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Maligna

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,816
Canada
That can also be interpretated as "religion will always exist" as real and testable.

Not the same religions, but the concept itself will remain.

I suppose it's just an inherent part of people to follow rules dictated by a supposed higher being.

Just because the human mind has a intrinsic need to understand its world, and will invent a narrative to help it understand things in the absence of knowledge (aka religion) that does not lend any credence to the validity of what it invents.

"Magic man did it" is just the easiest go-to to explain the unknown.
 

Deleted member 2761

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,620
This form of thinking is problematic itself, and ends up being as dogmatic as conservative religious beliefs. There's always a middle ground and that's where suffering ends, trying to go beyond that in either way and your no better. Sorry. Islam is considered evil in China, internment camps now imprison the largest ethnic population the world has seen since WW2. Bosnian genocide in the 90s, Rohingya genocide recently.

Right, I'd like to remind my fellow fedoralords that the Chinese extermination of the Uyghur population (as well as persecution of LGBTQ+) is an atheist endeavor. And if you think, "well that's just the Chinese, the West would never!" perhaps consider that you're tying your atheist identity to an your ethnic or national identity, and what that implies for your criticism of Islam.

Also, some of ya'll quoting Gervais? Never mind that he's a transphobe, but I think this image shows ya'll what you need to know about his brand of atheism.

DyMKNT8W0AIZGcO
 

Zaro

Member
Nov 13, 2017
1,394
Religion has always been a bunch of stories created to be used for population control. Disobey our rules and face eternal damnation. Obey our rules and be gifted with an eternity of bliss. Oh and don't forget you must giveth forth a significant portion of your wealth or also face eternal damnation. The rest can be re-written and altered as we go along lol.

And these days new cult are still invent.
 

Pomerlaw

Erarboreal
Banned
Feb 25, 2018
8,536
And where does come that very definition of "altruism" from? From religious concepts, that later went secularised.

I disagree.

Religions were created by men to explain away the world. Altruism is imbred into us (at least in some indifividuals) from a much deeper level. It is a deep trait that probably helped our species survive, people showing more altruism helped their genes go on.

Religions took this and used it to promote their messages. It doesn't come from religion.

Being religious doesn't mean that person won't be totally egoistical and being an atheist doesn't mean someone won't sacrifice his own life to save another person.

Jacob Bronowski pointed out that a commitment to discovering scientific truth entails a commitment to certain values, such as tolerance, integrity, and openness to ideas and to change. But there's more to it than that. Not only scientific discovery, but scientific understanding itself can depend on one's moral stance. Just look at the difficulty that creationists have in understanding what the theory of evolution says. Look at the prevalence of conspiracy theories among the supporters of bad causes, and how such people are systematically blind to rational argument about the facts of the matter. And, conversely, look at Galileo, whose factual truth-seeking forced him to question the Church's moral authority.

Why does this happen? We should not be surprised – at least, no more surprised than we are that, say, scientific and mathematical explanations are connected. The truth has structural unity as well as logical consistency, and I guess that no true explanation is entirely disconnected from any other. In particular, in order to understand the moral landscape in terms of a given set of values, one needs to understand some facts as being a certain way too, and vice versa. Moreover, I think it is a general principle that morally right values are connected in this way with true factual theories, and morally wrong values with false theories.

 
Oct 25, 2017
13,022
Do you know some uncontacted atheist civilization where nobody was violent and everyone live happily in peace with each others without prejudice ?

The roots of every pacifist philosophy reside in religions: christianity, or islam, or buddhism, or slavic paganism.

Calling religions "the root of all humanity shittyness" is simply labeling something deeply complex that embraces thousands of years of history and tens of billions of people with one word.
Exactly what fondamentalists religious people do with others.

It's like a circle of violence reapeating itself.

Being openly atheist in society is a new thing for most atheists, hell it's not even possible for most of humanity TODAY, so that first point makes little sense.

No one is saying that religion is the root of all humanity shittyness, it's one of the causes, without it we would do better and have one less reason for being crappy. Also my problem with religion is how it makes people believe in stuff with no evidence, how it gives bad people a weapon to be have an excuse to be a bigot, and how it makes good people awful. As an LGBT activist I deal with "good people" being horrible every single god damn day thanks to religion.

Humanism is what brings progress in society and then religions love to act like they came up with whatever good stuff happens. It's part of humanity to have the empathy and love to make things better, it has nothing to do with religion.
 

