I want to address something I've been thinking about recently. As far as Religion, Afterlife, ect, I'm solidly in the "I don't know" camp, and I'm fine with that. I think any Religion, Religious Institution, or Religious Leader who has used spiritual beliefs to oppress, control, manipulate, or financially gain from other people should be both questioned and mocked, and I have no problem doing it, or with other people doing it.
The issue I run into on Mastodon is Aggressive Atheism. I have no issue with atheism at all, but I do have a problem if it's used to attack other people for their personal spiritual beliefs. If someone is making a comment about something they believe personally, and they aren't hurting anyone with it, jumping into the comments to say "PROVE GOD IS REAL" is just as annoying and pointless as a couple Religious people knocking on your door, and telling you, you must accept their Lord. This is simply a matter of respecting other people.
@CherokeeSher@RickiTarr
It would be easier to do if there weren't powerful and very loud religious folk trying to shift the secular nature of our (in the US) government and deprive others of their rights.
It is impossible to live and let live when religious people (heretical or no) wield their belief like a cludgel and scythe.
Too often, when a religious person speaks publicly, they are doing that very thing.
*not all, of course - no monoliths - but enough & frequently to devastating effect.
@CherokeeSher@RickiTarr There's a chance you might be looking at a post or comment from an abuse survivor. Or someone from a country who's way of life has been whitewashed by a particular religion or most likely of all, someone who's angry that the religion in the country they live in dictates far too much of their daily life and rights.
My own (non-theist) religion leads me to attack all forms of oppression, including over-bearing theist religions, which sadly is most of them. I wouldn't ever attack an individual for their own beliefs if that person isn't stating an aspect of their belief that leads to oppression.
Yeah, this. I grew up in quite a close church community where personal boundaries were interpreted as aggressions, where God's will was whatever happened to suit the local patriarchs, and where children were very much the possessions of their parents.
We weren't a cult or anything, just middle class suburban Reform Christians.
I'm not going to defend every atheist on the internet, nor would I wish to (a lot of them are doing it for entirely the wrong reasons), but I'm also not going to be comfortable with anyone whose response to the above is "oh but not all Christians."
@CherokeeSher@RickiTarr This atheist only gets angry when the religious try to impose their beliefs on others, attacking abortion and even birth control, trying to push LGBT people back into the closet and denying them even the right to exist, and trying to prevent schools from teaching science or history properly. I have no problem with religious people who don't do this.
The thing is, they are not atheists, they are anti Abrahamic. All of their arguments only apply to the god of Abraham's religions. One the one hand I feel sorry for them because they have been so hurt by religion. On the other I am over their smug whining. They do exactly what they accuse religious people of doing, aggressively pushing their own beliefs on others.
@RickiTarr Self-righteous Atheism feels a little privileged to me. There are people who have endured centuries of violent oppression. Faith, for many of these folks, supports their hope for a better day. They cannot concede to nihilism, unlike someone who hasn’t endured generational trauma. I have quite strong feelings about theistic religions. Nonetheless, I will never disrespect someone’s choice to have faith in a compassionate and just higher power.
@RickiTarr I try to look at it as more of a problem with fanaticism. I usually don’t have a problem with people’s beliefs as long as no one else gets hurt. I do have a problem when someone else’s beliefs are used as justification to attack me (or anyone else) for not agreeing with them. You want to not believe in anything, fine. You want to have fun harassing me because I do believe, get stuffed.
@RickiTarr@fuzzface Seems to me that what a lot of people don't recognize is that fundamentalism isn't confined to conservative religious folks. Atheists can be just as fundamentalist about their unbelief as Westboro Baptists are about theirs. "You're wrong/stupid/lost if you don't think the way I do" -- a poor, arrogant, narrow mindset no matter who holds it.
@courtcan@RickiTarr Agreed. I likely overthink things, but a lot of human problems can be boiled down to a modest set of poor behavior elements. But, most of the time people don’t see that. How many awful concepts in history can be boiled down to “They are different” and being unable to “Live and let live” ? It is very frustrating, but all you can do is try to behave better than that and support others who are doing the same.
@courtcan@RickiTarr@fuzzface I have experienced the fundamentalism of both conservative religious people and militant atheists. I consider myself an agnostic. How can I know for sure if there is a deity or not, or if there were, what would they be like? I don't like to see other people's sincerely held beliefs belittled or dismissed as stupid or childish.
