Prepare for fedora tipping Yea Forums, because I'm completely serious

The real role of religion is social cohesion. Part of that is good, part of it's bad.

For the entire history of organized religion, it's been the institution that brought together communities throughout their lives, for religious services, holidays, religious study, and important life events like marriages and funerals. It also reminds community members to treat each other well, since they're members of the same religious community or sect, and there for stand for the same (correct) understanding of the universe and morality. To this day people who regularly attend religious services still report being happier than those who don't, and it isn't because of God or spirituality. It's because they have a community to return to. This is also part of why it's so hard to leave cults when they disconnect their members from outside society - that's they're support group, and it shapes their sense of self-worth.

The negative side is the abuse of power. The people who run these religious institutions get a lot of power over the community, and that makes religious institutions rife for abuse. Religions obviously rip off their followers for tons of money, especially egregious examples being Scientology and the Charismatic movement. Religious leaders can ostracize and shun people they don't like or approve of. They can get their followers to do whatever they want politically, taking positions against evolution, abortion, gay marriage, and even things that have nothing to do with religion like environmental protection, economic protections, etc. Note that every single major religion has had widespread sexual abuses, including Catholicism, Evangelical Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and all the others.

Well, for my part, I'm not even specifically talking about "God" in the Deistic concept, just religion.

You can argue about God all you want, but the idea that god incarnated himself into a human by surprise-sexing a virgin and then made himself popular by giving out free wine...it's ludicrous.

I'm not trying to dispute the possibility that there is a God, I just wonder why we should respect any of the holy books we're supposed to respect.

Why should I not laugh in the face of a Muslim quoting the Kuran?

discord.gg/AJE8uZh

>ghosts are goofy therefore all religion is goofy
Nah. False analogy and faulty equivalence.
Just like there is superstition about numbers there is superstition about souls. This doesn't undermine the basic reality of souls or numbers. It just means some cultures ascribed incorrect properties to them.
Some people do numerology and read too much into number patterns. Some people do similar things with the human soul.
If we understand ghosts to be disembodied souls then they can't do much haunting or spooking because they are immaterial by definition.

>But for "religion", there's a special blind spot. You hear someone say they believe a hippie jew resurrected himself and the polite thing to do is to tell them you "respect" their opinion but disagree.
You shouldn't respect things out of ignorance, you should do your research first which means reading sources apologetic to Christianity and neutral towards it, not simply sources that seek to destroy it and mock it. Then you might gain understanding you will find some truth/beauty/goodness to Christianity and truth deserves respect.

see (yikes)

There are wise words in the bible. There are also inaccuracies, slavery, murder, bigotry, rape(those parts are pretty good tho), and things that violate the laws of reality.

I love poetry, I wouldn't trust a poet to explain the world to me. They're idiots.

Is that a Plato reference? lol

>I'm not trying to dispute the possibility that there is a God, I just wonder why we should respect any of the holy books we're supposed to respect.
I guess you brought Deism because you may be familiar with it, if anything you shouldn't dismiss those "holy books" altogether but rather take what allegories and useful teaching they may have(pic related), but at the same time reject Fundamentalist total nonsense like many religious zealots and ignorants, hell, you'll be surprised how little religious people have actually read, study and comprehended the bigger picture of their very own texts they claim to be "holy".

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>Why should I not laugh in the face of a Muslim quoting the Kuran?

Because he'll explode you.

>bigotry is bad
biggotry is the truth of natural and spiritual hierarchy, not everyone is equal or deserving of the same rewards.

Some think it's bigoted to promote motherhood for women and prevent them from murdering their babies. But who cares what they think? What God wills is what matters.

It is bad, actually. Not in the 2010s "progressive" sense, but in a much more tangible sense.

Let's say you have a magical land of midget mongrels call Amurikah, for example. Now, in Amurikah, the minority darkskins population is discriminated against because they commit the majority of violent crimes despite being numerically a tenth of the population. And the darkskins in turn discriminate against the pureskins because they view them as evil opressors.

Bigotry blankets these two things and blinds people to the nuance of individuality.

Guys plz respond, I put some energy into this post and I got trips

After reading the Bible do you not see how people respect it for 2000 years?

I am a prophet.

What are you a prophet of?
Most of the "prophets" I interact with on the internet are mentally ill losers trying to rationalize their sad, failed lives with a strange superiority complex, based on the false belief they're somehow deeper and wiser than everyone around them because they read some obscure European esotericist and understand Nine Inch Nails better than anyone else. They usually live in shitty nowhere towns in middle America, and went to shitty colleges.

Good post, nothing more needs to be said

>They usually live in shitty nowhere towns in middle America, and went to shitty colleges.
This is so fucking true

thanks m8

I think it was one of the better posts in this thread

I don't like the post, it has a cynical slant to it ironically similar to nihilists and "too cool for school" edgy bois who think they're uniquely intelligent and the rest of humanity are just sheep.

