Religions doing awful things

[Red Slinger]

Originally Posted by photon

I used to be a youth pastor (well maybe youth leader? I never had any official education or whatever) and I wouldn't call myself deranged. Delusional may have fit.. I honestly believed what I taught them about the Bible and tried my best to help them and support them because I cared about them.

I definitely wasn't a liar or a scam artist.

It was the fact that while I felt God would tell me what I should talk about or that God would tell the other pastors and leaders about what they should be doing but God seemingly completely neglected to tell the leadership about the abuse that happened in the church that made me start to question things. Well one of the many many things that raised questions..

If God is talking to the leaders but none of the leaders are aware that some person is abusing people (physically, mentally, sexually, whatever) then either God isn't telling, the leaders aren't listening.

Just curious about the bolded. How was this communicated to you? Was it like getting a sign? Or you would think of something or have an experience and attribute it to God. Or would you actually hear his voice? Or did I mis-read this and this is what you were hoping for but it never actually happened?

[MoneyGuy]

Not referring to Photon but having attended an evangelical church for decades (no longer) my belief is that most people gets “signs” from God that mysteriously align with what they want to do.

I want to take a missions-mountain biking trip in Peru. God has directed this so please contribute money. This is an actual example. I have no idea how much the young woman raised; little or nothing, I presume. We gave nothing.

[Geraldsh]

Originally Posted by Red Slinger

Just curious about the bolded. How was this communicated to you? Was it like getting a sign? Or you would think of something or have an experience and attribute it to God. Or would you actually hear his voice? Or did I mis-read this and this is what you were hoping for but it never actually happened?

I took it to mean he was expecting a message that never came when it clearly should have.

[photon]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

Not referring to Photon but having attended an evangelical church for decades (no longer) my belief is that most people gets “signs” from God that mysteriously align with what they want to do.

Pretty much. Or God is telling me about things I kind of recognized anyway (God's telling me there's a problem in your relationship). Or things that are generic enough that they can fit into many situations.. patterns that fake psychics use for example. Not that I consciously studied and used such patterns but it's just natural to gravitate towards things that work.

For a while I used to carry a randomly generated number in my wallet, and when people would talk to me about returning to God I would say if God tells them the number and they told me at it matched that would go a long way to me returning to my beliefs.

Of course that descends into arguments about free will... but I have more proof my wife exists and I don't think knowing she exists to the certainty I do violates my free will much.

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by photon

Pretty much. Or God is telling me about things I kind of recognized anyway (God's telling me there's a problem in your relationship). Or things that are generic enough that they can fit into many situations.. patterns that fake psychics use for example. Not that I consciously studied and used such patterns but it's just natural to gravitate towards things that work.

For a while I used to carry a randomly generated number in my wallet, and when people would talk to me about returning to God I would say if God tells them the number and they told me at it matched that would go a long way to me returning to my beliefs.

Of course that descends into arguments about free will... but I have more proof my wife exists and I don't think knowing she exists to the certainty I do violates my free will much.

Woah, wait a minute...what are the patterns the real psychics are using?

[photon]

Knowing the future of course!

[Zary's-Mustache]

My favorite part and by favorite part I mean worst part of religious people is when they think everything is meant to be or meant to happen.

It goes against every religion and is hypocritical as hell. If everything was meant to happen or predetermined then there would be no heaven or hell as nobody would be responsible for their actions that were destined to happen.

[Fuzz]

The lord works in mysterious ways, you can't expect a human to comprehend his plans.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Zary's-Mustache

My favorite part and by favorite part I mean worst part of religious people is when they think everything is meant to be or meant to happen.

It goes against every religion and is hypocritical as hell. If everything was meant to happen or predetermined then there would be no heaven or hell as nobody would be responsible for their actions that were destined to happen.

I think this is very human.

We are evolved to recognize patterns for quick decision making which allowed us to find food and water, avoid being eaten, and start agriculture and science. This pattern recognition leaves us susceptible to correlation = causation and seeing patterns where none exists.

So seeing a master plan in the chaos is a side affect of evolution or perhaps a primary affect if the religious practices around food and societies resulted in more breeding among the population that didn’t die eating contaminated pork.

[CliffFletcher]

It’s 2500 BC. You’re among the 98 per cent of people on the planet who are farmers or pastoralists. Your prosperity, health, and life are subject to environmental conditions you have very little control over. Every 5-7 years the crops fail due to drought or pestilence. Your animals die. You dig in the earth for roots and eat grass. Your children die wailing. Many who survive are stunted and deformed for life. It’s a collective trauma and catastrophe.

You have no way of predicting when this will happen or of doing much about it. Just as there’s little you can do to prevent attacks by marauders who massacre, rape, and enslave. This psychological state is literally unbearable.

So humans being social, story-making animals, your people develop stories about why this happens. About ancestors and gods and how they work their will on your lives. You develop communal rituals to propitiate these powers. The rituals bring the community together. Unify and build trust. They give you some sense of agency against the pitiless vicissitudes of life in the pre-modern world.