@cherylgk@courtcan@RickiTarr@fuzzface
2 different answers for 2 different questions.
Agnosticism answers:
"Can we Know if there is a deity?"
that an epistemological question.
Atheism answers:
"What do I Believe about the nature of reality?"
That's metaphysical.
What we think is real
vs.
What we can actually know.
For instance:
I am an Atheist and Gnostic; that is, I think we Can know if something exists, but I don't Believe any of the stories I've encountered so far.
@TessRants@courtcan@RickiTarr@fuzzface I am a Phenomenologist and Agnostic. I think we do not know reality directly, but our knowledge of it is always a dialogue between our perception and the world we perceive. I am not a theist nor an atheist, because I neither believe nor disbelieve in a god or gods, but do believe there may be something beyond what we can sense and measure in our world,
@courtcan@RickiTarr@fuzzface
I understand what you're trying to say.
At the risk of sounding pedantic, I want to point out that 'fundamentalism', even in the colloquial sense, is not synonymous with dickish/ boorish behavior. I've met perfectly amiable fundamentalists. Although they are fewer than you'd expect, they exist; quietly.
Fundamentalism is a kind of extremism but it's one of the softest kinds.
It's usually what sprouts from fundamentalism that causes the major murder problems.
Now I'm an atheist and a relatively radical one. I will stand toe-to-toe with religious people trying to step on the toes of others. Sometimes it's not just their right to state their religious beliefs, rather they are pushing them on others. I live in the USA and we as a nation are being destroyed by the christians pushing their agenda. Perhaps that's why they get hacked at when they post it on social media.
@joesabin@fuzzface My issue is more about someone answering one of my questions and then getting attacked in the comments. There is a huge difference between religion as an institution and religion as a personal spiritual belief. I think everyone deserves to be treated with respect.
@Shantis@joesabin@fuzzface LOL this is a great question, I might have to steal it someday for question time. So, I'm not an expert, but I think longing to understand the connections between things is just a human thing, people come to different conclusions, I think this would be true whether organized religion existed or not. I'm not a big fan of organized religion myself, but I don't think that all people who are spiritual want to use it to oppress people, it just gives them comfort.
@RickiTarr@Shantis@joesabin@fuzzface I am an expert :) Most human religions are not institutional but rather are all about personal spirituality. Religious institutions came well after personal spirituality. Religion was in the home and for most of human history and only became institutional once humans became civilized. (in the true sense of that word, i.e. living in cities.)
This feels like you're posing a chicken and egg problem on religious institutions and spirituality. Like people wouldn't be spiritual if not for the institutions. Am I feeling that wrong?
@Itty53@RickiTarr@joesabin@fuzzface Did anyone watch Messiah on Netflix? In India, there are thousands of ‘Messiah’s. They connect with people, speak eloquently, some perform miracles (magic?) that millions of people are drawn to them. When they build enough of a following, that becomes “organized religion”. One can argue, that the masses were already “spiritual” so were drawn to this religion. My belief is it is the other way around.
Virtually every organized religion starts as a cult movement though, without an institution. Institutions don't spring up from a void of course, they're brought about by the very people who practice the spirituality. THEN they get leveraged.
Organized religion is itself only part of religion at large too, not all religions ARE organized, not even all Christian ones. They can still practice religion with all the trappings of it.
No it's not. "Organized" in "organized religion" is not a redundancy. You don't even need to believe in God or gods particularly, you can make a religion about anything you think of as more powerful than yourself. See sun worshippers, fire worshipping, other pantheistic religions.
The coining of a word in a given language doesn't mark anything about what the word describes either. Really now? That's some type of argument.
@joesabin@Itty53@RickiTarr@fuzzface I agree 100%. Religion by definition is Organized. Not sure why we need an adjective. I know many people who say they are not religious,but spiritual. By this, they mean they do not follow the “rituals” of a particular religion but still believe in their basic tenets. This is just hair-splitting. If one believes in a higher being that has some kind of control over one’s life, that is religion.
You're exactly the kind of militant types this thread was started talking about. You can't just insist on the way words work and the way history did happen. "Organized" is not a redundancy. Pantheism is as far from organized as it gets and it has a thousand expressions, they're all religions. Belief in a higher power is not an exclusively organized endeavor.