JCG

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,537
I believe she did do something wrong by generalizing against an entire religious community, but the offense that sparked this cannot be excused or made immune to criticism either.

The relevant issue with religion is that some of the major belief systems were originally created in an ancient historical and cultural context that included expressions of fear, hatred, dismissal or rejection of others, such as foreigners, minorities, alternative and competing religions or simply people with a different sexual orientation.

Conservative or fundamentalist readings of religion aim to continue to endorse or accept these terrible expressions as right and correct, even in the modern world. Calling that specific understanding hateful would be entirely accurate.

But there is a need to acknowledge that another option exists. It is possible to adopt a reformist or liberal interpretation of said religions in order to get away from that hate and be more inclusive. This is something that many people have already done, explicitly or implicitly, both within Christianity and Islam. Even if you may disagree with those religions as an atheist or agnostic, it is important to keep that in mind.
 

Plum

Member
May 31, 2018
17,299
You are putting words in my mouth to try and yell at someone. In this very thread I've already shared my thoughts but go off.

How am I putting worlds into your mouth? Yes you made a dismissive post about anti-LGBT+ discrimination in the Islamic community at the start but that doesn't mean you're not ignoring/excluding that history in the current debate on the morality of her words.

You aren't being fair to me at all. Why are you assuming ill-intent by default for everything I say? Like, I literally went out of my way to say how awful and inexcusable I thought the death threats were even though that should be obvious and you're still coming at me saying I'm dismissing and excusing them. Come on... It feels like you're intentionally trying to put words in my mouth to discredit my argument. I don't get why I'm not allowed to make a comment on a specific aspect of this story. If you actually looked at the post I was responding to, they were only comparing those two individual comments hence the content of my post. What are you trying to do here?

So do you think that the two statements are just as bad as each other or not? Because whilst, yes, my inclusion of the death threats in my initial post was wrong, the fact that you said "Ugly lesbian," and "Islam is a religion of hate," are the same in terms of severity is still true.

I criticised your dismissal of the death threats as not being necessary context due to them happening 'after' the fact; I know that you're not defending them or anything ridiculous like that. The criticism is there because, contextually, the Islam comments happened after someone called her a "dirty lesbian," as such they are like the death threats in that they were a response to something instead of an unprovoked attack. As such I found it weird that you'd consider the timeline for the death threats but not for the Islam comments, instead choosing to judge her comments and the attack against her as equal in spite of their place in the timeline. And, whilst potentially racist and definitely sketchy, a lesbian saying they have '''preferences''' like that does not make a subsequent homophobic attack 'provoked'.
 

Zaro

Member
Nov 13, 2017
1,394
I'm don't know a lot about religion except Catholic Church, is there some religion that treats women equal to men and accept homosexuality?
 
Oct 26, 2017
2,237
People do fucked up things and will justify it whichever way that suits them. Being a part of a group that shares a particular ideology can make someone feel as if they have power and carte blanche to do as they please.

In my opinion a lot of these large religious groups offer a shared identity with the belief in god becoming an extension of their own ego. To offend one is to offend all. It isn't absolute for everyone and seems to depend on how much of their own sense of an individual self they've given up.

This isn't much different from any group with a strong belief structure, but where one can differ is in what it takes to justify overt threats (and subsequent action) of violence and death.
 

Prine

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
15,724
I completely agree with you when it comes to expressing hatred, but you're quoting people who just want religion to go away. Saying one wants superstition to go away isn't the same as saying all superstitious people need to be rounded up. I want superstition to go away too.

Its problematic because it confuses doctrine with faith, and doesn't acknowledge people have a unique collection of ideas, sounds a bit reductive and harmful to me. Like it or not, religion is many things including identity, to yearn to remove religion is to also rob people of their communities and culture, and much more. Not helpful and impractical tbh.
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,227
Its problematic because it confuses doctrine with faith, and doesn't acknowledge people have a unique collection of ideas, sounds a bit reductive and harmful to me. Like it or not, religion is many things including identity, to yearn to remove religion is to also rob people of their communities and culture, and much more. Not helpful and impractical tbh.
Faith comes from doctrine. People don't become religious without indoctrination. Everyone is born atheist until they're taught religion.
 

Zaro

Member
Nov 13, 2017
1,394
I believe she did do something wrong by generalizing against an entire religious community, but the offense that sparked this cannot be excused or made immune to criticism either.

The relevant issue with religion is that some of the major belief systems were originally created in an ancient historical and cultural context that included expressions of fear, hatred, dismissal or rejection of others, such as foreigners, minorities, alternative and competing religions or simply people with a different sexual orientation.

