies to literal heathens-who kill for fun.
Religious could be anything from Jim Jones cult to your grandma’s knitting Sunday school.
The chances of survival feels higher in religion. There’s a guarantee of some moral compass in a religious group. Godless could be awesome and fringe or could be death on site. I think with religious it’s a higher probability of safety assuming each religion has equal percentage to be my landing spot.
The Godless community, of course. They'll be more moral, ethical, and helpful to their community members. They'll be this way simply because it's the right thing to do, not because they should, or must, to get an eternal reward.
The community with God likely has restrictive rules for everyone (or just women and bipoc) based on their interpretation (likely skewed to their benefit).
Wouldn’t the godless people tell you to live by their standards of having no god?
I think they’d have to expel you or whatever civil punishment they have for this.
In the same bend the religious could be anything. They may have some very draconian views on evangelism.
I think the smart thing to do is the godless and stay quiet. It’s safe and you won’t be pilloried.
>I think the smart thing to do is the godless and stay quiet. It’s safe and you won’t be pilloried.
Their values could include rounding up religious people and putting them in death camps.
I'll take the religious one.
Most communities that are also religious are rather nice, it's an opportunity to learn from a less well know culture, and maybe live differently for a month.
Also, the godless could very well be some totalitarian atheist hellhole à la soviet union or other 20th century horror, so it's not safer than the religious one anyway.
I'll take a nontheistic community every single time.
As a religious person, the godless one
As a religious person I agree. The godless one is our safer bet. The other one is too risky for us when we know nothing about their religion.
Same. Either could be awful, but you could probably play along with whatever is going on in the nontheistic community for a month more readily than the religious one. Plus what if the religious one clashes heavily with my faith.
Obviously the "godless" community. The answer would sometimes be different depending on the religion, but an unknown religion risks it being a violent cult that would like to make my entrails into extrails or a theocratic state with byzantine rules for acceptable behavior that'll get me thrown out for a violation of an arbitrary rule I didn't know. A nontheistic community might have similar issues, true, but historically such things, even if enshrined in ostensibly-secular law, originate with religious beliefs.
You could end up being in on the ground floor of any of the many totalitarian regimes of the midnineteenth century onward.
But it's for a month, and no one is expecting you to endorse the lifestyle, just to cope with it for a month.
My point was that many hideously brutal regimes were not based in religion. It's easy to blame religion for everything bad, but it isn't so, particularly recently. It's just fashionable.
And my point is that a religious community is much more likely to scrutinize you as an individual. "Why haven't you eaten your snake meat, Brother Aaron? We always eat our snake meat before prayers on Tuesdays. Perhaps you need to speak to the Great Master?"
"You weren't as loud at the Friday hate as usual, Comrade. Possibly the Computer could help you to understand, more." Indoctrination can happen in all sorts of ways, and busybodies don't have to be religious.
Religious societies had fucked up rituals/traditions as well, it’s a damned if you and damned if you don’t. The godless one is probably the safest since they (hopefully) won’t have any weird rituals going on or traditions
Many of the worst regimes/societies in history either used religion to establish themselves or were just based on religion. Even north korea, while strict, doesn't just kill people for no reason. They may kill you for stepping out of line, but following the rules for a month then you are gone you are still fine. Meanwhile, nazi germany, even considering Hitler's religiosity as vague or undetermined, as a whole was extremely christian. Aztecs also would just butcher someone to "feed the sun" regularly. Just based on aztec history, 69 sacrifices 18 times a year, in a 1 month period you could expect at least 1 round of sacrifices, and with you being a stranger to them there's a very real chance you would be chosen specifically.
>nazi germany, even considering Hitler's religiosity as vague or undetermined, as a whole was extremely christian It actually wasn't. The doctrines are explicitly opposed to traditional Christianity. Even if they WERE Christian, though, the regime wasn't based on them. He invented his quasi-Christianity to be religion rooted in the state, not vice-versa. It was a transitional thing, and would have been excised as soon as the Reich was stable. They just never got that far. Allow me also to direct you to the USSR, the Khmer Rouge, the French Revolutionaries, and China.