Talk about mention and summon. We get it. You don't like religion. Sheesh.
Straight up: the only reason I started challenging shit here was because that "all religious belief is institutional" argument is obviously intended to be read as, "religious believers, even the innocent ones, are just victims of the institutions and wouldn't believe without that victimhood" and that's just flat and lazy religious prejudice, plain and simple. It's not okay.
Oh nooo he blocked me. And nothing was lost. "Let that sink in," good lord. Ugh.
@Itty53@Shantis@joesabin@fuzzface Yes, I'm not discounting a certain amount of brainwashing especially for children but in the end people make their own choices
@joesabin@RickiTarr@fuzzface I was raised in an evangelical cult and have very little to do with my family because they are all still in that cult. Many atheists grew up in those strict situations and it’s hard to see someone so wrapped up in those lies.
@pamelanred@joesabin@fuzzface As was I, and it is hard especially in an abusive situation. I just try to remember that everyone's experiences with religion are not the same as mine.
@joesabin
I'll tell you this for nothing, about how I relate to this post, and how your interchangeable use of "Christianity" and "religion" looks from the vantage point of someone who isn't, and has never been, part of the Christian hegemony (which includes and benefits Christian atheists) @RickiTarr@fuzzface
@joesabin
When some Jews, to speak from my experience, are talking about being Jews, and reliably some raised-Christian militant atheist jumps in to school us, well, at this point it really doesn't make much of a difference to me if you're atheist or not—you're just doing what Christians do: enforce your paradigm on other people. And you don't even realize it because you are ignorant even of the existence of other paradigms, thanks to the Christian hegemony. @RickiTarr@fuzzface
@alter_kaker@RickiTarr@fuzzface I live in a majority christian religion country. I would also never mention that other group as I would immediately be called anti-s regardless of why. I'm not, I'm anti-religion because of the distortion it produces in society. All are based upon man created stories about a greater power and what he wants us to do. If one thinks logically about it for a while they all become laughable.
Besides that, it is one of the three major Abrahamic religions of the world. They have the same root. Yet the three religions seem to create most of the strife in the world. It is that among other things, that I find offensive about religion.
Christian atheists always love to tell us how much they don't believe in Jesus while they demand we repent of our heathen beliefs, acknowledge that what Christians told them about us is even better than knowing us because you know how (((those people))) lie about antisemitism, and that we are basically just Christians because we are "Abrahamic".
As if it wasn't already obvious how Christian they were, and like we care whether they believe in Jesus or not.
@joesabin@fuzzface I think that has way less to do with religion and more to do with just being selfish. I've met atheist who voted for Trump because they thought he would be good for their pocketbook, their are stupid people all over
@RickiTarr My belief structure is based on 55+ years of thinking about it, reading, classes, family, and influences from my life and environment. It is unlikely you will “convert me” with a one-line taunt in a social media thread. MUO is that folks who try this stuff are rarely doing anything beyond being jerks on public forums.
@RickiTarr Completely agree. I was raised in the Catholic Church, left by the teens, had a resurgence on my 40s where I was confirmed an Episcopalian but drifted away because of the constant careerism in the clergy, particularly male priests. Where it gets difficult is some folks were so damaged by their relationship to a community of faith, mostly often because it consciously withheld love and acceptance they desperately needed in total contradiction to the teachings of its alleged central figure. That pain can drive folks into some very dark places. It kills me how much better off we’d be if folks could just lighten the hell up and maybe see the humanity in others first before pointing out the diabolical.
@RickiTarr I have a lot of sympathy for the “militant” atheists (rarely actually militant - specially when compared with the actual militancy we see elsewhere). Just my truly horrible childhood coming thru’.
But I’ve calmed down a bit. Ranting at believers isn’t really that helpful and is quite self indulgent. Doesn’t change my childhood. Age has been a bit of a mellower…
Oh - I’m definitely agnostic too. Agnostic coz I don’t know (and I suppose it could be true). Atheist because I don’t believe it - the evidence is (seriously) lacking. The two seem to go hand in hand. But plenty of folks have different combinations of these @CatDragon
@RickiTarr
Disclosure: I’m an Episcopalian
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once had a conversation w/ an atheist.
Atheist: I don’t believe in God.
AJH: What God are we talking about?