The difference is that cynics think humans are stupid sheep while you think humans are stupid sheep that need religion, which is both a stick and a carrot, to whip them into shape.

Because without believing in bullshit how could our race ever accomplish anything or create a close-knit society?

Basically you're saying we should pretend to believe in something we know is false to create a society BASED ON A LIE.

thanks!

I don't believe any of that, and I don't believe you should pretend to believe anything. I'm pointing out that religion has an important social role, and I pointed out the positive and negative of that. I do think people need communities, and I recognize religion provides the community. Nothing about that makes people somehow stupid. People who aren't religious should find other institutions that will provide that sense of community, whether it be based around hobbies, interests, or whatever. In fact, because of this very issue, now atheist groups are forming their own social groups to provide the sense of community religions would otherwise give (secular humanists, rationalists, Satanists, etc.). There are even secular meditation groups, secular Quakers, all sorts of stuff. It's not about people being sheep, it's about the fact that you're mentally better off with a social support group.

What you're doing is you're arguing for the social benefits of religion, whether true or false is irrelevant, when the argument is about the truth of religion. And you've fallen back to arguing about social benefits because you can't argue for the truth of it.

Because I suspect you know it's a lie, but you're willing to indulge the lie because you believe the lie creates some positive effects socially.

But a bond, social or otherwise, based on a lie, will always be unstable and volatile.

Yet this is the moral behavior that a lot of people identify with. Even if their beliefs mostly coincide with Christian moral behavior, they would rather recognize it as not being a dick than as virtuous. My roommate has this retarded quote by black science man on one of his walls:
“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others”

No, you're projecting onto me your own anti-theist beliefs. I'm recognizing the social benefits of religion as an institution. I do think some religions are basically wrong, but I also think some are basically right, and others are mixed bags. I'm still working out my religious views. Ontologically I'm inclined to be either a naturalist or a panentheist, and those positions are irreconcilable. I think Zen Buddhism is basically correct, but in terms of social structures I actually prefer Quakerism, though I have a distastes for its more distinctly Christian elements.

I know that sounds like a mess because it is and I'm still working out my religious and philosophical views, but I'm not being a condescending or contemptuous anti-theist.

>buddhism
check out my man Nanavira Thera
and then Nagarjuna
also this essay
pathpress.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/appearance-and-existence/
Shunyata/Emptiness is a big deal in Zen so it might help to learn about it from a phenomenological perspective. It differs from normal panentheism (and naturalism to some degree), so I imagine this might be good reading to help you 'work out your religious and philosophical views'

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The phenomenon you describe arose from Abrahamic theologies which are the core of western ideas of ethics and a modern rationalist ideology. The reconciliation of these two philosophies is that the metaphysical or transcendent nature of religion subsumes the more supernatural elements of it and the particularly egalitarian democratic Christian approach you are describing is to afford people the freedom to believe whatever they want.

This is another thing I hate. Saying something obvious suddenly makes you condescending and snotty, while the real intellectuals and truth-seekers are the people who spend years studying comparative theology and mythology and whatever the fuck.

I don't think I'm a genius for simply saying organized religions are a lie because there's enough evidence for a child with Down's Syndrome to see it's a lie.

That's just what it is. And you're not a genius for sitting on the fence and absorbing fortune cookie "wisdom" from the holy books made by people who wrote them specifically to control the population, as YOU YOURSELF have acknowledged by mentioning the societal impact of religious behavior.

/r/atheism

Thanks! I'll check this out. I've liked Gudo Nishijima, Shohaku Okumura, Shunryu Suzuki, and Brad Warner's earliest stuff (he's gotten a little weird recently), so Nagarjuna's name has come up a bit. I'll check it out

You're literally just looking for reasons to be angry about anything I say. I wasn't saying anti-theists are condescending. You were accusing me of condescendingly and contemptuously talking about religious people when you assumed I was an anti-theist. I also already recognized there's no virtue in "fence sitting," as you say, and I'm not passively "soaking up" texts, which is one hell of a straw man. I did ask for a response so thanks for writing one, but now you're just being a prick and throwing out baseless accusations.

Yeah I know. Let's make fun of crazy New Age hippies who talk about crystals and numerology, let's be amused at the innocence of chidren who believe in Santa or the stupidity of celebrities who have personal psychics, but for fucks sake, don't make fun of the muslim who thinks Allah wants him to secifically have a beard without a moustache or the christian who thinks a jew would ever be selfless.

Then you're just RUDE.

