Comment on Are we deprogramming empathy in the US?
aesthelete@lemmy.world 1 day agoI am even to the point now where I no longer believe certain people need religion anymore. They need community and a sense of belonging and religious leaders like to highjack that basic need for their own selfish interests.
I think I agree with basically everything you’ve said here and especially this conclusion. The problem is that for many the only type of these things they can find is couched in religion. As a child-free atheist, I basically have no sense of belonging nor a community.
In addition, some people’s only exposure to even the very concept of morality or ethics comes through religion.
Doomsider@lemmy.world 1 day ago
You have a community here which is probably more real and fulfilling than going to a church service. Here we are having a discussion you would never get in a typical church. We are both thinking together, discussing, without any authority to tell us otherwise.
Our sense of right and wrong simply don’t come from religion. It initially comes from our familial bounds but is reinforced through our many interactions with our social groups.
You can see this in gangsters that believe in God, but also will deal drugs and shoot each other. Their morality is determined by their social group, not their belief in religion.
As I said. I used to believe like you that religion is needed by some people, but I have begun to doubt this premise.
ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
You’re confusing people who say they are/consider themselves A and do/are A with those who aren’t. You understand religion as a superficial, decorative thing because that’s the way it has been in the West since at least the days of Nietzsche, and as such their moral relativism is not surprising at all (ethics are belief/self-determination, check is-ought problem on wiki). Doomsider, I have walked your path, I just started earlier and I’m probably older as well. Your vitriolic gut reaction has to do more with your perception of religion and religious people in a Roman Catholic plus offshoots setting (or just some hypocrites from whatever religious group) than it has to do with belief and monotheism itself, your disappointment is expected. But you haven’t gotten it, you don’t understand what it actually means to believe in something and live your life accordingly in a similar way you understand gravity and don’t jump out of windows. Take care, merry winter solstice! 👋
Doomsider@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Religion is a superficial decoration in modern times. My ancestors true religion was taken from them by sword point. Convert or die, so pardon me if I view modern religion through the lense of conquerors and manipulators.
Argue, I have been married for almost thirty years. I was in your frame of mind back when I was a teenager. I spent decades studying all religions and I still do to this day. I am under no more false illusions or pretenses and have spent a long time deprogramming myself.
I am very satisfied where I have landed and I will not give credence where it does not belong.
ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
But that’s you and your great interest in religion which probably stems from a need for something more from life than just empty pleasure, which probably means you value ideas and consistency more than others. As long as you move righteously, idc how you got there and I’m not even the tiniest amount against whatever you believe in if the outcomes are great and similar to what I’m preaching about, but if you don’t see how the vast majority of people aren’t like that and don’t think about it for even a second, and how belief acts as a safeguard, a rail you hold onto when temptation is great, then idk, you lack appreciation for it, I guess.
Also, my ancestors were also murdered with a gun in one hand and a Bible in the other but it doesn’t mean the message of Jesus or the mere concept of objective moral duty that Moses brought about/popularized aren’t highly valuable.