No problem, but please use Angry Atheist Fire instead.
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Mainline christianity has a built-in anxiety and guilt feedback loop. Adherents starting out with being judged by christians, who convince them that theyâre evil and wretched and need help from the church. Step 2 is teaching the targets about forgiveness and fulfillment of purpose in the church along with the finer points of what things are sins. The really devious part is that christianity and in fact most religions have outlined a system of morality/sin thatâs impossible to adhere to. Everyone falling short is a feature, not a bug. Then the new adherents feel shame from the judgement, and guilt from the brainwashing, run back to the church, who have convinced them the only way they can resolve the cognitive dissonance is through the church. They get their forgiveness from an imaginary monster, feel better, go back out to the world to sin again, and the cycle repeats.
Itâs classical codependency. The church needs adherents in order to survive, and the adherents need the church (after some manipulative ideas are planted in their head) in order to not feel like theyâre evil.
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âGive me a mutant until he is seventeen and I will give you the X-man.â
â St. Charles Xavier
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Where youâre going wrong is treating the bible as a book of laws, rather than a book of fairy stories for adults.
The whole point is you can justify or condemn pretty much any behaviour by picking the right passage, which means that a wide variety of people with different beliefs can all all share the same religion.
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Where I am going wrong? Youâre assuming that just because I can argue at their level, that I actually believe what they believe. Youâve made quite a error there.
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Monday morning eh? 
The problems I find when people complain about religion generally are that 1. they donât take much care to define it well, and 2. the content of human gullibility is basically irrelevant when compared to the process. I think that itâs more accurate to say that belief itself is actually the problem. The same processes which cause problems with organized religions are also active and thriving in other areas of life, such as government and advertising. Itâs how masses of people have been conditioned to have even their whole countries sold out from under them.
Even most people who consider themselves to be atheists do not operate upon their own evidence in daily life. It often seems to be enough to trust and believe that somebody else is doing the science, or making the consensus.
[quote=âpopobawa4u, post:49, topic:68859, full:trueâ]Even most people who consider themselves to be atheists do not operate upon their own evidence in daily life. It often seems to be enough to trust and believe that somebody else is doing the science, or making the consensus.
[/quote]
For me, the most glaring difference between atheists and followers of Abrahamic and many other well-known religions is the latter groupâs belief in indisputably made-up myth (even if they also âbelieveâ in science, etc.). Sure, both may arrive at a similar daily life, but this fundamental difference is something I can not ignore.
The difference I see is that atheists typically are willing to change their perspective when they come across new data. Thatâs the core of intellectual honesty. Whereas most believers in the abrahamic religions see new information as dangerous and anathema to their faith, so they ignore it, deny it, or sometimes section it away to keep it separate from their âcritical thinking not allowedâ area in their mind, where religion lives.
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Precisely.
But then again, there are religious people who seek out such âdangerousâ information just to broaden and refine their nuanced understanding of their faith, or file it away as yet another great mystery that confirms the greatness of their maker.
All this is just very alien to me, so I guess Iâm xenophobic in that regard?
Thatâs the real problem! Beliefs are pretty insubstantial. I donât accept a similar daily life.
I call BS here, because it conveniently ignores that most people have vaguely metaphysical motivations which are categorized differently for arbitrary reasons. Concepts such as happiness, profit, and freedom which even atheists take for granted are exactly the same category of thought. Social life, even the non-religious varieties, are still 95% âmade up mythâ. Also, mythology need not imply belief. Positing a story, even an apparently all-encompassing story, does not trap you in it.
But you might not be intellectually honest yourself when your whole argument itself revolves around defining âreligionâ this way. I encounter the same exact circular reasoning with idealogues who are always determined to define âcommunismâ as âstalinismâ. The accusation of which they inevitably follow up with: âYes, because that is the reality!â
I think it is both more honest and effective to simply attack belief itself.
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It may be more honest, but so many people arenât being taught how to think, so much as what to think. This makes them want to protect the beliefs theyâve been taught, rather than willing to examine what beliefs they have. And definitely more willing to reject anything that contradicts their personal beliefs. Itâs inherent to humanity. A common cognitive shortcut that we all experience. But religions bolster this behavior, while the scientific method, and learning logic and reason and critical thinking at least offers some of the tools necessary to break down oneâs beliefs to their basic premises to examine them further.
Itâs all about identity as far as I can tell. Long-held beliefs get wrapped up in oneâs identity, and all things being equal, nobody likes feeling like theyâre believing in something wrong or false. One way of feeling less wrong is to look at new evidence and see if the objective evidence and the world match up with your beliefs and changing them to fit the âreal world out thereâ. Another is to just pick something, stick with it, and surround yourself with people whoâve picked that thing too, shield oneself from criticism (blasphemy is offensive, thatâs why thereâs so many shitty antiblasphemy laws), and building long-lasting social institutions around these beliefs to attack those who deny them.