Atheist: The God who makes impossible rules, who judges us and punishes us, who says these few people are good and these many people are evil.
AJH: Yeah, I don’t believe in that God either.
I’m the same. God is love. The rest is bs. I don’t recognize American evangelical Christianity as Christian.
@beatnikprof Yep, if people push about my beliefs it usually comes down to basically, if I see something bigger than us it is the capacity to love is bigger than the capacity to hate
@beatnikprof@RickiTarr I grew up evangelical Christian. I would say evangelical Christianity simply has a warped idea of what love and God means. They think love is ‘money’ and ‘other people getting punished’. The whole thing is an abusive daddy issues cult that is theology- and belief-free
@skinnylatte@RickiTarr Apparently even evangelical ministers are running into problems with some of their congregants because said congregants are proclaiming that Jesus was too woke. 🤦♂️
@beatnikprof@RickiTarr A United Church minister told me that about 40 years ago so I repeated that to my Anglican Minister father in law- “Yes”, he said, “that’s Kant” (I think). It’s pretty well known rhetoric.
@RickiTarr I know an otherwise perfectly sensible guy who, when you get a few beers in him, swears he saw a Sasquatch once. I find it best not to argue.
I am an atheist, my wife a pagan and we've talked about this very thing. And not just with religion, but all who believe their view is correct. It's a kind of absolutism based on the reality of the individual who is spouting it.
Most people are just trying to get through each day so as long as they don't do anything to harm anyone else they shouldn't be judged on what they eat, where they work or shop, what they wear and their recreation choices. Nor their religious beliefs.
When I was on Twitter I was abused for being Gen X, a vegetarian (by both meat eaters and vegans), a man, white, a car driver, a teacher, a runner and an atheist. Probably more, but it was a while ago. (I did have support on Twitter too, but there were always accounts that would hassle the way you live).
@chestas@RickiTarr What an elegant reply to the topic, thank you. I'm also an atheist but I endured enough of the evangelical baptist side of the family during my youth that I developed almost a phobia about imposing my views on others. All I ask is that others do me the same courtesy and that includes state and federal legislation that tries to impose thinly veiled evangelical religious views on us all.
@RickiTarr no i am a hardcore atheist and i used to do things like that but i really stop myself from saying things to religious folks unless they get in my face, i sort of decided you know if that works for them and makes them happy, who am i to mess with it, as if they would listen to me anyways -- but really, happiness is valuable, if you can manufacture it from some crazy space lord stuff then, you do you
@RickiTarr Very complex & layered.
I grew up in a conservative religious household. Church daily. Guilt & shame. My dad aged 97yo (still daily church) says his biggest failure is that I no longer believe.
I hate that that he rejected my sister who is gay, that he idolises an institution that protects child abusers & he prays abortion is criminalised.
A friend found god after a breakdown due to unresolved CSA. She had church counselling, suddenly was no longer gay, studied the Bible, worked for the church, married a man. Her mental health is spiralling again. She chose prayer over real help for years. Finally she is seeking help, but she is so far gone she admits she will never work again.
Last week she confided she can't understand why god is punishing her because she no longer lives in sin.
Breaks my heart.
It's fine if religion doesn't hurt, but atheists can be militant because of the overwhelming damage we have seen in the name of religion.
We are often broken too.
@BlahBlah I 100% agree and damn we similar life experiences even down to the gay sibling. I went through an angry period for awhile, I just mostly don't want trolls harassing people.
@RickiTarr I don't want to harass anyone either.
I am happy to live with other people's religious beliefs, as long as it doesn't impact other people who don't believe in their religion or detrimentally harm the believers themselves.
@Piousunyn@RickiTarr I'll wait until there's an NFT of the table flip Jesus image. Once Christ is on the blockchain, well, then I'm in line to buy BitCommunionWafers
@RickiTarr i'm an atheist and a secularist, and i'm not afraid to criticize religion when it is appropriate. but there is a time & a place to advocate for these things. if someone is minding their own business & posting some relatively benign comment about their beliefs, whatever. i move on. hectoring people just upsets them, & doesn't make an effective case for issues that actually matter (like separation of church & state, debunking quacks & psychics, countering antiscience propaganda, etc.)
