this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2025
545 points (92.4% liked)
Witches VS Patriarchy
1025 readers
678 users here now
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Faith oppresses the believer himself because it requires a willingness to believe in things without proof. It's like saying AIDS doesn't kill people because it merely weakens their immune system. Astrology believers are primed to believe anything, and often get scammed by their astrologers.
Which is accurate. It's the infection or cancer that kills you, like the priest or the astrologer oppresses you. The belief might make you more susceptible to oppression, but it's not what's oppressing you.
They don't understand what I'm saying. Oppression is a specific phenomenon. Becoming susceptible to oppression is not the same thing as being oppressed.
I never said it wasn't dangerous.
Yes. I said that AIDS itself doesn't kill you. In fact these days it's much more manageable with modern treatment. I never said it didn't raise your risk of dying from something else, obviously, that's the main thing it does.
I'd say that tight rope walking doesn't kill you. I used to go to the rock climbing gym all the time, and there was a slack line there constantly being used and I never saw anyone die on it. Tight rope walking isn't all that dangerous, any more than any other moderate athletic act. Tight rope walking 50 feet above the ground is dangerous, but I'd also argue that being on a tight rope 50 feet above the ground is drastically safer than being in the exact same point in space minus the tight rope.
Because that's exactly what this AIDS analogy is ignoring. Yeah, it can easily make an easily oppressed person more materially oppressed if it leads them into the influence of religious oppressors. But it can also be a source of fortitude and resilience against those very oppressors. Martin Luther is a fantastic example, his devotion gave him the resolve to call out the Catholic Church for its oppressive bullshit.
Rubes are gonna be rubes. If it's not a religious institution, it'll be an MLM or an NFT grift or a political party or something. Religion, the faith, isn't oppressing anyone any more than franchise owners or cyber security nerds or political activists. That is the reality of the situation.