Conservative or fundamentalist readings of religion aim to continue to endorse or accept these terrible expressions as right and correct, even in the modern world. Calling that specific understanding hateful would be entirely accurate.

But there is a need to acknowledge that another option exists. It is possible to adopt a reformist or liberal interpretation of said religions in order to get away from that hate and be more inclusive. This is something that many people have already done, explicitly or implicitly, both within Christianity and Islam. Even if you may disagree with those religions as an atheist or agnostic, it is important to keep that in mind.

That's why i hate religion but not people who are religious.
But some are so brainwash against scientific evidence that's sad.
 

Deleted member 56306

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2,383
How do people come to faith without religious texts or proselytization? People don't independently come to believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins.

I don't know if this is a serious question, but reading religious texts and believing in them, or being convinced to join a religion is not the same as indoctrination.
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,227
I don't know if this is a serious question, but reading religious texts and believing in them, or being convinced to join a religion is not the same as indoctrination.
It is though. People have access to religious texts because of proselytizing. The texts themselves are indoctrination. Societies generally treat atheists like second class citizens and they treat religion as though it's the default, when that's obviously not true. People don't scour the earth for a religion that they think is correct, they usually adopt the local religion. There's a lot of pressure and indoctrination at work.

Accepting unsubstantiated claims isn't good. That's what religion requires. It's not something that's encouraged outside of religion. This sort of blind faith should be treated like it is in every other part of life.
 

G.O.O.

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,089
I thought the worst part was the death threats.
come on, you know what I mean... what happens to this girl is terrible, and I don't think for a second she deserved it because of what she said. But shit like that has been happening for a while, with victims being ignored and/or blamed, by the very people who try to paint themselves as free speech heroes this time.
 

Morrigan

Spear of the Metal Church
Member
Oct 24, 2017
34,362
To some adherents, i.g. fundamentalists. And to many others it's not. Hence, it's not comparable to political ideologies. There are many ideologies within Islam and people that are related to Islam. Treating Islam as an ideology is indulging in a gross generalization, one that racists always do.

An ideology is a set of normative beliefs and values that a person or other entity has for non-epistemic reasons.[1] These rely on basic assumptions about reality that may or may not have any factual basis.​

All religions are ideologies. Christianity is an ideology too.
 

Deleted member 56306

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2,383
It is though. People have access to religious texts because of proselytizing. The texts themselves are indoctrination. Societies generally treat atheists like second class citizens and they treat religion as though it's the default, when that's obviously not true. People don't scour the earth for a religion that they think is correct, they usually adopt the local religion. There's a lot of pressure and indoctrination at work.

Accepting unsubstantiated claims isn't good. That's what religion requires. It's not something that's encouraged outside of religion. This sort of blind faith should be treated like it is in every other part of life.

Indoctrination implies an inability to question or resist the religion. Someone choosing to follow Hinduism after a life time of being a Christian is not indoctrinated.

Your second point assumes that everyone who is religious is going to place emphasis on the same parts of their religion or uphold all of it's teachings. That runs counter to sects, and on a more individual level choices a person makes in how they observe their faith.
 

Asator

Member
Oct 27, 2017
905
Wow, the"Islam is an ideology" argument. That's a) not factual,
This is definitely not the case, especially with Islam.
What? Of course it is. All religions are.


and b) another actual dogwhistle.
I've explicitely mentionned other religions multiple times accross multiple posts. I put the picture specifically to show that it wasn't just aimed at Islam but towards ideologies as a whole. Miss me with the thinly veiled accusation of islamophobia.

It's not so easy to separate people and ideas. Ideologies are inculcated into individuals' identities from the moment they're born.
Perhaps, but I think the problem lies more with religious identity being too deeply ingrained into certain people than the criticism of religion. No one should ever be attached to an ideology to the point that a criticism of it feels like a personal attack to the person who believe in said ideology IMO.

I'm not sure you can easily separate religion and race in this context as Islam is strongly associated by certain races, cultures and nationalities and a lot of prejudice you see towards Muslims are mixed up in that. Sadly I think many people will use the "ideaologies aren't people" excuse to discriminate.
As I've explained before, I think that people who are discriminating against people who "look like they could be Muslim" are both racist and islamophobe, and they should be called out as such.
However, trying to paint these people as "being racist against a religion" is a dangerous shortcut in my opinion, because if we accept that it's possible to be racist against an ideology then it can easily be used to shut down criticism of Islam even when it's purely aimed at the ideology itself and not the people. To me, being racist against an ideology is not possible.