These beliefs and rituals, in varied forms, spring up in every corner of the planet that humans inhabit. So yes, it’s about as human as you get. It’s the peculiar state of not being religious that requires explanation.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

It’s 2500 BC. You’re among the 98 per cent of people on the planet who are farmers or pastoralists. Your prosperity, health, and life are subject to environmental conditions you have very little control over. Every 5-7 years the crops fail due to drought or pestilence. Your animals die. You dig in the earth for roots and eat grass. Your children die wailing. Many who survive are stunted and deformed for life. It’s a collective trauma and catastrophe.

You have no way of predicting when this will happen or of doing much about it. Just as there’s little you can do to prevent attacks by marauders who massacre, rape, and enslave. This psychological state is literally unbearable.

So humans being social, story-making animals, your people develop stories about why this happens. About ancestors and gods and how they work their will on your lives. You develop communal rituals to propitiate these powers. The rituals bring the community together. Unify and build trust. They give you some sense of agency against the pitiless vicissitudes of life in the pre-modern world.

This process played out in every corner of the planet that humans inhabit. So yes, it’s about as human as you get. It’s the peculiar state of not being religious that requires explanation.

You think it's peculiar to NOT believe in things(and have them dictate how you live and treat others) that can't be proven to exist?

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

You think it's peculiar to NOT believe in things(and have them dictate how you live and treat others) that can't be proven to exist?

Seeing as the vast, vast majority of people who have ever lived have had religious faith, not having religious faith is peculiar. That’s not a value statement, just a recognition of what’s normal and what’s abnormal.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Seeing as the vast, vast majority of people who have ever lived have had religious faith, not having religious faith is peculiar. That’s not a value statement, just a recognition of what’s normal and what’s abnormal.

And how does that happen? Passing down traditions from parent to child, indoctrination, missionaries, theocracies, basically a forced top down dissemination and integration of religion with society. But it really takes parents who decide to break the chain of indoctrination and let children decide on their own as they grow what is and isn't real. When the state fails to provide that by allowing indoctrination before children can reason for themselves, it becomes easy to see how misguided thinking can lead to where we are now.

Also, phrasing it as normal vs abnormal is rather offensive, as if being non-religious is a defect of some sort. I'd say believing in things that don't exist is more defective.

[CliffFletcher]

The fact religious or spiritual beliefs are a human universal that developed independently in virtually every society, they pretty clearly meet a fundamental human need.

You can call it indoctrination, but if you believe communal rituals have efficacy, how is teaching them to your children any different from teaching them how to hunt rabbits, weave mats, or thresh wheat?

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Seeing as the vast, vast majority of people who have ever lived have had religious faith, not having religious faith is peculiar. That’s not a value statement, just a recognition of what’s normal and what’s abnormal.

We don’t generally define normal based on what was happening hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

Unless you also want to argue that sleeping with 12 year old girls is normal for adult men and it’s the guys that don’t who are abnormal.

…you… don’t want to argue that, right?

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The fact religious or spiritual beliefs are a human universal that developed independently in virtually every society, they pretty clearly meet a fundamental human need.

You can call it indoctrination, but if you believe communal rituals have efficacy, how is teaching them to your children any different from teaching them how to hunt rabbits, weave mats, or thresh wheat?

No problem with that if at the same time you inform them they are only stories, and not to be taken literally. Something many many religions do the opposite of. By deceiving people of reality you do them no favours, and set them up to struggle with cognitive paradoxes for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately this means many default to belief over fact, because it's so much easier to just believe, to take it on faith, than to actually understand.

In the past religions existed to provide structure and control. We have no need for that now, and the reality is it's become an impediment to peaceful society so long as more than one differing group exists in the same place and imbued with fundamentally different "truths" they have been convinced through indoctrination that that is the proper way to live. And they fight for that way of living, to the death. Or impose it on others.

[PepsiFree]

Religion itself also holds zero unique value.

Spirituality, fate, luck, fortune, purpose, intuition, community, will, courage, etc, are all things that people regularly experience outside the church or any particular belief system.

I think it’s fine if people attribute things to “God’s will” or find community in the church. Whatever gets you there. But that ends pretty quickly when those reasons for good are also used to exclude, shame, repress, or harm people, which also happens to be a hallmark both historically and in present day of many organized religions.

1. Believing God speaks to you is implausible but widely accepted
2. Believing you saw an alien spaceship is plausible but a punchline
3. Believing you hear non-descript voices telling you to do things is considered a mental illness

The fact that number 2 is the most plausible but considered a joke by the majority of society while number 1 and 3 are virtually identical and yet society’s view of them almost polar opposite should tell us something.

[Yamer]

Rationalizing the unexplainable is the inherent human trait, not religion.

[ResAlien]

An interesting piece about the rise of nonreligious people.

https://projects.apnews.com/features...-nones-us.html

The nones account for a large portion of Americans, as shown by the 30% of U.S. adults who claim no religious affiliation in a survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Other major surveys say the nones have been steadily increasing for as long as three decades.

So who are they?

They’re the atheists, the agnostics, the “nothing in particular.” They’re the “spiritual but not religious,” and those who are neither or both. They span class, gender, age, race and ethnicity.

While the nones’ vast diversity splinters them into myriad subgroups, most of them have this in common:

They. Really. Don’t. Like. Organized. Religion.

[Fuzz]

Blessed are the nones, for they shall inherit the earth. Eventually.