@RickiTarr yeah, in all truth there is no way to prove the existence or non-existence of god. This is why I call myself agnostic, instead of atheist. I am perfectly fine saying I have no knowledge of things that I can not possibly have any knowledge of. Anything else is just relying on the word of other humans who claim to know the mind of the creator, or other humans who claim to know no creator exists. They are all liars because they can not know.
One thing I've found helpful as a survivor of religious trauma is the neologism "foma" from Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle.
Foma are harmless untruths. "Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy."
Hey I have foma too.
So long as people are practicing their religion as foma, we're same same but different.
When they start using their reality maps to overrule other people's, that's a whole different thing and they don't deserve comfort in that choice.
@RickiTarr if people want to believe stuff, you can’t stop them and shouldn’t try, as long as they are doing no harm. If they are, then the harm is fair game for any and all attacks.
@juneussell Exactly, if people change their minds it will be because they change their minds, for me kindness has always been more of an influence than aggression.
@juneussell@RickiTarr Much as I agree with this, words can hurt for a lifetime. Bruises go away, even scars sometimes. Cheers to everyone having thicker skin, but also cheers to those that don't try to cut through it.
@RickiTarr@mambearpnw Impractical, particularly if they ‘didn’t mean to’. That would mean there’s every chance they’d just as inadvertently do it again.
@RickiTarr@mambearpnw My sister knocked out four of my front teeth while drunk. I absolutely forgave her; of course she didn’t mean to do that. But I never went drinking with her again.
@RickiTarr@juneussell My brother got me hooked on meth as a diet plan some decades ago. I closed that relationship door permanently shortly after getting clean. My own life is stronger than the blood tie. Just because they're of the same doesn't mean you're obligated to endure trauma. That's my two cents with zero judgment on anyone else's tolerance level. Thanks for asking.
@RickiTarr@mambearpnw Oh, I’d still happily see her, but never in a drinking situation. She had a problem with it, which got worse over time, till in the end she simply couldn’t imagine a social situation without booze - and so I couldn’t see her :(
@RickiTarr I saw a lot of this on Reddit but haven’t seen much here (yet). I’ve always adhered to the feeling that “I’m an atheist, not an asshole”.
Like most other things I think people should be allowed to believe in whatever brings them comfort as long as those beliefs don’t hurt others. My mother is a staunch churchgoing member of the choir and my sister is a crystal hugging earth child who microcodoses mushrooms and can talk to ghosts and I love them both regardless of what they believe.
I let my child go to church with her grandparents if she wanted to but she always had permission to stay home if she didn’t want to. I know that she’s going to make up her mind about matters of spirituality and me trying to force my beliefs will just cause resentment in the long run.
For when people ask me “What if you’re wrong?” I tell them I’d be delighted to be wrong I just haven’t seen anything to convince me otherwise.
@RickiTarr Indeed. Agree with you in both your belief - I'm in the unknown, currently unknowable camp - and that Mastodon in particular have the aggressive, prove it, clowns. My guess is that Mastodon has a heavier tech industry population than other social media platforms. I've worked in tech since the 80s and there is a sizeable swath of that type in my industry unfortunately.
@RickiTarr One of my favourite teachings on this was a Rabbi on the intrinsic goodness of the atheist. I'm paraphrasing a longish teaching here, but that the religious does what they do for fear of loss of favour, or doctrine, or desire to please the divine. The atheist does good simply because it is the right thing to do.
@signalthirteen@RickiTarr As a Jew, I have to disagree about the religious doing things out of fear of the divine. We have nothing to fear from G-d in Judaism, unless I am entirely oblivious and just risking myself on a daily basis
@SameGirlie@signalthirteen@RickiTarr
I'm sorry but even a remote familiriaty with the Torah will give you many instances when g-d smites the stiff necked people of Israel for what look like pretty minor things
@RickiTarr@failedLyndonLaRouchite@SameGirlie I did 14 years in Parish ministry and this was the BS that was a big part of why I left. There's a tendency to swarm folks who ask valid questions and so they just stop asking, and then they just leave. It's heartbreaking to watch folks give up.
@RickiTarr I sometimes describe myself as "apathetic agnostic" I don't know and I don't care. Some people seem to get a lot out of religion others get a lot out of rugby.
@SkipHuffman@RickiTarr Early on I was shown that it isn't the hammer, it's the person holding it. They either build a house or tear one down. Religion is the hammer in this example, just to be clear. 🙂
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