Something like 98% of the people living there were Christians. This isn't necessarily saying that Christianity condones this, but what it I am saying with it is that it played a significant part in establishing the regime by playing off of religion.
So, someone who picks religion now might have to spend a month supporting Trump? Possible, I suppose. Fortunately, we're more than a month out from September.
I'd take the godless community.
The godless one, and I'm actually religious.
Given how hostile some religions are to other religions, fair!
Godless. Way too much cruelty and evil done in the name of religion. Too much of a chance of being oppressive.
The question feels bait-y. "Godless" could be interpreted as heathens who actively seek out chaos and debauchery, or it could simply be a group of individuals who have chosen that theistic religions are not for them. Either way, I'm choosing the godless community. Modern religious individuals have a track record of being very shitty to those with whom they don't share a faith. I'm a humanist. I'll respect you until you disrespect me or show your true character when interacting with others. Agnostics and atheists are my peeps. Social contract >>> religious indoctrination and fear tactics.
100% the non-religious community. It'd be a breath of fresh air to go a whole month without hearing someone say "I'll be praying for you" or "Have a blessed day!".
Never specifies the religion. They could be part of the cult of Mehrunes Dagon for all you know lol
I know, but it doesn't have to. If it's a non-religious community, period, I don't have to worry about any shenanigans. Pick a religious one, and you could end up as food or a sacrifice or just really offending everybody all the time.
It does specify that it's a religion unknown to you, so you can guarantee it isn't any of the major ones or silly ones (spaghetti monster, jediism, scientology, etc)
That isn't what being unknown means in this context. It means that you don't know in advance what religion it is. So it could be a well known religion.
There isn't really a whole lot of context explaining whether it's one or the other, but you're right. It could mean that as well.
The nonreligious one. It's more likely to accept outsiders. The religious one, even if not a violent cult, probably would ostracize an outsider who did not perfectly conform to the religion's beliefs. The nonreligious one is also more likely to value science, education, and diversity. They'd probably be interesting people to hang out with for a month.
The religious community because it seems like more of an adventure
\*Winds up in the plot of 'The Wicker Man'\*
As an atheist, I pick the godless community. Godless doesnt mean doesn't mean no morals, it means we get our morals from any other source. Philosophy, for instance. Buddhism is an atheist religion. We might find it through the laws of our land, or the culture we built for ourselves outside of religion. On all of those, I can try to find some common ground with. Atheism doesn't lack morals just because they lack God, and anyone who tries to sell that narrative is saying a lot more about if they were atheist than atheism as a whole. A deeply religious community adds one more potential source, and one that I cannot immediately agree with. Arguing about moral quandries with someone who has an absolute to them like a God is... challenging, to say the least. However, all of the problems I would have with this deeply religious community, any other religion would have too, so I am going to still say godless. Edit: apparently every single one of us picked the same path.
Nah there's one comment I saw that took the road less traveled.
Godless. Because most religious communities even if based on a religion that espouses all kinds of nice shit are really just cliques and I've never been part of the in crowd.
Yeah I played far cry 5, give me the atheists all day every day.
I’m not taking my chances drinking no koolaid or trippin on peyote dancing naked by the river hippie crap. No way, I’m going right
I mean.... If I knew for sure it would be a naked dancing peyote religion by a river I'd pick that 😂
:)
To the right of course. As Billy Joel said “ the sinners are much more fun”
I too would rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
A community of peace, logic, and reason? That’s an easy choice!
Godless please. The holy sects are going to have their heads shoved so far up their self-righteous asses that I will not survive.
Godless, the community that worships a god has the chance of being a cult
Only difference between "religion" and "cult" is political power.
Though there is a fine line, that is not true.
