Society Religious Discussion and Q&A Thread

[hokageji]

A parody of christianity

...

1. A dog poops in a yard.

2. Christians pray To God to deliver them from the poop. They refuse to pick it up themselves. They think God is supposed to magically solve everything for them. That God is supposed to give them endless free stuff, as if God were Karl Marx.

3. Dog continues to poop. Eventually the entire yard is full of dog poop.

4. Christians beg God to know why He did not save them from the poop.

5. Apply this to the economy, politics, education and everything else important in the world and everything starts to make sense.

As a born hindu, i cant resist the opportunity to say "now you wish you had more gods"... just move to a different god who will grant your wishes..

just kidding....
But in seriousness, religion and politics should never overlap. You should not make policies based on religious word or convenience. but unfortunately, taht's whats happening widely around the world.

 

[Sanity Check]

So you're saying Christians who think prayers are the solution shouldn't be able to make decisions for people? If so, I agree.

What if christians never had to study for any test in school.

They could pray and God would give them all the answers.

What if christians never had to wash their car, walk the dog or clean up after pets.

They could simply pray to God and He would handle everything.

That's the mentality most of them have.

There's nothing wrong with prayer.

Its attempting to substitute prayer for due diligence where things get strange.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 13, 2022, Original Post Date: Aug 13, 2022 ---

I think characterizing Christians as only being into it for the "free stuff" is a less charitable characterization than most atheists would produce (same with it not even showing an understand of Marx either), and yet you fashion yourself as a "true believer". Rather confusing really.

The lure of free stuff is very seductive.

If you remember that Joe Biden ran on a platform of "free education" and "free healthcare". The typical "free stuff" Karl Marx leaning candidates promise.

What ever happened to Joe Biden's promise to forgive student loan debt for "free" btw.

 

[shionoro]

Things being free is good.
Even more, things should be owned by communities, so everybody feels responsible for maintaining them together.

 

[ninjabot]

...why do you keep turning the religion thread into a politics thread lol?

 

[Sanity Check]

...why do you keep turning the religion thread into a politics thread lol?

Real world application is fundamentally important to religion.

That's another huge obstacle people face is translating the bible into modern day terms.

 

[shionoro]

The basis of religion is human need for community and meaning.

Religion needs to be measures by what it achieves, not what people think it could be in an idealized version of it.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 13, 2022, Original Post Date: Aug 13, 2022 ---

I think one of the quality control questions i would put a believer through, to test his religion, is:

Does he do what is best for his next? Or does he do what he thinks is best for some abstract idea of society? If it is the latter, his religion is dangerous.

I can accept and possibly trust someone who might have misguided ideals but has the wellbeing of the people around him as a priority, even if they disagree with him. I cannot trust someone who claims to have good itnerests but only for abstract people and not the ones around him.

I cannot trust the american version of christianity.

 

[xi0]

The lure of free stuff is very seductive.

If you remember that Joe Biden ran on a platform of "free education" and "free healthcare". The typical "free stuff" Karl Marx leaning candidates promise.

What ever happened to Joe Biden's promise to forgive student loan debt for "free" btw.

What does it have to do with Christianity though? Say someone only spent their time praying for shit they wanted but didn't deserve, what exactly stops them from doing that? If their prayers are answered they'll keep doing it and if they'll still do it anyway if they actually believe. Who does this offend though really? Why give a shit at all?

The reality is, monotheism as we know it created the idea of a personal God. Blame those responsible for that or something.

Your political tangent is absurd at this point, but Marx's ideas were not about "free shit", state programs are not "Marxist".

 

[Sanity Check]

The body posture of christians, when God tries to save them from their sins.

 

[ninjabot]

Well MH folk? Is it? Is it not?

Discuss!

 

[M3J]

Religion can be good, but so many people use it as a shield to justify their bigotry and hatred.

 

[Sanity Check]

Spoiler

 

[xi0]

Well MH folk? Is it? Is it not?

Discuss!

I didn't watch it really but I find it interesting that Shapiro says there's compelling evidence for god not existing but also thinks there's compelling evidence for god existing. Isn't that kind of zero-sum, in a sense? How exactly does one think there's compelling evidence on both sides here? You either believe a god exists or you believe he doesn't. The middle ground is an agnostic approach that says there's no way to prove existence either way and "belief" doesn't really factor into the discussion, the entire basis for this approach is evidence isn't compelling enough in either direction. Or maybe I'm stumbling over my own logic here, idk

Well anyways, the answer to your question is more nuanced than "yes" or "no". Religion could have been a more universally positive thing whether it holds value to the individual or not, but since Religion goes hand and hand with authority, it's used in ways that foster and reinforce the worst aspects of humanity. Fundamentally, religion exists as a "God of the gaps", and while there's useful aspects of it, humanity has outgrown its social utility IMO.