From the same author:
That's pretty funny.
Thats why I don’t do that shit to people.
Who am I to question someone’s spirituality if it makes them happpy and they practice in a healthy way and it doesn’t negatively affect the people around them?
and it doesn’t negatively affect the people around them?
The problem is that most of the time this isn't true.
I found out not too long ago that my best friend is perfectly willing to vote against my right to love who I want and embrace the identity that I want, and will openly (albeit only when I ask) tell me I deserve to go to hell for it. My family is even worse.
and will openly (albeit only when I ask) tell me I deserve to go to hell for it
Sorry for your loss because that's not a friend.
Exactly. Atheists don't like missionaries, so why should we become those ourselves?
As long as nobody tries to impose their beliefs on me, I don't care about their religion.
I have friends who are full on religious while I'm an atheist, they know I'm not a fan of their religion but they also know that I only care if it's making them happier and helping them, which to be fair has helped them become better people, but they were always the ones that needed some external guidance so I suppose gods a better guide than a meth dealer.
They don't try to convert me and I don't try to convert them and we still have fun, plus I enjoy hearing the weird AF stories from the bible, like the time Jesus got pissed at an out of season fig tree for not having figs when he wanted, so he cursed to for life, hungover entitled shit Jesus has some funny stories.
It's a pretty mean angle to take, but why deconvert people by pushing them into a nihilistic crisis?
It's not like atheists think life is meaningless, kindness to be pointless, or the afterlife something to be anxious about.
I've found far less mean-spirited success by explaining how belief isn't necessary for existence to be worthwhile for us. If they can come to understand how happiness is possible for someone who doesn't believe, their own belief suddenly become a lot more optional.
I struggled a lot when I lost my faith. I truly believe I’m better off now but I don’t take other people’s spiritual paths lightly. You go to dark places when you haven’t learned how to cope otherwise.
I had the opposite experience. I was convinced I was going to hell and that there was nothing I could do about it, so I thought I may as well be glutinous and selfish to enjoy my time here before getting tortured for eternity. It caused me some serious trauma, and on top of that it led to me hurting family and friends.
I don't think I could've ever left my self-loathing and selfishness behind if I didn't let go of my religion.
She's crying because she realized that she could buy a second home if she hadn't been foolishly donating to the church all this time.
This is why I may never be able to fully repair my relationship with my religious father after my own journey out, because I love him too much to undermine the belief that sustains him as an 87 year old.
My own journey out has been incredibly painful and challenging but that is MY life path, not his. He stuck with my mother for 25 years to the very end after her Parkinsons diagnosis and he got to watch her choke to death on some food at the end.
I really believe my father doesn’t need the religion to be that good and faithful, because he is just basically made of good stuff. But I will never attack his faith even though in my heart of hearts I find the foundations of that faith to be risible. What would be gained? What would it say about me if I did?
Yeah, I have no desire to "change" anyone either. As long as they are decent people, that's enough for me.
My philosophy is if they are truly happy with what they believe and aren’t harming other people with vitriolic speech or dogmatic beliefs just leave them be. It’s not harming anything for them to comfortable in their little bubble.
But when they put on their “holier than thou … I know better and I am going to push my beliefs on you” hat the gloves are off. Although it’s unlikely you’ll change their mind, you can usually score a few jabs that rock their world just a smidgeon.
Belief only becomes a problem when someone weaponizes it. If you want to become a better person to appease the space rock, go for it, but if you tell me the space rock says no abortions for anyone, no it doesn't.
Belief is a problem because it normalizes magical thinking and pushes blame away from the self. Belief paves the way for snake oil, anti-intellectualism, and learned helplessness. Belief is comforting shackle but there are other ways to be comforted that do not leave one vulnerable to predation.
I’m an athiest, and I generally believe that religion can be easily used to be shitty towards others and push them to being the worst type of people in life (more generally this happens with all ideologies). But for many religious people they aren’t too different compared to an athiest. They might go to church only on the holidays, or maybe they go weekly. They probably have many religious values. But at the end of the day they often make similar decisions for different reasons.
But I genuinely believe that trying to convince people that god isn’t real is super shitty and counter-productive. Show some compassion you fucking deodorant-free 🤓-brained reddit moderator. Take a shower.