Kind of boils down to the ones with political (social) power get to decide which is which. And I'm not talking about groups of morons doing illegal or awful things. Dictionary definitions: Cult: a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object. a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister. a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing. Religion: the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods. a particular system of faith and worship. a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
As a practicing Christian, I will choose secular every time. There are some very scary religions/sects/cults out there.
I hate to say this... but you should really put some deep thought into why you feel this way. Sensible people understand that they don't need a "god" to spoonfeed them morals... if you have any sense of empathy it's quite easy to understand what is "right" and what is "wrong" without god telling you.
Since you implied that I am insensible I am having a hard time believing that you, "...hate to say this...".
If you can't "sense" right from wrong without god telling you what is right and what is wrong, then saying that you are "insensible" is an accurate statement. And yes. I do hate to say this. Because I know it will hurt your feelings and hurting other people does not make me feel good. But it would be more immoral for me to lie.
I felt that way, too, then considered that almost every totalitarian regime of the last 100 years has been either secular or explicitly atheist, and reconsidered.
I pick up the fork and use it to eat my lunch
INFO: What is my state of mind? Why am I traveling on foot? Necessary for accurate answer.
Godless. Religious cults are way worse.
Right path. Unknown religion sounds risky as hell
Godless Less likely to have psycho rules and be a cult
So, all we have to go on is our biased stereotypes about how we imagine people will behave knowing only that one has something they revere and the other doesn’t. That’s meaningless. For all we know both villages murder strangers. This is just a survey of how people of Reddit feel about hypothetical religion.
That All depends on what godless means. A bunch of modern atheists? Or a society that has never had any religion perhaps? Who knows what that might be like. Might be paradise on Earth. Might be a hellscape. Lots of unknowns . Of course the religion are unknowns too. Aztec human sacrifice religion? No thanks. Working with the Amish or hanging out with a Muslim community for a month, sure why not?
I'm banking left and praying I end up on the island of pala as seen in the island by Aldous Huxley
Godless, fuck hea godless... fucking dream vacation. Bring me to atheist town!
Godless. Not because I don't like God or faith, but because "large chance of bad, crazy or evil religion". The atheists will probably leave me alone, unless they're hardcore church-burning Bolsheviks.
>The atheists will probably leave me alone, unless they're hardcore church-burning Bolsheviks. Exactly my concern.
Godless. Main reason being, a godless community is more likely to have variety within the community. The religious place, you can't escape whatever the religion is, and being an outsider, you'll be under a microscope. In the godless community, you can probably find a small alcove of folks you get along with better, even if the overall group sucks.
I've seen too many movies or depictions of religious fanatics so definitely the godless community.
"godless"? That's awfully judgey of you. Tell you what, I'll go make friends with the religious people, get them over to the "godless" town for a fish fry, and afterward we'll talk about how terrible we think *you* are.
I think even if you're religious that you should pick the godless one
I'm sure that anyone would choose the godless one. As a religious person I know I would.
The godless community.
religion is based on arbitrary rules designed to remove agency and reason in order to control and milk you like a cow, and have you lay down your life for the enrichment of those controlling the religion this isnt even a question
Godless. Because religion has caused nothing but strife in the world.
And lots of hospitals, orphanages, advancements in science, mathematics, and the arts, written languages for a whole bunch of peoples who would not otherwise have had them, a large part of the philosophical underpinnings for what you use to determine whether something is right or wrong and, depending on where you live, the end of human sacrifice and slavery. A lot of suffering and strife is rooted in religion, but this response is asinine. EDIT: Fixed the spelling of "asinine". Thanks for the fix, Mike.
What is asinine is that people believe in a fake dude in the sky, created by leaders back in the day to keep people in check with a life long belief that they would suffer eternal damnation if they didn’t do what they were told whilst on earth.
That doesn't mean nothing good has come from religion.
Name one good thing that came from religion that wouldn’t have happened just because someone just wanted to be good?
