My dad said this and he’s an antitheist. He didn’t say this about every kind of suffering but most kinds of suffering are a choice. This what most religions teach. Even if suffering isn’t a choice, dwelling on it is a path to eternal suffering.
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Religions have dozens of ways to make you feel bad about your choices and the choices of others. Fictional sins based on nothing are a common way of doing that. “You sinned, so you must want punishment/suffering”. Even when this sin is stupid and arbitrary. Ableism is another big one with religion: “They’re disabled because my god wants them to suffer, so I’ll contribute to their suffering - like my god wants me to”.
“Dwelling on it”. Yeah, people hold grudges against bad people that hurt them. Religions teaches that you should forgive everyone, especially the pirest that raped your child, stole your money, or started a holy war and sent you off instead of them. Dwell on that stuff. Make it right. Don’t just forget about it and pretend like someone in a fictional afterlife will take care of it, because fictional gods don’t do that.
If you choose religion, you are choosing suffering. If you choose a system of lies and fiction over reality, you’re going to get lies and fiction instead of reality. That will cause you suffering in many different ways.
God does not want anyone to contribute to the suffering of disabled people. Suffering can be a test from God, but He does not want anyone to be cruel to anyone who suffers, even sinners. He wants us to save them by inviting them to the true path. God will reward us for enduring suffering without being broken by it. He will also not burden a soul beyond what it can bear.
Holding a grudge is like lighting yourself on fire and expecting the other person to burn. Objects of hatred become idols. By hating people who did terrible things to you, you are turning your worship away from God and choosing to wallow in your own pain. Nothing that you do will ever undo anything that was done to you. The best that you can do is forgive them and stop letting them have power over you. You can punish them by living as your fullest authentic self in spite of them. There are evil people who will get away with it in this life and it’s pointless and tragic to damn yourself by hating them. By hating and obsessing, you’re giving your tormentors power over you even if they’re dead.
God and His path are the only things that can take away your suffering. By choosing religion, you aren’t choosing a lie, you’re choosing the way, the truth, and the light.
I won’t pretend that you’ll never suffer. Life is suffering, but God can take away the pain. There are people who are severely disabled and were constantly denied justice, but they are happier than people who live extremely comfortable lives.
What you describe is individualism. And while I agree that individualism has poisoned the Western mind, it comes from enlightenment philosophy, industrial capitalism, and economics, not faith. Viewing the whole world as the sum of individual choices is way younger than any major religion.
I would argue that the atomization of Western society has harmed religion as much as anything since religion is a cultural relic that still relies on communal activities.
Well, that’s all complete bullshit.
Before religions, all humans made individual choices. During religion, all humans made individual choices. Even now, people still make individual choices. Your fictional religion just ignores reality and pretends everything is always religion, and it’s never been any other way. Just lies.
Yeah, freedom, education,a nd choice really does fuck up religion’s absolute control, indoctrination, and forced activies. Fuck religion, and fuck you.
The hate and vitriol in this post proves why following God is the only path to success and happiness. You can free yourself from such misery and hate. I hope that you are able to find peace.
You say that like organised religion doesn’t teach/encourage hate.
Religion doesn’t promote hate. There are people who promote hate. Rejecting God will only bring eternal misery.