In many places surveyed, 20% or more of all adults have left their childhood religious group. Christianity and Buddhism have had especially large losses. Pew Research Center.
Greetings fellow lemming I’m new here and hope we can have a productive discussion.
Please allow me to elucidate my perspective on this question: are all religions intolerant?
I say yes, let me explain.
Many have told me about “their god” and I take their word for it. I believe everything everyone has told me about “their god”. Powerful, all knowing, usually vindictive, often horny for human girls, etc.
Resultantly I believe in all of “their gods”.
And I drew a conclusion about that guy.
I think “god” is a piece of shit unworthy of praise and we should seek to destroy and erase it. Those who worship it are dangerous and not to be trusted. At best they need psychiatric care, likely many of them should be incarcerated. The link between “piety” and “skeletons in the closet” is strong.
I hate god and have no respect for god-fearing people and no tolerance for their “beliefs”
Which supernatural make-believe system (read: religion ) is tolerant of my supernatural make-believe system?
Please don’t mistake my anger at religions as anger at you.
Religion has nothing to do with God, even if you believed God exists, then since God is omnipresent you can have a relationship with God from anywhere. Why would you need to gather with a group of people and have middle men priest who claim to speak on behalf of God. Religions are about power, control, elitism and us vs them tribalism. If there was a god, he'd be disgusted by the barbaric things done by religious people in his name.
Religion is not necessarily the same as religious institutions. Christianity is quite an outlier with its heavy centralization in the case of Catholicism, but there is many denominations of Christianity that are not adhering to a centralized institution.
If I were to guess why its probably because religious communities always tend to lean into hateful rhetoric against "others".
People realize the closer you are to religion the further from God you feel as you couldn't believe that judgement of other humans is wise from an all knowing being if it exists.
Then the internet of course gives so many alternate sane opinions for consumption and exposure readily at your fingertips.
Ex-Roman Catholic here. I was never particularly devout but this is what drove me away from the church once and for all. I have never seen people preach about God’s love with so much hate in their hearts.
What I think is not that we should "abolish" religion (granted that I know you did not propose that. I'm just extrapolating from "religion is a plague")
I think we should move to exploring different religions without holding any of them as superior to the other, or at least not judging before reading a it more on your own accord and desire.
Someone pointed about issues on buddhism, which are true issues.
But eastern religions take from buddhism, taoism and confucionism religions and it is not uncommon to take a few different takes from each one of these as one goes in their own studies.
Same way, I think the rise of pagan religions would be useful to have the idea of being exposed to different concepts of religious ideas
Or similarly, different philosophical ideas, like reading from plato, but also from hume, but also from descartes, but also from....
As long as one doesn't stay stagnant on the same philosophical pool, there is no harm browsing (with sufficient care) other ideas.
Depends on the religion. But as a whole, what we thing of "religions", are definitely a net negative with our knowledge of the world. We no longer need to rely on superstition to survive.
Some religions are more a way of life rather than a structured creator being system with strict rules and exclusionary politics. Religions like Christianity/Judaism/Islam are quite different from Shinto or Buddhism for instance.
There's still some toxicity around Buddhism at least. Living in SEA I now know several people who are really turned off by the practices and beliefs of their family's religion, Buddhism, from the way all troubles are explained away as karma to neurodiversity and Learning Differences being hidden because that would mean that person did something bad in their past life.
I used to think Buddhism specifically was the "good" religion that's more like philosophy, but spending more time with people who grew up deep in Buddhism has made me see there's really more to the community and it's beliefs and practices than I thought.
Just because they aren't theist doesn't mean they don't have horrible backwards teachings. Most people are good without religion. Religion creates situations where otherwise good people do evil, because they're told it is actually good.
It doesn't necessarily mean they become atheists; some switch religions. While in the West religion is in overall decline, in the global south, Christian evangelicals are on the rise. This is especially the case in Brazil where Catholicism is on decline but evangelicals are growing.
You only see two types of people who believe in religon:
1- Bad people who abuse it for evil to benefit in life: Such political indoctrination and control, pedo cults, Israel zionists, ISIS Islamsits ..etc.
2- Oppressed and poor people who use it as a coping and hope mechanim for the afterlife: This applies globally across all religons and continents from South America to East Asia.
Mixing bigotry against religious people with classism and a sprinkle of racism does not make it rational. There is plenty of religious people who are neither oppressed or poor, nor do they use their religion for oppression of other people.
I didn't downvote neither upvote your comment because I kind of agree with you.
IMO, I feel those people are on auto-pilot faith which they inherted from their parents, but also because it has a positive presence in their lives. However, unlike people who endure jail or injustice, or oppression or poverty who need faith to survive life. just my personal view point
Some do, some don't. Most ex-mormons like myself don't end up going to another religion. We already have a community of like-minded people on the outside.
The thing I notice is there’s not really a good substitute for talking about the big questions yet.
I mean, I’m not missing any religion, but practically there was an hour or so a week dedicated specifically to thinking and talking about life from a non-materialistic perspective, and I think a lot of people now just - never do.
Not really! I mean like - why does life exist? Is there any relevance in the idea of reincarnation? Does time exist outside of us? What is "good works"?
Someone hold forth on a personal story that exemplifies something good.
You'd think we have enough stoners to get something like that going, but not really. And the esoterica side of Lemmy is very tiny and not well-attended.
tbh I think tumblr's got more of a corner on that kind of work/vibe.
Not that Lemmy can't or won't become that but at the moment it's more like alternate reality reddit which atm is just fine for most people.
Most people have already left, they just don't realise. If you don't go to church or mosque (probably not Buddhism or Hinduism) you already essentially betrayed the values you once were told to hold, but people are scared to admit because of metaphysical punishments in the afterlife
If not that, then public repercussions prevent them from admitting, and what once held the place of religion in communities is quickly being replaced with ideology instead, it provides community, tenets to follow, laws to abide by, and gives purpose for those who lack it
This started way in the past, and Russia would have likely also been more atheist than orthodox if the USSR didn't turn priests into martyrs by forcing a non religious status quo onto everyone and becoming a dictatorial tyrant with so called dictatorship of the "proletariat" which usually only turns into a dictatorship where only bureaucrats and party members exist in.
Honor killings still occur in many religious countries or in migrant families from those countries so yeah people are afraid to admit that they don’t believe.