• froufox@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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      3 days ago

      Jokes aside, this is part of my “propaganda” posting when I’m shifting mainstream religious narratives from conservative to liberal. I cannot imagine the world without religion, as human beings tend to be spiritual, but i can imagine religion to be ethical and open-minded as in certain European countries nowadays

      • rozwud@beehaw.org
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        2 days ago

        I cannot imagine the world without religion, as human beings tend to be spiritual

        I’m curious about this. I was raised somewhat religiously, but at this point, I can’t imagine myself with religion, or spirituality, or any of it. Why do you think it’s so essential?

        • zagaberoo@beehaw.org
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          2 days ago

          I think it depends on how you frame ‘spirituality’. Love for example can never be meaningfully measured empirically, it’s a spiritual truth. You just know it. It cannot be reliably be proven or disproven, especially across different people.

          I don’t think the line between ‘I truly believe in love’ and ‘I truly believe in god’ is as crisp as people would like to believe. That’s not at all to say they’re the same thing, but they’re more similar than a lot of people want to accept.

          • rozwud@beehaw.org
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            2 days ago

            I personally don’t think something is spiritual just because it can’t be measured.

            • zagaberoo@beehaw.org
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              1 day ago

              Of course, but from my perspective you almost certainly do need spiritual nourishment of your own, given my broader concept of the spiritual. Purely a matter of perspective.

              Which is all to say when someone like me says people can’t live without spirituality, it doesn’t necessarily imply that they feel everyone needs to believe in some kind of supernatural power.

                • zagaberoo@beehaw.org
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                  18 hours ago

                  Spirituality itself, as with anything spiritual, is a know-it-when-you-see-it kind of thing. But that’s an unsatisfying answer.

                  I do think ‘the opposite of empirical’ is a decent shorthand. The less a truth can be objectively defined, and the less consistent the nature of a truth is across different people, the more spiritual it is.

                  Enjoyment of music and wonder in the face of nature / the cosmos are two more spiritual truths I think most people know.

        • froufox@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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          2 days ago

          One individual can live with religion or spirituality in religious form, but not humanity as a whole. There were experiments in totalitarian countries to violently exterminate religion, they didn’t end up well. Usually it’s brainwashing and freedom of conscience denial

          • rozwud@beehaw.org
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            2 days ago

            Oh I’m certainly not advocating for forcing anyone to get rid of their religion (I’m not advocating for anything at all). It just struck me as interesting that you can’t imagine a world without it.

      • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zoneM
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        2 days ago

        Humanity does need spiritual fulfillment, but it does not need Christianity. Christianity has long been influenced by powerful empires that used it for social control. As long as it is “Christianity,” enterprising forces will use the tribe to drive people away from the actually decent values it may have had. Despite the tale of the “good Samaritan” literally warning about this, Christians as a whole have never learned. People will continue to think that worship is a substitute for being a good person.

        • froufox@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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          2 days ago

          Would disagree here. There is no such thing as “Christians as a whole”. There are different denominations whose beliefs could be almost opposite. I heard that in the US, on one side, there’s the conservative Catholic church, and various protestants who usually are even more conservative. Yet even there, one woman bishop stood up for trans kids before Trump. But in my city (I live in Finland) the mainstream Evangelical church is presented on pride parades. I’m not overly concerned about church as an institution—what worries me is that religious oppressed minorities feel additional pressure from the left-wing atheists. That’s terrble imo. I’m not a religious myself and don’t go to church, but my rule is simple: You’re christian, or muslim, or buddhist, etc? Fine. You’re bigot? Fuck you.

          • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zoneM
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            2 days ago

            My problem with even the best denominations of Christianity is how they effectively replace a possible love for oneself with the “reciprocated” love of God. They receive love from God by giving love to God; it’s part of what makes faith so powerful. It’s hard to love oneself in all your faults, but it’s easier to love another and to receive love in return. Of course, this makes you reliant on God for you mental health, making it very hard to escape the relationship if it is abusive.

            This does not mean I dislike Christians who are good people for what they believe, or that I like atheists or agnostics for simply agreeing with me. What I care most about is being decent to other people, not what identity one may have.

            • froufox@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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              2 days ago

              I don’t know how modern progressive religious communities address these very important mental health and lack of self-love issues, but i grew up in a conservative one, and even there i remember reading or hearing interpretation of a phrase “love your neighbor as yourself” as you should love yourself as well—and if you don’t, you would not be able to love others. I’m sure that what you’ve said has a place to be, but community and people around play higher role than abstract beliefs imo

              • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zoneM
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                2 days ago

                It’s not necessarily a higher role, just a different one. It honestly pays a bigger role for less conservative Christians, as they need to wrestle something of value from the social control and authoritarianism of conservative understandings.

                • froufox@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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                  2 days ago

                  Yeah, true, wiith a remark that Christianity was not an institution in the very beginning. There were self-organized rebellious group of people without strict hierarchy. Then as it became more popular, tyrants turned it on their side to support existing world order. A classic story

    • FoxyFerengi@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      I was sitting here wondering where he stores them and what occasion he’s saving them for. But I’m willing to subscribe to a new religion if I can be saved by a catboy