Besides I think there's a difference between criticism of a religion and basically calling an entire religion that lots of people practice one of hate because people on social media said homophobic things to her.
Problems with Islam go much farther than "some people on social media said homophobic things to her". Some people use Islam as tool of oppression against women, LBGT+, atheists, theists of other religions, etc... all around the world. Limiting it to what was said to social media feels a bit myopic to me. Even someone who hasn't been victim of harassment from religious zealots can criticize a religion if some aspects of it are objectionable.
 
Oct 27, 2017
5,618
Spain
An ideology is a set of normative beliefs and values that a person or other entity has for non-epistemic reasons.[1] These rely on basic assumptions about reality that may or may not have any factual basis.​

All religions are ideologies. Christianity is an ideology too.
Ugh this is a pointless semantic discussion. The islamophobes paint Islam as a political ideology where single thought prevails, which is exactly what fundamentalists want. When people talk of the religion and the culture in such terms, they are doing exactly that. When people say it's justified to say Islam, with its close to two billion people that identify with it in some degree, can be said to be XYZ and attacked like any political ideology, they are doing exactly that. In a world where Islam is so intertwined with ethnicity, cultural identity, and race, these arguments only come across as arguments of bad faith. These arguments can be used when engaging in the debate within Islam, the culture, and the related societies, but using them from outside to attack two billion people who face discrimination is simply racist.
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,227
Indoctrination implies an inability to question or resist the religion. Someone choosing to follow Hinduism after a life time of being a Christian is not indoctrinated.

Your second point assumes that everyone who is religious is going to place emphasis on the same parts of their religion or uphold all of it's teachings. That runs counter to sects, and on a more individual level choices a person makes in how they observe their faith.
Religions literally teach that their teachings aren't to be questioned. That someone can reform doesn't prove anything, especially not a lack of pressure or proselytizing.

You can't believe in gods without believing in something that doesn't have any evidence. You can't believe other religions are wrong without faith, which itself requires both doctrine and blind belief. You cannot have religion without the supernatural. Individual choice doesn't change that. All sects rely on superstition as their core belief. Empirical religion is an oxymoron.

Asinine, discriminatory comments like this
I'd like to remind my fellow fedoralords
and our acceptance of them further prove my point.
 

Deleted member 56306

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2,383
Religions literally teach that their teachings aren't to be questioned. That someone can reform doesn't prove anything, especially not a lack of pressure or proselytizing.

You can't believe in gods without believing in something that doesn't have any evidence. You can't believe other religions are wrong without faith, which itself requires both doctrine and blind belief. You cannot have religion without the supernatural. Individual choice doesn't change that. All sects rely on superstition as their core belief. Empirical religion is an oxymoron.

Asinine comments like this

and our acceptance of them further prove my point.

You aren't proving anything.

Most of your arguments hinge on fundamentalist religious views that aren't accounting for how many people experience religion.

Religious texts are much more fluid than you seem to believe.

You have a very reductive view on religion.
 

phonicjoy

Banned
Jun 19, 2018
4,305
What? Of course it is. All religions are.
I've explicitely mentionned other religions multiple times accross multiple posts. I put the picture specifically to show that it wasn't just aimed at Islam but towards ideologies as a whole. Miss me with the thinly veiled accusation of islamophobia.

Just say religion then. I'm just stating that couching criticism in those specific terms is a racist dogwhistle.

There is no need to define it as an ideology unless you are differentiating between religions.
 

Dog of Bork

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,993
Texas
So picking and choosing what to believe out of a book of made up bullshit is somehow more commendable than believing all of said made up bullshit?

How is the distinction even useful or relevant in context of this thread / discussion?

Most religions are based on "faith" and believing in things that cannot be proven or have already been proven false. This includes every Abrahamic religion, which for some reason needs to be said to confirm I'm not targeting Islam.
 

JCG

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,537
So picking and choosing what to believe out of a book of made up bullshit is somehow more commendable than believing all of said made up bullshit?

How is the distinction even useful or relevant in context of this thread / discussion?

Most religions are based on "faith" and believing in things that cannot be proven or have already been proven false. This includes every Abrahamic religion, which for some reason needs to be said to confirm I'm not targeting Islam.

It is quite relevant, when one of those options would lead to your willingly offending or discriminating against marginalized groups under the excuse of following your belief system, and the other could open a path to your acceptance or understanding of them after rejecting the worst possible version of said beliefs.

