Orion Ussner kidder
Patrick@PatrickoftheG IMO, you should get over that.
"Religions" take many many different forms, and there are many many people and communities who do objectively good things out of a sense of devotion.
Just saying.
can everything be outside now?@OrionKidder @PatrickoftheG yep, and I think there's also a certain percentage of psychopaths/sociopaths that can be taught to stay within the bounds of religion or other morality. It can be dangerous to free their minds.
@OrionKidder @PatrickoftheG religion helps some people who have underdeveloped senses of morality/social consciousness be less problematic in how they deal with others... If you teach them their religion is not a good guide for how they should behave, they might suddenly have no guide. It can be bad. They could decide anything is ok. They could cling to some other guide because many people are trying to sell many versions of morality.
An established religion at least has some generations of testing on their thesis of what makes a good community/human.
An established religion at least has some generations of testing on their thesis of what makes a good community/human.
@thesquirrelfish @PatrickoftheG I'm so sorry, but no, this is at best a half-baked "take."
Religion is one of a handful of socializing forces in our lives: along with family, education, media, community, etc. It just is the source of a huge amount of human moral positioning. I'm not defending that or saying it's "good, actually," to be clear. I'm pointing out that your narrative makes no sense given the reality of how religion functions in human society and, as far as we can tell, always has.
@thesquirrelfish @PatrickoftheG Setting aside the smug tone and air of superiority, that's why it's nonsensical to refer to "underdeveloped morality" in this context.
That's not how any of this works.
@OrionKidder I don't understand? like are you saying that people who stop believing in their religion never go through periods of doing things their religion told them not to as part of that? I was not trying to be smug or have an air of superiority, I have directly experienced this with friends and acquaintances. It's like going from being a teetotaler/totally sober to binge drinking for college kids - if you've been using a set of hard rules to make a decision and you stop believing in the rules, the next time you have to make the decision you are not necessarily prepared.
This is my experience, your mind and experience may vary.
@PatrickoftheG
This is my experience, your mind and experience may vary.
@PatrickoftheG
@thesquirrelfish @PatrickoftheG You rested that on a faulty premise: "religion helps some people who have underdeveloped senses of morality/social consciousness be less problematic in how they deal with others."
This is nonsense.
@OrionKidder
You don't think religion helps people to make more socially conscious choices? Particularly about things they haven't considered or thought about before?
You don't think religion helps people to make more socially conscious choices? Particularly about things they haven't considered or thought about before?
@thesquirrelfish That's not what you said, so it's not what I replied to.
@OrionKidder right, I said the strongest version of what I believe initially, can you clarify what you disagree with?
I'll give an example that I think is easier, and it's the first time I experienced this. I was a young atheist trying to convince my friends. I convinced a friend, yay! He immediately cheated on his girlfriend, boo. His beliefs in monogamy and how to treat women had entirely rested on his religion & the culture tied up with it. He had to relearn this stuff based on concepts of mutuality and communication and respect. It didn't take that long, but the urges he'd been using religion to suppress were "kiss all the girls" and when he didn't have the religion...
A better way to have put it might be "for some people the religion is doing more work than we know."
@thesquirrelfish So what I'm hearing is you based a generalization on one case?
Look, I've already explained my disagreement. I'm not interested in repeating myself.
Cheers.
@OrionKidder sorry I didn't understand your objection. Here's some more examples.
A couple more general cases:
usury. The old religious idea prohibited it, and that helped prevent financial accumulation and create more equitable societies with a bunch of knock on things that are likely to be good for people who respect the prohibition without them having to to reason it out with long-term economic forecasts.
Here in California the Chumash people had a practice of burning the belongings of someone who passed, which meant it was more useful to learn the technique of how to make something, respecting the accumulated knowledge of elders, with similar knock on effects.
Old socioreligious practices of hospitality were often told "because they could be a god/representative of god" or the Christian ideal of "what you do to the least of these, you do to me" act similarly - the ongoing practice of those things is a much wider range of impacts than just the ones that an individual sees in the one time act.
A couple more general cases:
usury. The old religious idea prohibited it, and that helped prevent financial accumulation and create more equitable societies with a bunch of knock on things that are likely to be good for people who respect the prohibition without them having to to reason it out with long-term economic forecasts.
Here in California the Chumash people had a practice of burning the belongings of someone who passed, which meant it was more useful to learn the technique of how to make something, respecting the accumulated knowledge of elders, with similar knock on effects.
Old socioreligious practices of hospitality were often told "because they could be a god/representative of god" or the Christian ideal of "what you do to the least of these, you do to me" act similarly - the ongoing practice of those things is a much wider range of impacts than just the ones that an individual sees in the one time act.
@thesquirrelfish @PatrickoftheG You also didn't phrase it as "your experience." You phrased it as an objective truth.
Look, friend. I've been arguing with people on the internet since the late 90s. You're not going to get me with the old "Why, whatever do you mean? Good Heavens! I was just..." [moves goalposts while they think no one's looking].
Brad 
@OrionKidder @PatrickoftheG While true this is also cherry-picking.
One currently popular form of religion is MAGA in the US. They are objectively evil. The sense of devotion from their adherents has brought little but sadness, death, and destruction, even to themselves.
Organised religions/cults are bad. They are largely responsible for delaying & reversing the progress of our species.
I too am over my phase of using that as a salutation, but I'm also not going to back down from saying it.
@brad @PatrickoftheG It is in fact the opposite of cherry picking to acknowledge that many religiously motivated groups and communities do what I bet both of us would call "good" in the world, in addition to the ones you mention who, I wholeheartedly agree, are doing *evil*.
C. R. Collins 🌳 🐸I'm not against any religion that treats everyone well.
I am against hatred and violence, religious or not.
@crcollins This feels like a loaded statement given what I posted.
It was meant to clarify my feelings on the matter. I am not against religion per se. Just because I don't believe doesn't mean I don't support the right to belief. I mean, who am I to say if that stuff is real or not? It's more what actions they take because of that belief that I might take issue with.
@crcollins This still feels loaded, but I take it that's not your intention.
If you go from "atheist =/= anti-religious" to "as long as it's not violent," then you're implying (intentionally or otherwise) that religion is prone to violence. I would argue that's loaded.
@crcollins Because *lots* of things motivate or are used as an excuse for violence.
Most "religious" wars are actually about territory and/or resources with religion as an excuse. Prejudices against specific religions exist, of course--eg, antisemitism, Islamophobia, banning Indigenous religious practices--but they're mostly traceable, again, to practical goals one group wants to accomplish: ie, rationalizing Europe's self-image as Christendom, the Crusades, and colonialism, respectively.
@crcollins The inverse is also true: many institutions and/or belief systems are key to inspiring, catalyzing, or rationalizing violence. "American exceptionalism" is one. So is capitalism. So is misogyny. Etc.
That's why I raise my eyebrow at "mention of religion" leading to "as long as they're not violent."
It's a lot like, "of course we have a right to protest, but we don't have a right to commit crimes." Like, nobody was talking about crimes, my dude.
I responded in your first post to most of the next two 😀 I will add here that it's hard to uncouple *any* fervent belief system--political, religious, or whatever--from its violent proponents. Your original post seemed to be inviting conversation about atheists' thoughts on religion so I just stated how I view things. I am fine with versions of religion where people mind their own business & don't seek to force it on anyone in any fashion.
No. But we were discussing religion specifically. Violence can show up anywhere. I was saying that, if a person's religious beliefs incline them to violence (and it's never everyone in a faith, just certain folks who interpret it that way--like Hegseth & his holy war) I would not support that. I also do not support legislation based on religious beliefs. Basically any forcing of belief on others I will object to.