Women supporting religion : atheism

[-] smokingManhole@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago

It's perplexing that religions with misogynistic practices are accepted on the premise that the oppressed women are supposedly happy and fulfilled. This assumption overlooks the possibility (certainty) that these women may be content because they have been conditioned to know nothing else, as it has been their norm throughout their lives.

[-] Diplomjodler@feddit.de 18 points 1 year ago

A lot of it is also older women who suffered the worst off the repression when they were younger passing on the abuse to the younger generation.

[-] odium@programming.dev 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Religion is not inherently sexist. It's just that most popular religions were born in sexist patriarchal cultures and are, therefore, sexist.

I'm sure there exist non-sexist religions that have female followers who aren't shooting themselves in the face. However, it's a sad reality that such religions are so few and so unpopular that I can't even name one off the top of my head - not counting non-serious religions like pastafarianism.

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

Wicca is a modern example. Most non-misogynistic religions were actively targeted for a long time

[-] icepuncher69@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 year ago

Look im gennuenly ignorant on this so i whant you to keep that in mind when i ask the following:

Isnt wicca like the whole other extreme? Like afaik they are not really pro equalit between men and women, its more like an all girls club and not really a religion at that? Arent they more like a subculture?

[-] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

Definitely not. Wicca and Paganism is a collection of ancient religions based around nature, like the sun and moon. It's generally based in leftist and revolutionary ideals, so it's naturally attractive as a belief system for marginalized people in the western world. That's generally why a lot of women are Wiccan or Pagan

[-] qyron@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

Pagan as in the old creeds where sacrificing human beings and virgins was a thing?

[-] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Modern Paganism doesn't observe any sacrificial practices. It's an amalgamation of several ancient religions.

[-] qyron@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 year ago

Essentially it's a reconstructional movement, leaving out the less palatable things and that is fine. But the dark bits are there and should be recognized, which is something most pagans won't do. Pagan religions were bloody and cruel, which was why christianity stamped it out as it dis, mostly because it carried a notion of repent and forgiveness.

[-] pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe 2 points 1 year ago

No it isn't. Some white dude invented it in the 1950's based off of old European practices. It's just their people passing on their pre-Christian culture, that's all.

It's no more a real religion than the Abrahamic ones.

[-] OddFed@feddit.de 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

No. Don't make it so easy for them. Structural sexism occurs in authoritarian systems. It's one of the tools to keep the privileged in power.

It's not that the society was just generally sexist (of course they had even more defined gender roles and so), it's that the sexism was actively thought and embraced by those in power! Thus, fiction like the bible also was actively made sexist, to have further "prove" to keep that power dynamic. It was not written that way because "well, back in the days". It was written like that to oppress people!

[-] eatthecake@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

You can't name one but are sure they exist. Why are you sure?

[-] odium@programming.dev 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Because there are over 4000 religions. Also matriarchal cultures exist. While their religions might still be sexist, it wouldn't be the women who are shooting themselves in the head.

[-] eatthecake@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

The vast majority of those 4000 are not separate religions but subgroups of christianity, islam, judaisn, hinduism and budhhism. There are a few matriarchal societies but that is not the same as religion.

[-] odium@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Religion and culture have a lot of influence on each other, it's not crazy to assume that some of those matriarchal societies have matriarchal religions.

Here are some non-patriarchal religions.

I believe a significant portion of that 4000 are small folk religions such as the ones on this page under the folk religions category.

[-] OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I mean, the US definitely has a patriarchal culture, and Men still make up almost two thirds of suicides.

Sexism is bad for everyone, regardless of who the target is.

[-] odium@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

I'm not saying that matriarchal religions are good. I'm just saying that matriarchal religions exist and women who follow those aren't shooting themselves in the head. It's the men who are.

The only good religions are ones where no one has to shoot themselves.

