This is why I resisted AA/NA for so long. It seemed like an attempt to convert people when they were at their lowest, rock bottom.
And it may have started that way, but today there are variations. My home group was full of angry atheists and agnostics. We spent a LOT of time trashing religion and the spiritual abuse we suffered as young people.
That’s where I learned that we are all gods. Anyone who creates is god. I started praying to myself and actually still do occasionally. Since I’m the one in control of my own destiny, why shouldn’t I? It’s odd but it actually works, it’s like telling your subconscious what to do, which makes things easier for your conscious self.
I’m def not a god, it just takes time for your body to break down, for your mind to turn to dust, then you WILL feel it. You will understand what it is like to be limited, to see your entire future ahead of you.
Just pick whoever/whatever you want, I like that elephant-headed God for example. He makes me happy (Ganesh). He doesn’t need blood or anything, he’s so crazy
It doesn’t matter, none of this matters
Amen to that
The privileged have everything, while the destitute only have “god”.
It seems like a strange thing to lose or find.
I lost God finally when my aunt died. It was my last bit of faith. I had one last conversation with god before I finally understood.
Something helps people cope with tragedies of life.
“What a predator!”
Yeah, like how medical professionals enrich themselves from the ill. Vermin!
Amazes me what counts as profound comments here.
On AtheistMemes - shows a pic that’s not a meme, it’s just a person saying something…
Typical
Not our fault you don’t know what a meme is.
Meme has multiple meanings, but in the sense most commonly used in the internet it is “funny piece of media that spreads from place to place in a way that is hard/impossible to track the spread”
This ain’t funny. It’s just a statement.
Yes I’m aware of the other meanings. This ain’t what this community is used for though
Funny, the sidebar seems to disagree with you.
It doesn’t?
Not saying I disagree, but as someone who was once religious I’d say that in their minds it is exactly the point to serve the desperate and broken hearted. “It is the sick who need a doctor, not the well.” They genuinely believe they are helping by doing this, not trying to be deceptive.
I think you’re wrong about that last part. They are absolutely deceptive.
It’s probably a mix of both
That doesn’t change that most of them actually believe they’re helping. They’ve been pretty well groomed to believe that.
That’s fair.
Probably depends on location and culture as well. Where I live there’s a decent amount of moderate people. And well, they probably internalized the negative aspects. But it’s not like they’ll go out and molest other people with their religious stuff. So I’d say as long as they’re accepting of dissent, gay people, facts… Which many of them are… They’re more part of something that’s deceptive from grounds up, rather than (deliberately) being deceptive themselves. And they don’t follow the rules literally (same with the moderates amongst the Muslim people here). Leading me to believe they have some grasp of what’s right and what’s wrong beyond what’s written in an old book.
Of course none of this applies to the fundamentalists, or the nasty evangelical people prevalent in some other countries. And religion always has deceit baked in, that’s a fact 🤗 We’d call it science or ethics or history if it was based on something else.
In fairness, in the prominent religions "everyone* is sick and needs the doctor
Nah it’s you’ll all burn in hell if you don’t accept Odin, so everyone is “sick” in your metaphor.
Odin? I meant Ganesha. Or was it Zeus?
Not all religions have a concept of hell, nor eternal punishment for sins. That’s a very Judeo-Christian-Islamic view.
They’re all made up so they have that in common.
I’m a devout atheist, but Ganesh I’d smoke a joint with.
If you found happiness through religion, good for you. Everyone has their own ways.
The problem starts when you think happiness can only come from religion.
The problem actually starts when magical thinking becomes acceptable, and people start suffering on large scale because of it.
The problem starts when you think that other people need your religion so you can be happy.
Everyone has their own ways.
Yes, but not all ways are equally healthy. If you need to believe in falsehoods to be happy in life, that’s objectively a less productive coping skill than one that doesn’t involve that. Personally, as a society, I strongly feel we should be setting the bar higher. It should be an embarrassment to have such beliefs.