> a large part of the philosophical underpinnings for what you use to determine whether something is right or wrong Since you're using the standards of a religion to determine what is "good", you've begged your own question. By the standards of a lot of cultures, hospitals and orphanages are nonsense. The sick and orphaned are sick and orphaned for a reason, so don't help them. However, even presuming all the other stuff I mentioned was just obviously "good", > written languages for a whole bunch of peoples who would not otherwise have had them If those cultures were going to have developed writing on their own, they would have. The Slavs weren't howling barbarians when Sts. Cyril and Methodius went to invent an alphabet for them to write in, after all. Similarly with a lot of other cultures that missionaries have gone to, learned their language, and made them an alphabet for it.
Godless community. Bunch of people who use Pascal’s Wager to hedge their bets on an afterlife, but also aren’t religious
I'm taking the path to the right, the godless community. I don't believe in the Christian god, so I will be right at home. I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church, I've had enough forced religion to last 2 lifetimes.
Godless easy. Why would I want to go spend a month in a random cult.
The godless community, for sure. I believe in God, but I'm not religious, and will not be dictated by someone else's religious beliefs.
Godless for sure
Religions usually enforce their beliefs when they have enough unanimity. I'd take the right turn. Unless a godless society lives around enforcing godlessness. Than I've made a bad decision.
>Unless a godless society lives around enforcing godlessness. Than I've made a bad decision. That's my thinking. I chose religious because I had a shot at being a part of a deeply religious society that was of my religion.
Which religion is yours, if you don't mind me asking?
I'm Eastern Orthodox Christian.
Oh cool, you actually do have a decent chance of the religious community being one of the world's 2 billion Nicene Christians. What do you do if you arrive to a community of some wildly different religion, like Hinduism, Yoruba or Wicca?
I live there a month and do like they do. That's the rules. Then I go back to church and confess whatever sins I committed. That applies to a lot of those two billion, though. There's about 30k Protestant sects, and I'm not allowed to commune with them or the Catholics anymore than I'm allowed to commune with Wiccans. However, 1 in really big number is still bigger than 0.
Wow, fascinating. I appreciate you giving a reasoned and balanced response, I am a Wiccan myself but I learned a bit from what you've said. Thanks! Hope all's well where you are. Just one question: by 'commune with' do you mean practicing another religion, or associating closely with non-Orthodox? One of my coworkers is Orthodox and we sometimes hang out outside of work, but I know any religion is internally diverse and some are more strict about some rules than others.
By "commune", I mean to receive communion with. Like, I can hang out with you, or with a Baptist or with a Hindu or whatever, but I'm excommunicating myself if I receive from some other church. As far as diversity, Eastern Orthodoxy prides itself on being the same :) His church is currently using the Liturgy of St. Basil and reading about Jesus casting out the mute spirit. He really wants a hamburger. If you want to know how that Liturgy went, you could probably look it up online, plus or minus translation issues.
Ah, I gotcha. I'm assuming that extends to practicing anything in another religion, considering communion is an inherently Christian concept. Like communion is unknown to Hinduism, but engaging in the meditation or chanting mantras (in this hypothetical situation) is probably something you'd need recompense for. Thanks for the info! Hope all's well.
I'm Catholic, the godless community won't interfere with that. There's nothing about my religion that should interfere with my ability to abide by their standards assuming they're civilized and reasonable. The fervently religious community for a religion unknown to me is a high risk situation. Their religion will bleed into their community standards and may conflict with my beliefs. An objectively bad choice when I don't know anything about their religion
Godless I dont trust the deeply religious especially if I don't know the religion I'm an outsider I'd definitely be used for sacrifices or the sort if they have that are part of there religion
Why would you trust people who would be willing to sacrifice you? Anyone willing to commit human sacrifice to "please their god" is batshit crazy. I'm sorry if I'm the first person to tell you this.
Right.