That's quite separate from the underlying matter of whether or not it is worth believing in any particular religion in general terms.
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,227
You aren't proving anything.

Most of your arguments hinge on fundamentalist religious views that aren't accounting for how many people experience religion.

Religious texts are much more fluid than you seem to believe.

You have a very reductive view on religion.
I'm not using a personal definition of religion. People cherry-picking an ideology doesn't make that ideology not inherently flawed. You're either arguing the religious version of "not all men" or you're unaware of the definition of religion.
 

LossAversion

The Merchant of ERA
Member
Oct 28, 2017
10,714
Indoctrination implies an inability to question or resist the religion. Someone choosing to follow Hinduism after a life time of being a Christian is not indoctrinated.

Your second point assumes that everyone who is religious is going to place emphasis on the same parts of their religion or uphold all of it's teachings. That runs counter to sects, and on a more individual level choices a person makes in how they observe their faith.
You aren't proving anything.

Most of your arguments hinge on fundamentalist religious views that aren't accounting for how many people experience religion.

Religious texts are much more fluid than you seem to believe.

You have a very reductive view on religion.
This kind of stuff always baffles me.

How can anyone justify cherry picking their beliefs from a holy text? Speaking only of the Quran and the Bible because those are the two that I'm most familiar with... there's not much "fluidity" in how those texts condemn gay people, treat women as property, and condone slavery. That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the fucked up shit in these books. It's almost as though they were written thousands of years ago...

But somehow people can rationalize ignoring the "icky" stuff while still believing in a god that is perfectly fine with that same bullshit. I cannot comprehend how someone can have so much faith that they're willing to believe in a god and yet that faith is not powerful enough to "uphold all of the teachings" of that god. This fundamentalist vs. progressive stuff has to have a breaking point. Eventually, the foundations of these religions will cease to exist entirely and at that point... how can anyone believe that they hold any water at all?
 

Deleted member 2761

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Oct 25, 2017
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Asinine, discriminatory comments like this

and our acceptance of them further prove my point.

If you're offended consider the fact that a lot of atheist rationaltube from a decade ago went alt-right, and maybe if Western atheism takes itself too seriously, it loses the ability to be deprecating and self-critique we risk emboldening shitty white victimhood narratives that feed into aspects of fascist ideology.
 

Deleted member 56306

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I'm not using a personal definition of religion. People cherry-picking an ideology doesn't make that ideology not inherently flawed. You're either arguing the religious version of "not all men" or you're unaware of the definition of religion.
This kind of stuff always baffles me.

How can anyone justify cherry picking their beliefs from a holy text? Speaking only of the Quran and the Bible because those are the two that I'm most familiar with... there's not much "fluidity" in how those texts condemn gay people, treat women as property, and condone slavery. That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the fucked up shit in these books. It's almost as though they were written thousands of years ago...

But somehow people can rationalize ignoring the "icky" stuff while still believing in a god that is perfectly fine with that same bullshit. I cannot comprehend how someone can have so much faith that they're willing to believe in a god and yet that faith is not powerful enough to "uphold all of the teachings" of that god. This fundamentalist vs. progressive stuff has to have a breaking point. Eventually, the foundations of these religions will cease to exist entirely and at that point... how can anyone believe that they hold any water at all?

People don't have to justify their beliefs one way or another.

For one I'm not only talking about Islam when I'm talking about the fluidity of religious texts, but rather something more familiar like the Bible. It's a translated text that depending on the scholar looking at it can be interpreted in a variety of different ways. The word "fundamentalist" exists for a reason - that being that religion is going to go through many changes for most people who experience that religion and others believe that they shouldn't because it ruins the foundation of the religion. As you said these are texts that were written thousands of years ago, people and their priorities change and so does their relationship with and their expression of religion.
 
Last edited:

Dog of Bork

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,993
Texas
It is quite relevant, when one of those options would lead to your willingly offending or discriminating against marginalized groups under the excuse of following your belief system, and the other could open a path to your acceptance or understanding of them after rejecting the worst possible version of said beliefs.

That's quite separate from the underlying matter of whether or not it is worth believing in any particular religion in general terms.
Choosing not to believe the hateful parts of any religion does not rehabilitate that religion. It's not out of line to say X religion sucks because a core tenet is tied to homophobia, patriarchy, or the like. The comment stands on its own merit even if people choose to ignore the nasty bits.

