Uplifting News
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You described almost every religion ever.
Religion is a mental disorder. Prove me wrong. (with actual studies and not anecdotes)
"You should be nice to people"
How does this need proof? Something like Buddhism isn't saying "this is how the world is" more like "these attitudes might be helpful to you" - there is nothing there to prove.
Of course if you think that a gigantic sky daddy wants you to invade a country because the man on TV said so, then perhaps you should reassess some things.
Doesn't need a god either, or thousands of mutually incompatible made-up backstories.
Buddhism isn't a religion as there is no deity to worship. Isn't it more a philosophy?
Yeah, its a sliding scale. I suppose tax status is a simple line to differentiate between a philosophy & religion.
That only exists in the USA for what I know and would be a terrible way to decide theological or philosophical questions lol!
Exactly. and the vast majority of how 'religion' is used today is ...
Yesterday I would have said intermittent fasting.
Today? IDK probably getting their internal monologues to shut the fuck up for a bit.
Silencing the inner monologue over the most bsnal explanations and/or wishful thinking ever is ... a mental disorder.
Vast majority? Christianity and Islam combined make up about 66% of the religious population. Which other religions have a sizeable amount of people and conduct crusades?
I hate to break it to you, but those 66% are conducting crusades... Just look at all the fucking brainless Christogooners celebrating the war on Iran...
No, not all Christians/Islamists are bad, but their religions are.
Ah, so you just don't know what ‘vast majority’ means, and think you can use words willy-nilly.
Nope. I know what the religions do, and you are in denial.
Yes, illiteracy often correlates with strong and stupid opinions, so your case is not surprising.
Religion is just ceremony and doctrine surrounding belief.
A bit like having cake and a party, because you believe the earth completing a lap of the sun dated from the day of your birth is worth celebrating. Or having someone arrested and taken to court and sent to prison for stealing from you, because you and many others in society believe in concepts like personal property, and justice, and morality. You know, all those things you believe in that definitely exist, even though you've never seen a photo of morality, or seen a scientific study proving that justice exists. But they must do because old books say so, and so do your peers, and anyway our whole society would fall apart if people stopped believing in them.
Humans, simply put, are weird. We're a species composed of mental disorders unique to us and nothing else in nature. To single out religion as being especially weird and worthy of contempt is... well... a bit weird and worthy of contempt, IMO
Cakes, parties, planets, the Sun, rotation, years, are all real. Your gods aren't.
Bread, wine, communion, annual religious festivities are also all real. Gods may not be real, but neither are a lot of human concepts. Good, evil, justice, aesthetics, mathematics, class, debt, trust, freedom... any number of things we believe exist but do not have any physical presence in the universe, no proof outside of human inference and intuition (and the occasional bit of paperwork) that they exist. They all, however, have their uses, and their effects are made manifest by our actions, for good and ill.
"Those who dance are thought insane by those who cannot hear the music"
Yea go ahead and get back to me when a birthday party involves killing someone and celebrating it.
So celebrating murder is the benchmark for insanity? Public executions used to draw big crowds, nothing to do with religion. Armies still give ceremonial medals for particularly inventive or brave killing, again, nothing to do with religion. Luigi Mangelone is celebrated by many for murder... admittedly the murder of a corporate 'hands off' serial killer, but still - its celebrating murder.
Again, I say, people are strange enough already - religion is barely even the icing on the cake.
Yea people are crazy, so why would you defend something that makes them even less attached to reality??
I'm not so much defending religion as opposing your point of view that it's a marker of insanity. In fact, most things that bring people closer together as a cohesive community are positive, whether that's hobbies, interests or beliefs. Its only when it spills into doing harm to others that it becomes a problem (e.g. in certain aspects of sports, nationalism, and religion) but I still don't think it's a greater marker of ill mental health than a lot of other things we take for granted
Then allow me to refine my point to specify organized religion's teachings. Sure, many develop a community, but they develop a community that specifically judges and ostracizes anyone not conforming to their extremely narrow belief system.