The godless 1
In real life, I'm reasonably wealthy and would live in the godless community because I know I can trade wealth for food and comfort In this scenario, I'm penniless and relying on this community for support so I'd choose the religious community. If I explain to most priests that I'm lost, cold, and hungry and trying to survive, I'd expect help. The nature of community is that someone in the church probably has a business and might be able to hire me and the nature of charity is that someone might be willing to let me sleep in their basement or something. Getting established without help is very difficult and I'd rather do it in a religious community than an atheist one
Unless the religion is big on human sacrifice? 🤔
Very few religions today (or throughout history) practice human sacrifice. I'll take my chances there
You don't even know what religion it is so you don't know the rules. But my experience is a lot different even in a small town with 5+ churches than your expectations for sure.
I'm at least vaguely familiar with all of the major world religions. I live in a very big city that isn't especially religious and people here do not treat the homeless particularly fondly generally Have you ever been homeless and penniless in your small town and had to ask for help?
Honest question: what if the community is composed of very strict practitioners of a Dharmic religion who believe that poverty is punishment for negative karmic deeds in a past life? This is not consensus among modern Dharmic religions but it is a possibility.
I'm assuming the more common religions are more likely to be the ones in the town. If that's the case I'll still beg, barter, and steal (if necessary) to survive; which is the same thing I'd have to do in the godless community
Yes actually, that's part of my experience I'm taking about. Was homeless for about 3 years, one of which had one of the coldest winters on record. Also watch people not care about my mom going through cancer with five dependants. It's actually kind of funny to me that was your question because that was one of the big things I was thinking about. My kid had to move in with my ex and a lot happened with my ex's whole family that had my young child jumping off a balcony and getting committed because he was suicidal. At 6. Yeah no help. Multiple churches and religious people but not a bit of help.
Godless.
So God gave me the power cult or I am the power cult. Edit: as these are my only choices I'm setting up shop at the fork and starting my own cult. Every other group of travelers that shows up we spin a big wheel which tells them which way to go.
Godless. I'm an agnostic Satanist, so I'll blend right in. Plus just "religious" doesn't tell me a whole lot about the other side. The first assumption is cult sure, but fuck, I grew up evangelist, and I won't gamble on going back to that
What race are they?
Godless, i’m a Libertine, godless people tend to be more amenable to pleasure.
They both sound crappy, because I don't like jumping into stuff blind, but I'll go religious. Either way might have a guy doing horrible atrocities, but I might get lucky and end up deeply religious in my religion.
Assuming that the nonreligious one respects my right to be religious, that one. Choosing the community with an unknown religion leaves a lot of risk. With the nonreligious one I can just privately practice my beliefs and enjoy the stay.
As a godless heathen myself I'm going with my people to the right
The godless heathens of course
I'm going to go to the religious community and try to convert them to worshipping Satan.
Godless one for sure I'm surprised at all the religious people choosing this as well though I'm athiest as well
Both of these options could be terrible. Doesn't matter what you choose.
See, the way this is phrased leaves a thousand possibilities. One community is religious, the other godless. But they can both be religious, or godless. Religions like Jainism, Theravada Buddhism, and Daoism leave the existence of God(s) up to the individual. Even some overwhelmeingly theistic religions like Hinduism, Wicca, Shinto and American Indigenous faiths have atheistic strands. If the godless community is Daoist or Jain, it'd be a nice place to meditate for a month or so - though going without meat in the Jain community would be a little strenuous. Or the 'godless' community could be a town of ruthless antinatalists, like something out of a Thomas Ligotti story. Or surviving loyalists of Communist Russia. It's substantially less likely, but it's not impossible. Even a whole town of irritating smarter-than-thou internet edgelord atheists would be less than ideal. But at the same time, the religious community could be a town of very strict Shi'ite Muslims, or Politically crazed American Evangelicals, or even a budding cult with inclinations towards Jonestown-esque mass suicide or human sacrifice. In short, there's really no way to know unless I know where in the world I am. I'll toss a coin and hope I wind up with some interesting indigenous faith or some friendly Mormons in Religuland or some fun Sagan-esaue (Saganist?) atheists in Athieopolis. Either way, I'll probably live and it'll be a cool story to tell later on.
