If you found happiness through religion, good for you. Everyone has their own ways.
The problem starts when you think happiness can only come from religion.
this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2026
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This reminds of the lyrics to the Tool song "Opiate." Maynard has written a lot of anti-religious lyrics, but this one is particularly poignant. It walks you through how religion manipulates people.
Trigger warning: this song has the phrase "we both want to rape you" in it, which really fucked me up the first time I heard it. I wish I had known it was coming.
Don't know if religion is the best predator but it sure does have a lot of them.
In a few days the comments section here is gonna be huge.
Not saying I disagree, but as someone who was once religious I'd say that in their minds it is exactly the point to serve the desperate and broken hearted. "It is the sick who need a doctor, not the well." They genuinely believe they are helping by doing this, not trying to be deceptive.
I think you’re wrong about that last part. They are absolutely deceptive.
That doesn't change that most of them actually believe they're helping. They've been pretty well groomed to believe that.
That’s fair.
Probably depends on location and culture as well. Where I live there's a decent amount of moderate people. And well, they probably internalized the negative aspects. But it's not like they'll go out and molest other people with their religious stuff. So I'd say as long as they're accepting of dissent, gay people, facts... Which many of them are... They're more part of something that's deceptive from grounds up, rather than (deliberately) being deceptive themselves. And they don't follow the rules literally (same with the moderates amongst the Muslim people here). Leading me to believe they have some grasp of what's right and what's wrong beyond what's written in an old book.
Of course none of this applies to the fundamentalists, or the nasty evangelical people prevalent in some other countries. And religion always has deceit baked in, that's a fact 🤗 We'd call it science or ethics or history if it was based on something else.
In fairness, in the prominent religions "everyone* is sick and needs the doctor
Nah it's you'll all burn in hell if you don't accept Odin, so everyone is "sick" in your metaphor.
Odin? I meant Ganesha. Or was it Zeus?
I'm a devout atheist, but Ganesh I'd smoke a joint with.
I mean... yes, but this is kinda true for everything. Most people don't change their worldview/religion/political ideology etc. when they're happy and everything goes well. Most people also don't start their own business, move countries or leave their spouse if they're entirely happy with how things have been going.
To put it in system dynamics terms, in order for a system to settle on a new attractor state, there first needs to be enough instability to spur change. So the mechanism you're describing isn't unique to religion.
Fun fact: The exact same tactics were used by Hitler. The result is even similar, too.
You will not be surprised that Gabriele D'Annunzio, one of the forgotten masterminds of fascism, described fascism as a "secular religion".
And social media too!
How many came to Lemmy just because they were dissatisfied with reddit or such.
Yeah, it can be used deliberately in a predatory way. It also happens quite organically
To be honest I didn't feel particularly vulnerable. "Reddit Is Fun" stopped working and I didn't like the official app.
Chaos is a ladda!
Desperate people go looking for god after they've fucked up their lives so badly they need something--ANYTHING--before they end up dead.
"Well, fuck it, mom said I should try religion, so..."
Then they get back to something resembling normal, and attribute it to "GOD IS GREAT!", and suddenly, they're yakking at you like they're a linux user vegan on crossfit. Or, a born-again Christian.
Many of us never fucked our lives up to begin with, so don't have any use for religion. For those whom it has worked, great. Good for you. But, don't assume everyone needs it.
Empathy is learned. You should try it.
For once, it would be interesting to see an atheistic opinion include theism instead of just the usual bullshit from the twelve tribes of Judah.
There's many religions and philosophies that discuss their misuse, being only when in times of struggle. There are many religions that dgaf if you follow them or not and are definitely not predatory.
But as usual, the online atheist only knows of one theism when talking about "all religion"; Christianity.