I occasionally hear people say something like “We should be making people atheists. Religion is a scourge that uses ideology to harm others.” I can’t help to laugh when I hear this, because someone who takes this seriously (perhaps the person in the comic) is doing the literal thing they are decrying.
So what if someone is a christian because it comforts them? I don’t care if you think it lacks logic when your alternative lacks compassion.
Instead of opposing religion unilaterally, oppose the harmful ideas laundered by religion. Shame the politicians and the charlatans. Don’t shame mary-sue who goes to church weekly for being the a Christian, even though the shitbags at NIFB hate church are also Christians.
It’s certainly possible for people to be good to each other due to their religious beliefs. The local pro-palestine protests near me are primarilly organized by christians, and they are often led by a local group of leftist christian pacifists. They organize anti-war protests, support palestinian freedom, and do many smaller actions to alleviate suffering such as volunteering at the local food bank or other similar orgs. Compared to other groups that organize near me, I vastly prefer them over my local PSL chapter, or almost every ML group I’ve ever come across. Unlike many atheists I’ve worked with, that christian group will happily work with a local mosque, or synagogue when it doesn’t help them materially. This is because they don’t oppose people based on simple reasons like religion, but instead have deep solidarity with everyone else suffering through life on this terrible world.
Instead of opposing religion because you think it’s cringe how about you show solidarity and compassion for your fellow human beings.
I disagree pretty strongly on especially the "don't shame someone for who is essentially a good person for sharing the same religion as a bad person."
Community is everything, and there's strength in names. If you say you are of the same religion as a bigot, you're telling the bigots that you agree with them, even if you don't. If you want to follow the teachings of the character known as Christ, you ironically have to call yourself something other than Christian, because that label is synonymous with all kinds of bigotry to a dangerous number of people. The bigotry isn't going to die out as long as they can claim to be a majority.
We're not talking about sports teams here. These labels matter, and have dangerous effects. I'd rather everyone drop religions labels entirely and just say how they claim to be a good person, because as it stands there are good people and bad people who share the same label, which makes the bad people stronger.
Christianity is a big tent term that encompasses a lot of differing groups of thought. You've got Catholics and Protestants, being the largest groups that come to mind. Below that you have everything from Lutherans to Presbyterians to Christian Scientists to Westboro Baptists. Admittedly, I don't think I made it clear enough in my comment I was speaking more big-tent Christianity when referring to mary-sue rather than a specific denomination (or a specific church), as I was speaking about religion as a whole, using Christianity as an example, hence why I was saying "Oppose harmful ideas laundered by religion" rather than opposing religion unilaterally. For example, we should oppose the colonialist ideology smuggled through religion, such as forced religious conversions (in order to save their soul!) or the necessity to colonize to do said conversions. We should oppose genocidal rhetoric smuggled through religion. Heck, we should even oppose the shitty bits of text in a religious text like when or when not to stone someone or the punishment for whatever crime.
However, you are implying that you should simply give up your label when bad actors take up your label. While I don't dispute that labels matter, because they do, I think it's silly to just give it up once another person/group tries to coopt your label. If you don't want bigots using your label, you've gotta kick them out. If you change your label to something else, and the bigots come to hide in the crowd, what are you supposed to do, change it for the 5th time?
As far as dropping labels goes, while I like the idea (I hate labels though I find them useful), I think it's impractical. As you said, "there's strength in names," and I think it would be crazy to ask someone to entirely drop a label that they hold dearly, such as their religious affiliation. It would also be crazy to ask them to just say "I believe in Jesus Christ..." and then list out 95 theses to indicate that they oppose aspects of the catholic church, then a good 95 more when they need to indicate their church had a schism in 1893, and another in 1913.
If you say you are of the same religion as a bigot, you're telling the bigots that you agree with them, even if you don't.
Hitler and I may have agreed that the sky is blue, but if someone uses this to say we agree in general, they are simply being unreasonable. There are countless denominations of Christianity as a result of people disagreeing with each other about history and values. The Christian label is not synonymous with bigotry, and we could use more counterexamples if people seem to think otherwise.
I 100% agree. I think most anti-relious atheist are still living in reaction to their religious up bringing or unable to recognize where power resides to be able to hold it to account or both.