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Are there? What is it that categorizes a person as being religious?
So, how about those who donât bother with faith? Or makers? Do I need to âbelieve inâ (whatever that means) mythologies in order to learn about and understand them? Does the problem of non-literal truths mean that interpretation of literature is harmful as well? If a kid reads Moby Dick and starts blowing up whales, would it be more prudent to ban Melville, or teach people how to reason more effectively? What if a thousand kids do it?
Great! Weâre on the same page then.
[quote]
I call BS here, because it conveniently ignores that most people have vaguely metaphysical motivations which are categorized differently for arbitrary reasons. Concepts such as happiness, profit, and freedom which even atheists take for granted are exactly the same category of thought. Social life, even the non-religious varieties, are still 95% âmade up mythâ.[/quote]
I hope you meant âEven [some] atheists take for grantedâ? I agree that the majority of people, truly religious or not live in their own metaphysical world.
Nothing is really granted. The distinction that I make is that things like freedom and happiness are mostly measurable and can be felt by the vast majority of people in a positive way, but fairy tales are just that.
I guess my point is that I donât think âhappinessâ was invented by anybody, whereas other things that people âbelieveâ in clearly are, and would not be present without their invention.
Of course not. But thatâs just what I assume when I say âreligiousâ: someone who really believes in this mythology.
This still seems to be the same false dichotomy. You are defining âreligionâ as âbelieving stuff which is contrary to reasonâ. But this is neither a universal definition, nor even an accurate one. Itâs like saying that âsince there are assholes in every culture, culture is the problemâ. There isnât anything innately contrary to scientific methodology, logic, reason, or critical thinking in the larger concept of religion itself. But I agree that there are many examples of this in many specific religions - which is why I have issue with the title of the topic. Not only that, but the great things you listed largely derived from certain kinds of âreligious thoughtâ, but not as you define them.
Thatâs a sore point for me. Effective discipline I find tends to demonstrate clearly to the individual the limits of both belief and identity, and shows them to be insubstantial. The tools for doing so (deprogramming) exist in many religions as well as other areas of life. Attacking a nebulous concept of religion I think amounts to alienating people by shouting into an empty closet. It preaches intellectual honesty but cannot demonstrate it due to its fundamentally reactionary nature. The pro-active approach I think is to teach logic, reason, critical thinking, and scientific method. From a young age, in elementary school or before, not limited to students of liberal arts in college. Instead of attacking beliefs, give people methodology, and the problem takes care of itself.
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[quote=âpopobawa4u, post:55, topic:68859, full:trueâ]
So, how about those who donât bother with faith? Or makers? Do I need to âbelieve inâ (whatever that means) mythologies in order to learn about and understand them? Does the problem of non-literal truths mean that interpretation of literature is harmful as well?[/quote]
Jesus, no, of course not. Finding useful life lessons inside scripture (or any other literature) has nothing to with my argument. I meant belief in the sense of someone interpreting fiction as non-fiction.
Make a cost/benefit analysis. Which of these two solutions would save the wales more effectively? If you have the ability to âteach people hot to reason more effectivelyâ, please do! It will have many other benefits, too. If thatâs too difficult, then at least try to somehow keep kids from getting funny ideas from that book before we run out of whales.
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Huh? Which is it? Honestly, the second one is a good ideal, but the first one is typically the only foothold in public dialog we got.
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I lost a bit when I repeated myself, but I was trying to say that it is the mechanism of belief which is the deeper problem, rather than the content. So this would be attacking belief (verb) rather than belief (noun). Sorry that I wasnât being clear.
It seems to me that attacking beliefs(n) is very counter-productive. Instead of a form of learning, it is often interpreted for what it is - shaming and social pressure. Many people get doors slammed in their faces instead of more dialog happening. But, on the optimistic side, nearly all dialog is public dialog. The challenge of religious belief is co-dependent with other kinds of belief. Society has been largely defined by commerce, which depends upon exploiting peopleâs lack of discernment. This is why we suddenly from the 20th century have government-subsidized fundamentalist revivalism attacking schools. It trains people for careers in the current order, while generating consumers of both products as well as ideas. Science is tolerated so long as it is subservient to commerce. Unfortunately, the uphill battle I think requires dismantling both representative government and commerce. Until societal structures are mature enough to consider reason qua reason âprofitableâ, it will be a marketplace of coercive realities.
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Not in my dimension.
