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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.

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.

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)

Today ,

-like praying and stuff never worked for most people I know,-

Like they wished for a car or a pony and didn’t get it?

bi_tux OP ,
@bi_tux@lemmy.world avatar

no, I mean like they tried to talk to god

Today ,

How did they know it didn’t work? I don’t really know how those things work, but I’m pretty sure that one is mostly internal.

Crashumbc ,

You don’t understand, it is God’s will if you get it, if you don’t it’s his plan for you…

It’s a win win for him. And of course all those telling you what to do in his name :p

Alice ,
@Alice@hilariouschaos.com avatar

Lol 💯

chatokun ,

What about praying to not die of cancer or for jobs and/or places to live? Or praying for a child to live, or for no Genocide etc. Lots of nonselfish prayers out there.

Today ,

Then planes would never crash, there would be no crime, and all guns would shoot jello. Who wants to live like that?

chatokun ,

Lots of people. You enjoy people dying for no fault of their own? I don’t need planes crashing. I don’t have a personal need of guns, and if there were no unjust threats, why is a gun necessary? As for crime, crime is really a construct based on a created morality, so that’s up in the air.

My examples were about innocent people suffering, and it feels like your response is “Who would want to live in a world where innocent people don’t suffer?” I almost think you’re joking, because that’s a seriously messed up thing to admit about yourself, much less assume everyone else agrees.

Today ,

My point was that this wouldn’t be a real life. It would be like a controlled fantasy Barbie dream house life and even she gets chewed up by the dog sometimes. There is no positive without negative. There is no advancement without adversity. If everyone wins the lottery, the lottery means nothing. Life is the struggle.

chatokun ,

That’s just your myopic opinion. Plenty of people live fulfilling lives without random chance of an early death being their meaning of living. Perhaps you’re misunderstanding my original comment. I didn’t say immortality (though several religions do promise that as an afterlife), nor did I say unlimited wishes. I mostly said stuff like fatal diseases, daily needs, and unfair deaths like genocides, etc. You added in plane crashes, which also isn’t necessary for a fulfilling life.

It sounds a bit like you’re a zero sum person, like not everyone in the world can have basic needs. As a reminder, we’re discussing this under the assumption there is a loving omnipotent we can pray to. If the world is so messed up that people can’t even expect to not die horribly of stuff that just happens to them outside their own choices, or where not everyone had an equal opportunity to just live a simple life and have their needs met, then that suggests that an omnipotent God decided to make life that way, and such a being is not deserving of my worship, and hasn’t proved their existence.

AA5B ,

How can anything judge your behavior if there is interference or proof? You can only be responsible for your morality if there is true free will. If you could pray away anything bad, then it would be unfair to be judged for reward in an afterlife

AA5B ,

Not dying of cancer is selfish. It mainly benefits yourself

chatokun ,

If you think dying only affects yourself, then that’s already selfish, or sad. You have no family or friends who would mourn you? What if you’re the breadwinner, or you have young children? A person dying doesn’t affect only themselves.

AA5B ,

mainly. Yes the biggest impact is to myself. Sure my kids will be impacted but not as much

chatokun ,

Sure, for you. If a young single parent who is the only one who can support their child dies, at best they’re hoping for nontraumatic foster care, but in many places, including first world countries, it can mean far worse for them. Still, I’ll cede personal cancer for the sake of the overall point. That was hardly the worst issue in my comment.

therealjcdenton ,

Thank you r/atheism

style99 ,

Do you shower in whiskey?

OozingPositron ,

Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?

Chainweasel ,

Religion has always been nothing more than a way to control people.
“I talked to God and he said that if you don’t listen to the rules that I wrote in this book then he’s going to torture you forever”

Midnight1938 ,

Abrahamic moment

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?

Mr_Fish ,

Preface: I’m a Christian, so this will be about the Christian view on things. I can’t really speak for other religions, since I don’t really know enough about them.

On prayer: asking for miracles is not actually the main point of prayer, the main parts are listening to God, and God listening to you. Imagine a perfect parent/child relationship. Sure, there will be the occasional “hey dad, I need some money to make this month’s rent. Can you help please?” or similar conversation, but most of the time it will be the child learning from the wisdom of the parent, or the parent helping the child vent. If you want to see an example of what Christianity says is the sort of things to pray, look at the book of Psalms in the bible.

On other religions: yes, of course at least most religions are fake. A false religion could be started by someone who believes they heard from God but got it wrong, or someone who wants to be the head of a religion for their own gain. Many religions warn about false prophets, so this is hardly a surprising thing.

aniki ,

I wish I could bury my head into the sand enough to believe this clap-trap bullshit. Why does God never answer the prayers of amputees?

jackiechan ,

deleted_by_author

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    frog_brawler ,

    Can an atheist pray to god to ask for the enlightenment of his/her/its believers?

    jackiechan ,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    frog_brawler ,

    That’s right.

    jackiechan ,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    frog_brawler ,

    So god never answers the prayers of atheists… sounds pointless.

    Predestination - sounds like you’re talking about god’s plan… why pray then? If it’s already in a plan, it’ll happen. If it’s not in the plan, it won’t.

    If god doesn’t allow his children to slip away, how do you explain the actual verifiable existence of atheists and people that formerly had religion?

    jackiechan ,

    deleted_by_author

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    frog_brawler ,

    Why would you worship a God that casts aside so many people and condemns them to hell? Sounds more like a Devil.

    aniki ,

    What a bunch of horseshit. Your God is a monster.