Eh doing that isn't really worth the headache. Blind faith is, IMO, a socially acceptable mental illness. You can't cure a mental illness by brute force; all your gonna do is tire yourself out.
It's not even that, the comic really does get right to the point. It would absolutely crush some people. My grandmother finds strength to deal with such bullshit by her beliefs so I wouldn't dare take that away from her. It's harmless as long as they aren't the type to push their beliefs on you and hurt you for it.
Your grandma is not (necessarily - I don't know her, she could be trafficking people) a bad person, but her beliefs and that of so many others who also are good (at least they might be) people provide the fertile ground for the growth of an agressive weed. It's not the grounds fault, it could be growing strawberries instead, but right now its existence nourishes a strangling vine that bears poisonous fruit.
We definetly should not poison the ground to kill the weed, though that certainly is a way to get rid of it. But we absolutely need to prevent it from spreading, new fields should not be infected by it and with the exhaution of the old places of growth, we might manage to extinct it.
That's why it is important to keep in mind that your grandma is (most likely) okay to just exist as a believer, but that the beliefs she holds are roots of something, that must not spread.
Your grandma is not (necessarily - I don’t know her, she could be trafficking people) a bad person,
She's actually the head of the #2 highest volume child trafficking organization! I'm so proud! Lol
I do agree with what you said though, I just couldn't help making the joke. :P
Okay but as a kid, I got crushed because my family was religious and threw me out like literal fucking trash. This shit never stays harmless, and it keeps people susceptible to the worst instincts to do shit like fascism. Its always the most vulnerable who this shit hurts, so nobody cares.
So I don't give a shit how good your delusion makes you feel. If you want to hurt people to feel good, keep it between you and yourself and just put a needle in your arm. Plus, if something goes wrong there, you have narcan.
I've decided that I can't change my mother's beliefs nor should I. I told her that we have a no-politics rule as of summer 2020. It saved our relationship.
I wish mine did that. I said one thing about Trump not having as much money as he claims, and my mom got all insulted. She said that maybe we shouldn't talk about politics, etc, and I agreed to be nice. I don't like to talk politics at all, even with like-minded people. But she'll blame a company getting hacked and losing my personal info on democrats, and tell me that she can't wait until all democrats die off.
But now she just spouts of any shit that comes to her mind without a care, while I'm keeping to our dealt and shutting up. I doubt she even remembers our promise, because the moment it wasn't convenient for her, she dropped it.
The woman on the floor is thinking about all the gay people she screamed at about God's wrath, and all the beatings she took from her husband because he was the Head of her, and all of the time and money she wasted on the church, and all of the beatings she let her husband give to her kids lest she "spoil the child," and all of the bs she swallowed from Republicans, and all of the shame she carried for masturbating, and all of the abuse she hurled at women outside abortion clinics, and all.of the children she'd terrified at Sunday School, and all of the things she never tried because someone had told her not to.
I kid you not, all that kind of personal history creates a massive sunk cost fallacy that will make it impossible for them to admit that they may possibly be wrong.
Ragebait doesn't deserve all this spilled ink.
Cool cool, now do the one where the mother was previously being a transphobic piece of shit because "her god told her so".
Be pragmatic in your atheism advocacy. Lay out your arguments why supernatural thinking is bad, both from an epistemological and pragmatic sense, poke at contradictions of the other person's religion with reality, and warn about the dangers of organized religion specifically, just don't cross the line of actually engaging in nuclear warfare.
If they haven't been brainwashed enough, they'll bite, even if it takes them months. If they have been brainwashed enough but they have intellectual honesty and curiosity, they may begin a self-questioning process themselves that will eventually make them crash, and it will be painful, but once they get recovered they'll be grateful. If they don't have that intellectual honesty, you've at least planted the potential seeds for them to decide at some later point that superstition was indeed bullshit, which may or may not come into fruition in the future. If the person you're talking with is an intellectual donkey (in terms of unwillingness to reason), you have nothing to gain from that conversation.
When it comes to old religious people, though, I limit myself to relentlessly attacking the church. Due to their material conditions, they have the lowest chance to ever leaving their beliefs anyway, so my goal is just to make them wary of any dumbfuck hate preacher they may find.
A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still.
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