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Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: August 22nd, 2024

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  • You have a very interestingly nuanced position in all this.

    I’d be happy if some sort of god entity announced its existence and was interested in us and not malevolent. Why not. I’ve been wrong enough times in life that I wouldnt be surprised to be wrong again. Like you, I think its extraorinarily unlikely, especially with the reinforcement of the arc of history. In life you have to act according to the odds. If theres a .0001 chance of fish being in a pond, its not worth spending the time to fish there. I consider religion in a similar light. The odds of a god being there seem miniscule to me, and yet their followers are here all the time, and take an oversized stage for having such a miniscule chance of being correct, and they push their ideas on the rest of us, but seldom will entertain challenges to why they do these things. Like championing more reproduction but being against feeding the poor from their church kitchens (for some, not all of them).

    My experiences in this regard are not average, I hope, so feel free to take what I say with whatever amojnt of salt you judge appropriate. I come from an intensely catholic upbringing. Even after my aunt was raped by a monk, who went unpunished. My parents’ generation of two large families stayed catholic even in light of that. The kids, universally, could not stay with the church upon hearing this. I think the perception of religion has gone through a generational change starting at genX, and churches broadly have not kept pace, as you alluded to. I am convinced, like you, that this is progress for humanity. I am willing to give religious people the respect for their ideas they hold dear commensurate with the liklihood of them being correct or even useful, although I deem them to be .00000000000000000001% useless compared to the chance of there being no deities involved with our affairs, and that we should own our world ourselves.

    cheers, good chat.


  • Well take a minute to read about the jewish roman wars on wikipedia and get back to me. The history of the zealots faction is one of terrorism and genocide and thats just a fact.
    We cant just pretend history doesnt exist.
    Nor can we pretend the killing of innocents in the middle east right now is ethical or justified.
    Nor can we pretend that pushing back on the extremist wing of far right Judaism equates to antisemitism against all jews.

    If you want to play at verbal gymnastics and call that anti semitism go ahead, I couldnt care less-- it just makes me take you all the less seriously when you try to pervert language like that. That word has been flung around as a shield for all kinds of criminal immoral nonsense and its lost the meaning it used to have. Its just a lazy crybully propoganda defense these days.


  • OK fair enough on the ad homs, you are right on that and I apologize. I would challenge you on the idea that religion been examined as rigorously and freely as every other philosphical ideas. Faith is belief without question, is it not? And the christian bible is a bit of a joke-- most if not all “holy” books are. But they are held up as a standin for morality and we are demanded to respect them, and not ask too many questions about them, usualyl at threat of violence or other coercions. Isnt history littered with the bodies of scientists and philosophers who werent allowed to inconvenience the church?

    It amazed me that when you find religious strife, atheists are often singled out for the worst punishments.
    I think its summarized pretty well with this quote of Bakker’s: “Theres nothing the ignorant prize more than the ignorance of others.”

    I think if people should generally mind their own business unless something directly impinges on their individual freedom to live. That includes not making rules about how women should use their bodies. Let women decide that themselevs, or you’re being a tyrant. (I am an old white guy). Christianity doesnt beleive in that, and refuses to honestly examine it. Dogma and whatever the oldest white guy in a funny hat says trumps rational discourse every time.

    the only “god” we should be worshipping is ourselves as entities that are constituent of a human society that differentiates us from the other animals. In my opinion, everything else is someone trying to use you or get you to adopt their worldview. This forces us to be our own masters and own the outcomes we create in the world. And to treat each other better.

    What do you think?













  • Politcal memes mods are deleting comments which complain about Dem support of genocide. The stated reasons are solely: “Thats ridiculous, Harris doesnt support war crimes” and reasoning like that. Its editorial modding to create and amplify their views, same as reddit does. Does this site exist for open comments or to create echo chambers? The UN and ICC have ruled that war crimes are happening and genocide is plausible, but in some places on lemmy thats dismissed out of hand and comments removed.

    Mods should exist to limit abuse and enforce rules that keep this place on track, not to delete comments they personally dont agree with. Mods that abuse their power need to be removed.