GiuseppeAndTheYeti

The children yearn for the mines

Look, I don't even attend a church. I haven't regularly attended a mass since I was a kid so about 2 decades ago. I grew up catholic and my personal beliefs about sexuality, abortion, and mandated attendance caused a separation from the church. I didn't even get married in a church or by a priest. But core tenants of the Catholic faith still helped shape my altruistic nature and moral compass. And although I left the church out of convenience, I could just as easily stayed within the church and developed those same principles and convinced others.

We could ban all organized religion tomorrow and it wouldn't have a significant effect on my life. I can tell you that it would have a significant negative impact on the direction politics would take afterwards though. Where do you then draw the line on what constitutes a religion and what other group gatherings you can ban? What happens to all the people that were a part of organized religion and poured all of their social needs into that basket? Do you think they would have some sort of eye opening experience or would they just devolve into a chaotic mess with a loss of purpose and self?

You're conflating missionary messaging with publicly practicing faith and praying. The message there, presumably, is to bring philanthropy to every person on the planet to teach and recruit others to do good in the world. If your sticking point is "teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you" then yes that's every religion but also every government faction and moral think-tank in totality. People telling people what they can and can't do.

What's your end goal here? Ban all religion and tell people what they can and can't believe in? If you and someone share philosophical beliefs you're not allowed to meet up and talk about them?

I see the issue. You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Obviously telling others what they can and can't do or sowing violence while using your religion as justification is bad. But even the bible says that spirituality should be practiced in private. There's nuance to the world and just because bad things happen due to corrupted religious teaching doesn't mean that all religion or spirituality is bad.

Having grown up catholic in rural Illinois, it's just a case of mixed messaging and infiltration. Think of it like this:

You inherited a chili recipe—representing your morality and culture—from your parents. Growing up, you helped make it every week, so you know the flavors well. In your family’s version of chili, beans—symbolizing religion—were always the most important ingredient. Peppers—representing politics—were known, but they were more of a background note, never central.

Fast forward a generation, and a certain group starts promoting the idea that chili must be spicy. They want to sell their own particular kind of pepper—a harsh, punishing version of God—and they push this idea aggressively. They use people your parents trust, who already like spicier chili, to reinforce the message.

Suddenly, everyone around you starts loading their chili with these peppers because they’re told it’s the only way to avoid bland chili—blandness, in this case, representing hell. The fear of tasteless chili becomes a powerful motivator.

Religion is a sickness in YOUR opinion. Rationalism is just as dangerous as any other -ism whether it be Buddhism, Catholicism, Confucianism, Moral Absolutism, or Atheism. Just because you think you're right doesn't mean that you are. Instead maybe focus on spreading your moral message constructively instead of destructively. You're bullhorn-ing exactly what his indoctrinators said the outside world is trying to do--destroy his religion.

Labeling a religious figure as an imaginary friend is very reductionist. Instead, go to the root issue. Right wing political messaging corrupted and brainwashed this person to be an ultra nationalist using lies to prey on his core beliefs through fear, religion, and superiority complex.

I get what you're saying, and you're not wrong, but I seriously doubt that protests would have escalated to the point that LAPD would be using pepper balls, rubber bullets, and tear gas if not for the national guard being federalized. To me that was an escalation in itself.

It'd be like 3-4 officers standing in a line across from protesters just watching in case things were to get out of hand. Then all of a sudden a sheriff from another state insults the protesters, sends 20 other officers in riot gear to stand next to you, and they start walking at the protesters to intimidate and beat them. So sure LAPD is more than capable of being huge pieces of shit, but what is the sheriff supposed to do in this situation? Pull his officers off the streets entirely? It's still his jurisdiction. That'd be wholely irresponsible.

Go for it. There's not nearly enough active duty national guardsmen capable of deploying to all 50 states.

See the funny thing about the English language is that they're almost certainly implying that he looks like a specific person that they're pretending exists. But to me it reads like they're using a general description of all the subjects that they've already detained.

I think it's moreso that people misunderstand what you're implying. That making them "martyrs" is a good thing to help identify more pieces of shit that rally behind their martyrdom.

Yeah, let's just keep taking the moral high road. Eventually shitty people will just stop existing. There's no reason to actively work on removing them. 🥴

Shit will keep flowing into a sewage treatment plant if you don't treat the sewage. In the end you just end up with a mountain of shit to deal with and the problem is much more difficult to manage.