It's worth remembering that Christians, the most GOP-leaning religion, are split almost exactly evenly down the middle between Democrats and Republicans. Every other religious group votes overwhelmingly for Democrats.
Democrats are the party of religious freedom and expression. Republicans are the party of lonely single men and abusive men who are on their 3rd or 4th wife and don't pay child support.
Legislating women's rights is an expression of GOP authoritarianism and misogyny.
Young people generally do believe in a higher power. To their credit, they do not believe in hatred, greed, or hypocrisy. Those raised in hateful churches are looking for another way to connect with the divine.
Good for them for grasping what is most important for that journey: love for others. They may feel lost, but they are going in the right direction by leaving places that basically worship white cis het identity.
Pope Francis: World Nearing ‘Breaking Point’ from Climate Change
ROME, Italy — Climate change has brought the world to the “breaking point,” Pope Francis asserted in his introduction to a 3-day climate summit to be held in the Vatican in May
Nice chat with an older Jehovah's Witness couple at my door yesterday. Tried their hardest, even though I told them my history with religion and my current viewpoints. One thing they tried to convince me WITH: "interpretation of the scriptures isn't necessary, they interpret themselves". They left when my reaction to "his scripture gives us comfort" was that scriptures commanding genocide and forced circumcision of god's enemies made me discomforted.
@kevin 😂 that always helps, yeah. Come to think of it, I did frankly talk to these two women that walked up to my wife and I as I was parking in my driveway. They were like, do you believe in God, I'm like nah. Not really. And they go, WHY. And I'm like, why waste my time on that, or something. Or like, ask them why they DID believe in it. Or try to explain my agnosticism. None of which generally is a great use of my scant time here on Earth, yknow? But it's wild that people do that stuff. 😂😂
@kevin religion and sports are things I choose not to deal with, but then like, they come up in everyday life, and I'm like oh SHIT right, a lot of people are into in that shit! Luckily it's rarely in my circles 😂
I see. There's a good deal more going on here (& w/ religion in general). A key insight from RS is that “religion” has no singular non-reductive definition, only a family resemblance of features. So can only define religion for the purposes of a given discussion. You take value derived from myth as religion's core here.
What's the most helpful way to think about myths and values?
Myths are stories that fill the world with meaning and value. Humanism has its myths (answers to questions of meaning) too---and some are quite cosmological in scope.
“Values are ideas about what people ought to want.”
"While it may come as a surprise to many, most religious groups today favor the legality of abortion. In fact, there are only four (out of 16) religious groups in which a majority say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases: white evangelical Protestants, Hispanic Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Latter-Day Saints. Even combined, these four outlier groups only constitute one in five Americans."
"The truth is that we are not polarized on this issue of abortion—at least not if polarization is construed to mean an evenly divided country. Rather, what we have is a vocal and powerful minority attempting to enshrine their beliefs into law, over the objections of nearly twice as many Americans who disagree with them."
If I have to live without you
I don’t wanna live forever
In someone else's heaven
So let ’em close the gates
Oh, if they don’t like the way you’re made
Then they’re not any better
If paradise is pressure
Oh, we’ll go to hell together
@paninid Almost all religion is like that, innit? Someone will use it as a weapon eventually. I used to think “at least Buddhism has it right”. Then Rohingya genocide happened.
I don’t think I know anything about any religion anymore
I don't specifically care about the future or the well-being of the Methodist church, but I recognize that this is an important statement of a significant sector of Americans who are religious and who are interested in the way the church impacts culture in positive ways. #religion#USPolitics
After almost seven decades of living, all of them in the church and almost half of them as a minister, I have come to the conclusion that most religion is evil. Wars, pogroms against the "evils of society," and the proliferation of ignorance and abuse in the "name of some deity" are destroying our world. I will have none of it anymore. #religion#abuse#war#evil#sin