There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

Even if god exists religion can't possibly be the way to god

So I thought about this in the shower amd it makes sense to me, like praying and stuff never worked for most people I know, so a direkt link to god gotta be unlikely. That made me conclude that religion is probably fake, no matter if there’s a god or not. Also people speaking to the same god being given a different set of rules sounds stupid, so at least most religions must be fake.

Dkarma ,

Religion is a way to avoid accountability.

xenoclast ,

It is the ultimate giving up of your personal free will… and they make it a fucking SELLING POINT.

Like door to door lobotomy salesmen.

aesthelete ,

One of the main reasons the Pope is anti-drag is that he thinks playing fancy dress up times should be reserved for only high members of the Vatican.

Fedizen ,

Have you ever played a game of telephone? Even if god did speak to people why would anyone ever trust a human messenger that is so prone to misunderstanding? Unless a god arranged the stars themselves in a way that communicates a presence there’s no reason to trust human prophets about their distorted views of the divine filtered through a meager tube of experience.

Notyou ,

I always say this. Any “real god” that created everything and gave their word to humans to pass on will be distorted by the end of the day.

Humans are greedy and selfish and they will change the word to be proven right. That is what I have faith in. The human ability to fuck up shit for selfish reasons.

AA5B , (edited )

Religion can still be legit IF

  • the goal is moral good - most modern religions have a similar moral basis, as do agnostics and atheists
  • non-interference - in this life, it’s all up to you
  • nobody can speak for whatever supreme being and it has better things to do than speak to us
  • outside of that moral foundation, it’s all more of a tool than a goal. Rituals and daily rules help you stay on the path but aren’t goals in themselves. For example if you adhere to your variation of communal prayer, you are spending time uplifting your thoughts to the moral foundation, and developing a harmony with your community. It’s a tool, a practice, to develop better habits toward your goal

Compare it to diet plans. There are many variations where the goal is to eat fewer calories but with rituals to help develop better habits and learn portion control. They are all legit approaches and you can reach your goal of a new life with whichever variation works best for you

ameancow ,

The more you think about it all, the less sense it makes. Congrats on discovering the tiny seed of free-will we all have inside us.

alsaaas , (edited )
@alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Praying works: “Thank God!111!”

Praying doesn’t work: “God works in mysterious ways… 🤷‍♀️”

Like sure if you need that as a way to cope with a depressing reality. But that is the main function of religion: to keep folks complacent, governable and prevent systemic change

(dw am not some kind of “religion bad!! no, I never interacted with organized spirituality, why do you ask?”-person. That’s just what growing up with real /j Orthodox Christianity and two hours of liturgy on most Sundays does to a critically inclined mf lol)

style99 ,

Do you shower in whiskey?

OozingPositron ,

Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?

WeirdGoesPro ,
@WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I’m 14 and this is deep.

LemmyKnowsBest ,

Hey, don’t announce your vulnerable age to a bunch of old crusty strangers on the Internet

WeirdGoesPro ,
@WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

It doesn’t matter what happens to me—as I’ve learned in this post, there is no god.

surewhynotlem ,

If there’s no god, then what happens to you is more important, not less.

WeirdGoesPro ,
@WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I dropped my /s somewhere.

Zahille7 ,

Goddamn, OP. I hope you were ready for walls of text splaying out people’s entire opinions about everything on this topic.

Crashumbc ,

Why do you think they posted it?

therealjcdenton ,

Thank you r/atheism

kryptonianCodeMonkey , (edited )

The idea of “the power of prayer” is stupid on the face of it. First, you’re presupposing a omnipotent diety that can and does directly effect the universe, changing the outcomes of events based on it’s desires, whims, plans, whatever. And you think THAT diety is taking requests? When “God answered my prayers”, you think that had you not requested it, it wouldn’t have happened. You think that God answers to your puny human concerns? That shit is arrogant as hell.