Many Christians are becoming more tolerant of homosexuality. Christianity still sucks because it holds to homophobic and patriarchal values. To take it even further, the church apparatus / organization enables pedophiles and encourages cultural imperialism. So Christianity sucks. How is that even a controversial statement?
 

Deleted member 56306

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I'm not using a personal definition of religion. People cherry-picking an ideology doesn't make that ideology not inherently flawed. You're either arguing the religious version of "not all men" or you're unaware of the definition of religion.

I'm arguing against your own reductionism when it comes to religion.

My understanding is that religion is a system of beliefs that often times can necessitate the belief in a god but certainly not always. Hinduism and Buddhism are big examples for me - even if there is some debate on the later.
 

LossAversion

The Merchant of ERA
Member
Oct 28, 2017
10,714
People don't have to justify their beliefs one way or another.

For one I'm not only talking about Islam when I'm talking about the fluidity of religious texts, but rather something more familiar like the Bible. It's a translated text that depending on the scholar looking at it can be interpreted in a variety of different ways. The word "fundamentalist" exists for a reason - that being that religion is going to go through many changes for most people who experience that religion. As you said these are texts that were written thousands of years ago, people and their priorities change and so does their relationship with and their expression of religion.
"Different translations" and "interpretations" will only get you so far from the abhorrent shit in these texts. Somehow I doubt that homophobia would be nearly as rampant these days without these "holy" books being used to justify it. If you can chalk all of this cherry picking up to "changing priorities" and "expression" then more power to you I guess. I see it more as an unwillingness to accept a pretty obvious truth.
 

wandering

flâneur
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
2,136
Perhaps, but I think the problem lies more with religious identity being too deeply ingrained into certain people than the criticism of religion. No one should ever be attached to an ideology to the point that a criticism of it feels like a personal attack to the person who believe in said ideology IMO.

I feel like that's not really possible. Ideology is more than simply religion or political beliefs; it forms the very basis by which every person navigates the world, establishes their identity, and relates to others. The belief that people deserve life and happiness, for example, is ideology. I know it sounds like semantics, but I think it's important to recognize that people are always constituted by subjective ideas, and trying to separate those ideas from some notion of an objective reality of personhood isn't tenable. Ideology is what makes us people.
 

Deleted member 56306

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"Different translations" and "interpretations" will only get you so far from the abhorrent shit in these texts. Somehow I doubt that homophobia would be nearly as rampant these days without these "holy" books being used to justify it. If you can chalk all of this cherry picking up to "changing priorities" and "expression" then more power to you I guess. I see it more as an unwillingness to accept a pretty obvious truth.

Call it cherry picking if you like, my point is that religion is a living thing that can be radically different depending on the person and their own beliefs. Also you have more faith than I do in people if you think getting rid of religion would make bigots less likely to be homophobic.
 

LossAversion

The Merchant of ERA
Member
Oct 28, 2017
10,714
Call it cherry picking if you like, my point is that religion is a living thing that can be radically different depending on the person and their own beliefs. Also you have more faith than I do in people if you think getting rid of religion would make people less likely to be homophobic.
Gotta have faith in something, right?
 

Deleted member 48897

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Oct 22, 2018
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How can anyone justify cherry picking their beliefs from a holy text? Speaking only of the Quran and the Bible because those are the two that I'm most familiar with... there's not much "fluidity" in how those texts condemn gay people, treat women as property, and condone slavery. That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the fucked up shit in these books. It's almost as though they were written thousands of years ago...

Please, the various books of what we'd call the Christian Old Testament or Jewish Tanakh don't even agree with each other more than half the time. That was sort of the point. You don't get something like Job except as a commentary on the pat wisdom of Proverbs. You don't get books like Ruth or Esther without acknowledging the humanity of women. You don't get most of the prophets except to decry their communities as being filled with entitled layabouts who cannot shed even the merest of concern for the impoverished and dying. What's with the bit in Samuel I where David and one of his male companions are getting naked together?

Maybe unsurprisingly the Jewish tradition tends to be one in which heterodoxy is embraced (often through metacommentary) rather than quashed.
 

Zaro

Member
Nov 13, 2017
1,394
Call it cherry picking if you like, my point is that religion is a living thing that can be radically different depending on the person and their own beliefs. Also you have more faith than I do in people if you think getting rid of religion would make bigots less likely to be homophobic.

There's people who learn to be homophobic because of preacher.
Some disown their own child because of that. How many people accept gay people being kill cause religion tell them thats what they deserved.

Im sure i lot of homophobia came from religion.