Why do you keep talking about anti-theism? You don't know what that means, do you? It's someone who believes god or gods are real but opposes worshipping them due to moral principle

I dislike the characterization of religion merely as a tool to control people or merely as a means of maintaining social cohesion because it is overly discrete. Religion is not a unified and manipulating entity solely controlled by a few nefarious elites at the top. Religion is experienced differently by everybody, as an individual and as a group. I think it is better described as a field of culture that is intertwined in the fabric of the rest of the community. What distinguishes it from other forms of culture is that religious feelings are basically inevitable parts of the human experience.
It's not simply a means of control but a whole mode of shared experience, a crucial and entangled aspect of a community.

lol wow, this is the definition of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

That's not what anti-theism means. Anti-theism is the opposition to the belief in gods.

here's some good resources to start
nanavira.org/libraries/ctp_book_v1.pdf
for nagarjuna: archive.org/details/NagarjunaTheFundamentalWisdomOfTheMiddleWay/page/n1
here's a classic Zen text: promienie.net/images/dharma/books/sutras_platform-sutra_red-pine.pdf
and lastly some more Buddhist phenomenology:
seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/The-Magic-of-the-Mind_Rev_4.0.pdf

The religious have won wars. The superstitious have not.

Bro I don't even care about atheism, I have huge disdain for religious phonies myself, but you sound like a total basedcuck. All that unnecessary outrage expressed through sarcastic and hyperbolic language makes it impossible for anyone to take you and your opinions seriously, as you seemingly can't even respect yourself. The children at Reddit love talking like this however, so you best go to where you belong, and revel in your updoots.

Thanks!

yep, that's fucking concise.

thanks bro

The reason that religion annoys me, is because I believe, and it's entirely possible that I'm wrong, but this is what I believe, there are two possible reasons for grown adults to believe in something so ridiculus-either you're going along with it because you believe religion is good for society, or you're going along with it because you're afraid that life has no meaning or purpose without it. Actually three, maybe you're just afraid of mortality.

Either of these three options stink of cowardice to me. And this cowardice is always shielded with people who make your kinds of posts, where you turn up your nose because no one could ever understand the true complexities of religion like you can and only kids would ever think it's stupid.

Nah man, it's just stupid. And you're a coward.

Jimmies=Only slightly rustled.

Yikes.

You have no idea what you're talking about, EXCEPT with the most fundamentalist forms of Christianity and Islam (and cults like Scientology), which I'm betting are the only forms of religion you've really engaged with. There's a lot of valuable philosophy that even secularists appreciate, especially in religions like Buddhism. There's way more to this than you realize, and I'm not talking about anything esoteric.

No there isn't. It's nonsense, including the Buddhist nirvana Wheel of Life reincarnation bullshit.

There may be philosophical value to some religions, interesting ideas to ponder, but that doesn't make them true. Following a religion means approaching it as if it's TRUE.

I can thnink that the Buddhist idea of souls going through life over and over again until they reach enlightenment and are set free is INTERESTING philisophically. But people who practice Buddhism think it's TRUE.

Why is this difficult for you to grasp?

are you a materialist?

Oh for fucks sake, is this where you start talking about dark matter?

No I'm genuinely curious and I'm not the same guy you've been replying to

Yeah. If materialism is ever proven wrong, i'll change my mind. Don't hold your breath though

you're going off about others having blind faith in principles and beliefs that cannot possibly be proven true, yet you yourself have blind faith in an unfalsifiable metaphysical belief. It is absolutely arrogant to act like you know what happens after death through mere conjecture, or that you know what objective reality is like apart from experience (which is impossible).

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The real role of Jesus is becoming personally dead to sin.

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Ah, metaphysics. Physics for people who failed high school physics and think metaphysics are the same as quantum theory.

>Physics for people who failed high school physics and think metaphysics are the same as quantum theory.
And materialism is a part of it. Materialism is metaphysics.

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Sure. Materialism is also part of everything else, I have no idea what you're talking about and I honestly don't care anymore. I'm on my eight guinness, it's time to go out and embarass myself in front of women.

Good luck with your snake oil peddling, bro.

Physics is just enslaved metaphysics.
>think metaphysics are the same as quantum theory.
To be fair, m/string theories are profoundly metaphysical as those too are untestable, in some ways on par with pseud dualityfaggots. The only thing going for the mathy approach is that it can at least *fit* some observable parts of our reality, which is slightly better answer than "lol, world is made of abstract triangles, because that's the most basic shape, poof, triangle god proven".

In the field of philosophy known as metaphysics, people often discuss theories of what the fundamental substance is that makes up reality and precedes experience. Materialism is the belief that matter is this fundamental substance.
This makes materialism a metaphysical belief, it is substance-metaphysics.

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>Physics for people who failed high school physics and think metaphysics are the same as quantum theory.

There is no quantum mechanics without metaphysics, since the interpretation of quantum mechanics is metaphysical itself.

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Because you're a genuine brainlet.

Holy fucking shit you're stupid.