But furthermore, it also flies in the face of two other common beliefs about God, at least in Christianity. “God gave man Free Will” and “It’s All Part of God’s Plan™” (don’t get me started on how those are already two mutually exclusive ideas and hundreds of millions of believers just ignore that cognitive dissonance). Many of the things that one prays for, like “getting that job”, “winning that award”, “ending the war”, etc. directly involve altering the decisions and actions of others, which means that God would be stripping them of free will. Also, the most classic call to prayer is to heal the sick, or preserve one’s life. But surely if God has a plan for everyone’s life, at minimum everyone’s birth and death must also be planned. How can he answer your prayer to save your life if it’s his plan for you to die, yet still have an plan he’s always been following? The irony is that people like to pull the “all part of God’s plan” platitude particularly when someone has died before their time.

The one that really makes me annoyed, or even angry, is when something terrible happens, people are hurt or killed, and someone who was supposed to or had almost been there says something like “God was watching out for me”. It’s so self-centered and arrogant to attribute your simple dumb luck to God’s will in that situation. Because, not only does it assume you are God’s most special little guy that he’s constantly paying attention to and protecting, but also that God willfully condemned those others who did fall to this terrible fate that he supposedly saved you from. It’s all arrogance. I can’t stand it.

criitz ,

Like Carlin said

Well suppose the thing you want isn’t in God’s Divine Plan? What do you want Him to do? Change His plan? Just for you? Doesn’t it seem a little arrogant? It’s a Divine Plan. What’s the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayerbook can come along and fuck up Your Plan?

kryptonianCodeMonkey ,

Exactly. RIP, George.

NABDad ,

I’m just going to drop this here:

whywontgodhealamputees.com

Donut ,

Interesting website. They have a page about prayer too whywontgodhealamputees.com/superstition.htm

Wiz ,

I agree with this and do not dispute it.

However, I think there is value to the human mind in performing ritual, meditation, and positive thinking. We can think ourselves into feeling better. The placebo effect works, even in you know about the placebo effect.

Jesus didn’t know about these things 2000 years ago, but the stories about him make him seem like a worldly rabbi. He might have seen evidence of people getting better from disease through the power of prayer. (Never amputees, though.) The human body can fight disease; it can never regrow a limb.

The human mind also tends to remember positive experiences, and tends to ignore things that don’t seem to work. This is how fake psychics and cold readers work. You send out a bunch of guesses, and get a couple of “hits”, and the client remembers the hits. We all remember the hits. It’s harder to remember the misses. (Side note: I experienced a palm reader at a party and experienced this first-hand, and despite knowing their techniques, I still felt it a little.)

All this makes me believe that our brains are generally susceptible to a construct like religion. And that there could be some value in meditation, ritual, and positive thinking. However religion is frequently a grift and makes people do bad things - it doesn’t have to be, though. Being quietly spiritual is ok, which is what Jesus taught.

Coreidan ,

It’s a lot easier to control and oppress people when they have the fear of god in them.

Ethalis ,

Unless, hear me out, god is a golden retriever and needs to be reminded how much of a good boy He is

shneancy ,

this golden retriever has committed many atrocities in the old testament

Iapar ,

“Bad god!” hits god with a rolled up newspaper

SturgiesYrFase ,
@SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml avatar

Clearly he wasn’t trained properly as a pup

RamblingPanda ,

It was a Chihuahua back then

programmer_belch ,
@programmer_belch@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Sadly the doggo walked all over the holy keyboard and wrote the old testament

davidgro ,

A similar thought I had ages ago is that if God exists, they would either want us to know about them, or not. It doesn’t seem reasonable for there to be this weird in-between where it’s possible to believe they don’t exist if they want to be known… Or for it to be possible to believe they exist if they don’t want to be known!

If I were a god that wanted privacy, I’d simply wipe the concept of god from all mortal minds and prevent it from reappearing.

If god did want worship it would be even easier to get it than just making everyone know about them (certainly an option!) - just manifest physically much more often and perform true miracles, none of this silly water into wine (or walkway) business, I mean like Actually moving mountains or something.

I believe the only case that is consistent with some people believing in a god and some not (or different gods) is there just aren’t any, or at least they don’t care what we think at all, which is similar to not existing and it’s unreasonable that we’d ‘guess right’ about them without their help.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • [email protected]
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •