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!religiouscringe@midwest.social
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?
Not all religions have a concept of hell, nor eternal punishment for sins. That's a very Judeo-Christian-Islamic view.
They're all made up so they have that in common.
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.
The problem starts when you think that other people need your religion so you can be happy.
The problem actually starts when magical thinking becomes acceptable, and people start suffering on large scale because of it.
Everyone has their own ways.
Yes, but not all ways are equally healthy. If you need to believe in falsehoods to be happy in life, that’s objectively a less productive coping skill than one that doesn’t involve that. Personally, as a society, I strongly feel we should be setting the bar higher. It should be an embarrassment to have such beliefs.
Mind you, I would never an am not advocating anything like legislature to enforce anything. Cultural change can’t be legislated. I just firmly believe in such change.
The problem precedes this point. If the social safety net is failing you and you're going to a church for relief, or your family and friends have abandoned you and you're going to a cult for communion, or you're a college kid away from home and the only social organ with open arms is a religious one - we've got a lot more problems on the table than the existence of religious folks.
It sucks to be a widow or widower looking for support groups to help you cope with the death of your spouse, and the only available groups are at churches who then turn the group into a mini church sermon. These churches should not have tax free status when they won't even offer the most basic help for communities without trying to convert vulnerable people to their cult.
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".
“Religion invents a problem—namely sin—throws a poison into you, and then offers you the cure.” - Hitchens
This is why I resisted AA/NA for so long. It seemed like an attempt to convert people when they were at their lowest, rock bottom.
And it may have started that way, but today there are variations. My home group was full of angry atheists and agnostics. We spent a LOT of time trashing religion and the spiritual abuse we suffered as young people.
That's where I learned that we are all gods. Anyone who creates is god. I started praying to myself and actually still do occasionally. Since I'm the one in control of my own destiny, why shouldn't I? It's odd but it actually works, it's like telling your subconscious what to do, which makes things easier for your conscious self.
Just pick whoever/whatever you want, I like that elephant-headed God for example. He makes me happy (Ganesh). He doesn't need blood or anything, he's so crazy
It doesn't matter, none of this matters
I'm def not a god, it just takes time for your body to break down, for your mind to turn to dust, then you WILL feel it. You will understand what it is like to be limited, to see your entire future ahead of you.
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.
Made me think of "there are no atheists in foxholes". To which my response is, so religious people are only religous because they fear for thier life? That sounds healthy.
thats why schizophrenics fall into it, and right wing looneys who had braind damage from strokes: sorbo, cavazial, dean cain, maybe cameron.
maybe cameron.
Kirk or James?
Most people "find god" when they're children, they're going to church with their family/friends, they're participating in social activities under the auspices of the church, and they're nibbling away at the propaganda of the institution. Conversions are the exception, not the rule, and are far more commonly a consequence of interfaith marriage than some personal trauma.
I would argue that people "lose god" when they're unhappy more often than they find one. Discovering that you're not the ideal religious worshiper - you're selfish, you're angry, you're horny, you're heretical, you're not merely satisfied to exist as a little disposable worker bee in the business hive that keeps the church coffers well-funded - is alienating and disorienting. Discovering that church officials don't have satisfying answers to life's harder questions is frustrating and tense.
Big institutional churches feed on normalcy and prosperity. They do best when their congregants are looking for a certain baseline validation in their own virtue, not when they're defeated or transitioning or questioning their social norms. Downturns don't send people to the pews, unless the pews offer something that newly impoverished people need.
There are church missions that fill this role in some instances. But - by and large - the church exists as an amenity for the wealthy and privileged, not the poor and disempowered.
When people are at their lowest, they seek something to fill the void
When I was at my lowest, I went to my church looking for relief and I got back empty platitudes and a mysticism that didn't hold up under the slightest pressure. I became significantly less religious and more agnostic, as I started looking outside the church for better answers.
Things might have been different if I'd been in a more Evangelical Church with a savvier group of ministers. Or if I'd been in a family that was more well-connected with the church's philanthropic organs. But the depression, the fear, and the indignation I felt at my lowest propelled me away from a church full of pleasant-seeming do-nothing gospel singers.
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.
This is what I imagine it's like for the rest:
Don't know if religion is the best predator but it sure does have a lot of them.
Amen to that
Most of my life has been shit and never once did i think to believe in "God" and i am from a very religious family, my mother stopped with that bs years ago but my grandmothers were most of their lives in church praying and all that bs and yet they were abused, beaten and treated like trash by my grandfathers to their last day... not to mention all the crap people have done and still do in the name of one god or another and all this time all this god has done is finger it's asshole and do fuck all and if we were created in it's image then it just enjoys the misery we have and i could type more but i have already wasted enough time as it is...
Maybe God really does exist, he's just a person that likes to pray on the emotionally vulnerable.
🎶We found god in a hopeless place🎶
The privileged have everything, while the destitute only have "god".
It seems like a strange thing to lose or find.
I lost God finally when my aunt died. It was my last bit of faith. I had one last conversation with god before I finally understood.