[-] rob64@startrek.website 1 points 1 year ago

Because atheists are all about being certain that things exist. /s

[-] novibe@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Christianity was actually extremely progressive for the time. Women and men were seen as equals spiritually, and had equal political power for a long time. Only when Christianity morphed into Catholicism and was adopted by the Roman Empire that patriarchal political power became the norm. But still, women are seen as equals spiritually, and can be saved just like men.

We can credit most of modern humanist and egalitarian ideals to Christianity, and the folk ways it was practiced and understood (against the top-down hierarchical theology spoused by the Catholic Church).

After all, the enlightenment was a direct descendant of Christianity and so on and so forth.

Edit: I think people don’t really understand how shittily women were treated and seen in the deeper past… like the Classical Greek barely saw women as human beings.

Me saying Christianity was very progressive for the time is not me pulling it out of my ass. Scholars think that, researchers, historians etc.

[-] WindowsEnjoyer@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

You should stsrt accepting facts rather than adopting them to your beliefs. All religions are cancer. Period.

[-] MightEnlightenYou@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Depends on how you define a religion. In the broader sense I agree but in the legal sense its complicated. Take the religion of Copyism as an example. An actual recognised religion in Sweden. Whose religion centers around the belief that information should be freely avaliable and whose sacred act is copying anything.

[-] PM_ME_FAT_ENBIES@lib.lgbt 1 points 1 year ago

Okay, here's a fact: belief in money is a religion. It's magical thinking that says if you believe something hard enough it'll become true. You cannot be a capitalist and an atheist, because anyone who believes in money is religious.

[-] PM_ME_FAT_ENBIES@lib.lgbt 2 points 1 year ago

Wicca.

Come on, bruh, that was so easy.

[-] RIP_Cheems@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

Don't you find it weird that women in mythos are always at the center of the world's problems? For example, Eve, Pandora, Helen

[-] LemmysMum@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Mother Earth.

[-] Leviathan@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Antireligionism ftw. I don't care how hard you work to find some random belief system you think works for you personally, all religion is trash on the basis of following someone else's magic beliefs and rules.

I don't understand why people can't just leave their religions and live their lives happily? Why do they all have to find some pagan bullshit to glom onto? Join a book club or something.

[-] UnculturedSwine@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

*everyone who support religion be like

[-] CluckN@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

What’s up with this AI upscaling Tom’s paws look horrifying

[-] PM_ME_FAT_ENBIES@lib.lgbt 3 points 1 year ago

So are you saying all wiccan women are dumb and self destructive?

[-] dingleberry@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago

The fuck is Wiccan? Nevermind, I don't want to know what new delusions people keep coming up with.

[-] PM_ME_FAT_ENBIES@lib.lgbt 1 points 1 year ago

Wicca is the religion followed by witches.

[+] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world -7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

[removed by mod]

[-] Entropywins@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

I've never met an intellectual disabled person at a church...they have enough wits to not buy into the BS.

[-] Kornblumenratte@feddit.de -1 points 1 year ago

I don't understand the downvotes – it's literally true.

If you are experiencing the world mainly by emotions and not filtered through an overblown intellect – like people with an IQ < 50 do – you cannot be fooled by theological argumentation or fake positive emotionality.

A happy intellectually disabled person is a tell-tale sign of a positive, affirming environment.

[+] JayObey711@lemmy.world -17 points 1 year ago

Atheists once again overloog all the progressive and loving religions and only fuel their hate by focusing on Catholicism and Islam. Nice 👍

[-] PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 year ago

Lmao. A huge number of religions have found a way to oppress women.

[+] JayObey711@lemmy.world -7 points 1 year ago

Lmao no. A lot of religions are decentralised. There is no religious organization behind Lutheranism. If someone mistreats women in the name of protestants than that is bad and all, but it doesn't have anything to do with 99% percent of protestants. There is no shared act in most religions.

[-] TheDankHold@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

Luther put forward a very paradoxical view that lets apologists latch onto the good. Luther only says men and women are equal in relation to god. Outside of that he still views women as physically/mentally inferior to and needing to submit to their husbands.