Most of organized religions leverage those negative aspects to further control their 'flock'. There are many aspects that are outright horrible for individuals, not the least of which is believing things for the simple fact that an authority said so.
I'm not against people building community. I am very against people building insular, hierarchical, tyrranical systems that brainwash people into foolish or down right horrible behavior.
The Jehovah's Witness are pretty bad for all that... as are Scientologists, a load of cults, Elan Schools, and arguably even the military and manosphere. Many of these don't necessarily bring religion into things.
Our shared objection is the human capacity for imposing power, subjugation and control of others. Where we differ is that Religion is any more a factor in that than anything else.
I'll grant you there's probably quasi-religious elements to more cults across history than not, mind. I guess its an easier path than most to abuse of power, if you can convince people and even more powerful entity is on your side
Every Christian and most any Islam sect is also guilty of building a highly judgmental and insanely insular "community", too.
Not in my experience. All the christians I've known over the last decade have been lovely, welcoming and open. They do have their in-groups too of course, and my interests are particularly bohemian so we don't socialise all that regularly, but honestly their religion only tends to come up if I ask about it. Otherwise they're just as content as anyone else to come and see a movie or go for a walk or whatever.
Some of the old biddies at the church I grew up with were pretty judgmental though, but they're all dead now. Everyone left is just... nice.
I only know Muslim parents through my kids school, because my kids best friend is Muslim, and the parents are perfectly happy with playdates with my secular kid. There are one or two cultural oddities - e.g. the mum won't come over our house unless my SO is also home (but will meet me in public) but I'm not sure if that's a Muslim thing or a Turkish thing.
Your experience is rare and you should cherish it, then.
I think you're probably mistaking the loudest christians for the majority. Easy mistake to make
Nope. I grew up a Christian. I know exactly how those 'nice' Christians think.
They might be nice to people they like and understand, but their ignorance is profound and troubling to anyone with an actusl broad understanding of the world.
If they're the sort of people I've seen on televangelist shows, then I take it all back. Those guys are terrifying
In order to answer the challenge, I suppose the first question would be 'what constitutes a religion?' If you're simply talking about a group of people who share a passionately held belief that tries to get others to conform to that belief through emotional manipulation, intimidation and peer pressure, well....you're pretty much talking about the entire human race.
Yes, the entire human race is contemptible. I'm glad we could arrive at this conclusion.
Heh...not sure why such a conclusion would make you glad, but if there's one thing that's universally true of the human race, it's that people will do amazing things - amazingly awesome things, and amazingly terrible things. I guess the trick is to try to do more of the awesome stuff as much as we can.... shrug
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10508619.2020.1729570
Life satisfaction of the mentally unstable is a curious measure to go by. Everybody knows being totally fine in an unhealthy world is a sign of mental disorder itself...
That's not how science works. Prove your hypothesis right with actual studies.
No they’re not!
(Source: my feelings)
Religion is one of human basic mental needs, unfortunately. Oh, prove me wrong. (with actual studies and not anecdotes)
Aren't the least religious countries on Earth generally the happiest ones?
The least religious countries are those without a strong central organized religion. The people there are still mostly religious, just on an individual level - I live in one of those, I can see it all around.
Prove it (with actual studies and not anecdotes)
It's not my field of study. All I can give you is my experience. Feel free to find some yourself though, if you're interested enough.
How about you prove yourself right before demanding that others need to?
Fun fact, only yesterday I've heard in the radio about a new study about youth anxiety and their conclusion was that a sense of togetherness is what reduces anxiety and while religious communities provide that, they are not the sole provider of that sense and other communities may as well. Also "people need community" is not the same as "people need religion", so your ridiculous claim better be not backed up by anything that confuses these two.
My "prove it" comment was a direct reaction on LurkingLuddite's "prove it" comment - see it to find the /s in mine. I don't have studies but I have friends with education in psychology and this seems to be today's understanding of human psyche. People need something transcendental to believe in - that's why religion is so widespread. It's not a disorder, it's the natural state. I'm not a big fan of religion, so I see it as an evolutionary trap - surely adaptive in many ways, though, unfortunately.