Mind you, I would never an am not advocating anything like legislature to enforce anything. Cultural change can’t be legislated. I just firmly believe in such change.
I mean, if falsehoods are the only way you can cope with the shit world we live in and be happy and you’re not pushing it on anyone else go for it. I’m not religious but it’s not like I’ve found an alternative. Best I can do is drink to shut off the part of my brain that’s constantly ruminating on shit. That’s not particularly productive either.
The main problem I have is that it normalizes lazy, magical thinking. And this leads to shit like anti-science, anti-vax, anti-intellectual shit and people suffer and die because of it
The entire problem there is that we all keep trying to shut it off instead of joining together with others who are also suffering to change society for the better because we have become so isolated from our communities.
Churches and religion offer this community but instead of making it better they just manipulate you into thinking the suffering is divinely ordained.
The problem precedes this point. If the social safety net is failing you and you’re going to a church for relief, or your family and friends have abandoned you and you’re going to a cult for communion, or you’re a college kid away from home and the only social organ with open arms is a religious one - we’ve got a lot more problems on the table than the existence of religious folks.
It sucks to be a widow or widower looking for support groups to help you cope with the death of your spouse, and the only available groups are at churches who then turn the group into a mini church sermon. These churches should not have tax free status when they won’t even offer the most basic help for communities without trying to convert vulnerable people to their cult.
Fun fact: The exact same tactics were used by Hitler. The result is even similar, too.
You will not be surprised that Gabriele D’Annunzio, one of the forgotten masterminds of fascism, described fascism as a “secular religion”.
And social media too!
How many came to Lemmy just because they were dissatisfied with reddit or such.
Yeah, it can be used deliberately in a predatory way. It also happens quite organically
To be honest I didn’t feel particularly vulnerable. “Reddit Is Fun” stopped working and I didn’t like the official app.
Chaos is a ladda!
I mean… yes, but this is kinda true for everything. Most people don’t change their worldview/religion/political ideology etc. when they’re happy and everything goes well. Most people also don’t start their own business, move countries or leave their spouse if they’re entirely happy with how things have been going.
To put it in system dynamics terms, in order for a system to settle on a new attractor state, there first needs to be enough instability to spur change. So the mechanism you’re describing isn’t unique to religion.
Made me think of “there are no atheists in foxholes”. To which my response is, so religious people are only religous because they fear for thier life? That sounds healthy.
“Religion invents a problem—namely sin—throws a poison into you, and then offers you the cure.” - Hitchens
Yes and no. Sin is particular to Christianity. Not all religions conceive of sin as the main problem, nor salvation as the way to solve it.
Good book on this is ‘God is Not One’ by Stephen Prothero.
For instance, you could say Buddhism’s problem is suffering. But that’s not something it imposes on you; that’s something inherent to the human condition, more or less. It offers a solution to that, but you can’t exactly compare apples to oranges.
Why is this downvoted? Even on an atheist site, there is still plenty of cultural bias and assumptions. Like, the debate on whether god or not exists, why does the inherent premise assume there is only one god? Why does the debate never mention gods? Oh I know, because the monotheistic Abrahamic religion came to dominate the world. And so, the narrative and viewpoint on the debate became monotheistic, which throws the polytheistic viewpoint under the rug and pretend it does not exists.
Yes, it’s a common issue I’ve noticed in the west. When I was young, I sought out ex-Muslim spaces cause a lot of the general atheist chatter just didn’t get it.
Desperate people go looking for god after they’ve fucked up their lives so badly they need something–ANYTHING–before they end up dead.
“Well, fuck it, mom said I should try religion, so…”
Then they get back to something resembling normal, and attribute it to “GOD IS GREAT!”, and suddenly, they’re yakking at you like they’re a linux user vegan on crossfit. Or, a born-again Christian.
Many of us never fucked our lives up to begin with, so don’t have any use for religion. For those whom it has worked, great. Good for you. But, don’t assume everyone needs it.
Empathy is learned. You should try it.
Don’t know if religion is the best predator but it sure does have a lot of them.