Sure he was less misogynistic than other medieval Christians but that bar is so low it’s not that impressive.

[-] JayObey711@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

Modern Lutherans really don't give a shit what he said. Most are actually pretty selfaware. They know that Luther was probably just a schizophrenic. But it doesn't matter. We take the good ideas and disregard his blatant racism.

From my experience the average Lutheran: Follows the ideals that Jesus has tought (the whole be a good person, (sometimes) turn the other cheek, treat everyone equally and so on), practices religion only because it has become culture and doesn't care about any religious "authority" (wich goes completely against some things Luther said and they know that).

[-] TheDankHold@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You ignoring doctrine that’s no longer acceptable doesn’t change what it says. Sounds like you could use a new denomination to separate yourself from the people that follow all the beliefs of Lutheranism. Because those closer adherents by definition are the true believers, not perfect that pick and choose what’s socially convenient.

[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

There is no religious organization behind Lutheranism

It's literally the state religion of several countries 🤦

[-] TheDankHold@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

Every religion has a body count because the underlying fault is a central tenet of religion in general. Blind faith.

[-] JayObey711@lemmy.world -5 points 1 year ago

Most people in protestant mevements for example don't even believe in a god or Jesus. There is no underlying tenet. There is no blind faith. Do you want to tell me that new paganists all truely believe that there is a thundergod? No they don't. Religion is mostly not about believing in higher beings. Even ancient Greeks have likely not all really believed in their mythology.

[-] TheDankHold@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Christians don’t believe in Jesus is a ridiculous claim on its face.

Modern paganism isn’t a true religion because it’s a bunch of older ideas rehashed as a protest against the dominant theologies of our time. It’s like pastafarianism but instead of being parody it’s cultural opposition.

Greeks had philosophers discussing these ideas but it’s a bit silly to extrapolate to the whole population.

All that aside, you still miss the point. The people that do believe in these religions believe them on blind faith and childhood indoctrination. Exceptions exist but they don’t invalidate the rule.

[-] JayObey711@lemmy.world -5 points 1 year ago

I have grown up in a Protestant comunity. Most of them do not believe in God and Jesus as real people/beings. And you can go on to say that that doesn't make much sense because they are Christian, but they believe in the philosophy of actual Christianity. Without all the Catholic bullshit. Like treating EVERYONE (including women) as absolute equals. That's the only thing that connects all Lutherans.

You are not the religion police. Paganism means reexploring lost culture and philosophy. Culture and philosophy that has been taken from us by Catholics and Romans mainly. You do not have to blindly believe in god's to be religious. Buddhists don't believe in any kind of god.

I didn't say that the entire greek population was atheist or something. Most greeks believes in some of the stories. The once that we're unexplainable otherwise. But when mythology was "inconvenient" to them they ignored it.

The percentage of people that unconditionally believe in magic men in the sky is way lower than you think. Toxic religion is a problem, but it is only practiced by a small portion of believing church members. To say that all that just see their religion as culture, philosophy or an easyer way to exept their inevitable death is wrong and goes against what you probably want to achieve.

[-] TheDankHold@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Protestants do believe in Jesus as the son of God. That’s literally a central tenet of the Nicean Creed, the foundation of every sect of Christianity. If you don’t believe that then you definitionally aren’t Christian. The big difference is they don’t believe in trans-substantiation and don’t do the Eucharist. It sounds like you haven’t really looked into this much tbh.

I’m not policing anything, paganism is as much a religion as Scientology. It’s a mush mash of disparate practices from ancient religions scattered through ancient Europe and the Mediterranean.

I never implied you said this about Greeks by the way. Very dishonest portrayal. I said that you’re basing this position off the writings of philosophers and such, of which there were very few.

This last thing is you just asserting something as true. So if I say, no the vast majority of religious adherents believe the religions they follow I’ve provided the exact same amount of evidence. It also makes far more sense than the idea of “almost no one believes the religion they were raised with”.

Atheism