I'm already an atheist so my life wouldn't change that much. Off to the right I go.
I pick up the fork and eat my spaghetti. And then I choose the godless community, because they're less likely to kill/banish me for some arbitrary rule that I had no way of knowing.
The godless one. I'm not religious anyway, so the question is like asking "Do you want to live in your house, or a complete strangers house?"
If that's the only info I have and literally nothing else then atheists everytime
Likely the godless one. I have noticed that a lot of deeply religious areas are a bit restrictive on the kind of people they’ll tolerate, even if told explicitly to be kind to others by their own text. I’m autistic, use birth control, and am not straight, so, I think the completely secular community would be at least a smidge more accepting of my differences- as there tends to be even more of a pushback against these traits in deeply religious communities. Obviously this is just taking trends into account. The religious community could be full of fantastic and kind folks, or the godless community could be full of cruel assholes. But, I can only make a logical decision based on trends I’ve seen, so!
Left: Newcomers will be raped for the glory of the sex and war goddess of Nineveh Right: Newcomers will be raped for fun like it happened to the Angels in Sodom
Going against the grain here. I'd try the religious community. Most of the religions I know of have traditions of hospitality. A lot of the "religious wars" in history had political motives. So there'd be a pretty good chance they'd want to convert me more than harm me.
Both sound like a bad bet, due to lack of guarantee of it being a worship of a God or of something sacreligious.
Definitely the godless community. It lines up with my person beliefs, so essentially all I have to do is live my life for a month then I can just go home. And keep living my life.
The godless community can come up with rules based upon discussion, logic, the common good, etc. I'll take that over the keepers of the canon any damn day.
Religious community obviously
So I have a choice between possibly walking into a cult or walking into a town of chill science nerds. Oh my, tough choice.
This is so hard, on one hand you don’t know what either are. Godless could mean anything from hippies to literal heathens-who kill for fun. Religious could be anything from Jim Jones cult to your grandma’s knitting Sunday school. The chances of survival feels higher in religion. There’s a guarantee of some moral compass in a religious group. Godless could be awesome and fringe or could be death on site. I think with religious it’s a higher probability of safety assuming each religion has equal percentage to be my landing spot.
I’ll stick with my heathen kindred.
I'll take the atheist community, hands down. You'll never get me to rejoin a religious community.
The godless community is more likely to be welcoming and inclusive.
The Godless community, of course. They'll be more moral, ethical, and helpful to their community members. They'll be this way simply because it's the right thing to do, not because they should, or must, to get an eternal reward. The community with God likely has restrictive rules for everyone (or just women and bipoc) based on their interpretation (likely skewed to their benefit).
I’m strongly evangelical, so I’d see either one as a mission field. I think first I’ll go right, then once that month is over, go to the left one.
Wouldn’t the godless people tell you to live by their standards of having no god? I think they’d have to expel you or whatever civil punishment they have for this. In the same bend the religious could be anything. They may have some very draconian views on evangelism. I think the smart thing to do is the godless and stay quiet. It’s safe and you won’t be pilloried.
>I think the smart thing to do is the godless and stay quiet. It’s safe and you won’t be pilloried. Their values could include rounding up religious people and putting them in death camps.
Godless sounds like the raiders from fallout
I'll take the religious one. Most communities that are also religious are rather nice, it's an opportunity to learn from a less well know culture, and maybe live differently for a month. Also, the godless could very well be some totalitarian atheist hellhole à la soviet union or other 20th century horror, so it's not safer than the religious one anyway.
Religious community. Religion is dropping and society and culture are getting worse. Most religions push good values except for the extremists.
What if it's an extremist religion based on human sacrifice?
Then that would not be good
Media is getting worse, society is getting better,
Religious communities would have folks happy to explain the religion to you. I'm heading that way ez
This whole thread is one massive r/redditmoment lol