    TheOakTree ,

    Well of course God won’t answer a prayer that would negatively affect one of his true followers.

    …I’m not God, so I have made peace with the fact I will never understand that.

    Could you share what makes you so confident in the first quote, despite what you say in the second quote? How can you know God would not or has not answered any prayers that negatively affected a true follower, and how can one define whether God has negatively affected a true follower when one cannot intimately know God’s true intentions?

    Mr_Fish ,

    Well you can, but that doesn’t mean God will do it. You’re asking a father, who loves his children, to remove their choice in the matter and force them away, despite him knowing it’s better for them to stay.

    frog_brawler ,

    If God never answers the prayers of non-followers; he’s really not convincing anyone new that he exists.

    Mr_Fish ,

    When did I say that? I just said that specific prayer will never be answered

    frog_brawler ,

    Maybe it would; I don’t think you get to decide.

    whotookkarl ,
    @whotookkarl@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s not that intercessory prayer needs to work 100% to be convincing, it just needs to beat random chance and it doesn’t do that.

    Natural processes can describe how those things came to exist without needing to appeal to supernatural claims or gods.

    You’ve seen things you attribute to a god, but people in other religions attribute the same things to their god and so far I don’t think anyone has shown empirical evidence for any gods, and I don’t know about you but I use empirical evidence when changing my confidence on whether something or someone exists or doesn’t.

    Many people have a negative opinion on organized religion because we can see the negative effects believing things without sufficient evidence can have on individuals and communities.

    frog_brawler ,

    In most parent / child relationships, the child outlives the parent.

    Mr_Fish ,

    Why would that change anything? Regardless of who dies when, a good parent wants to bless their child, and a child wants to learn from a good parent.

    bunkyprewster ,

    Other religions are fake, but my religion…

    possiblylinux127 ,

    As it turns out, religion is faith based

    Mr_Fish ,

    Have you never disagreed with someone? At that point, at least one of you is wrong. You believe what must be true based on what you’ve seen, so of course you think you’re right.

    It’s the same with religion. Because there’s disagreement between each different belief (including atheism and such), there can be at most one correct option. I believe Christianity, because based on what I’ve seen that is by far the most sound option.

    orbitz ,

    You think there can only be one god? That sounds limiting. I don’t believe in any, but say does Buddhism really contradict most of Christianity real values? Like be good to people (help the less fortunate) try to let things go to not burden your well being (praying for forgiveness), respect others (do unto others). Besides having to actually believe in a god what’s the difference between the two? Though the Buddhist view I’m thinking of doesn’t require a god either but both seem to have teachings of compassion and love for your fellow person (some restrictions apply when dealing with intolerant types). I’m not saying you shouldn’t have faith but don’t say one has to be wrong.

    Mr_Fish ,

    Christianity and Buddhism (as well as many other religions) agree on a lot of the things you should do, but not why you should do them. Christianity says everyone is made in the image of God, so should be treated with love, while Buddhism (as far as I know) says showing compassion improves your karma and brings you closer to enlightenment. It might not seem like that difference matters, and according to some religions it doesn’t, but some religions (especially Christianity) that difference in reason means everything. With Christianity, the only way to heaven is through Jesus, so a Buddhist living a life of love and compassion would be no closer to heaven.

    bunkyprewster ,

    I have a lot of opinions and beliefs that I can realize probably aren’t correct

    Drummyralf ,

    I know this is just a showerthought, but what do you define as religion? The term religion doesn’t necessarily need a God.

    Or do you mean the 3 mainstream monotheistic religions? (Christianity, Judaism, Islam)

    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.

    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.

    WeebLife ,

    I agree, now how do I get my mom to quit telling me I’m going to hell?

    kromem ,

    You can point out the fact her depiction of a divine parent fails the Solomon test.

    In the classic Solomon story, he tests two different claimants both saying they are the parent of a child.

    The false parent was the one that only cared about being recognized as the parent and was willing to see the child harmed and killed to fulfill that desire.

    The true parent was the one that wanted the child to continue to live as their complete unadulterated self, even if that meant the child never even knew they existed, let alone get they were the parent.

    While it should be easy to understand why a church collecting your money promotes a divine parent who demands recognition and is willing to see its supposed children harmed without collecting its dues, it doesn’t seem all that wise to believe such a parent represents a true parent and not a false one if we use Solomon’s wisdom as a guiding principle.

    WeebLife ,

    She’s almost 70 now… I don’t think there’s anything I can say that will change her mind lol

    Cybermonk_Taiji ,

    What other concepts does anyone believe so much they will kill and die for, that has not one single shred of observational evidence to support?

    Any fucking thing at all?

    BluJay320 ,
    @BluJay320@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    Race

    Cybermonk_Taiji ,

    That is basic in-group /out-group tribal psychology. Religion is a deeper and more stupid kind of mental poison.

    Humans are just dumb animals after all, nothing more.

    RadicalEagle ,

    I think if god exists it would design a system that would lead you to it if you wanted to find it. In which case religion wouldn’t have to be the only way to find god.

    But I suppose I should ask what do you mean by the “way to god”?

    bi_tux OP ,
    @bi_tux@lemmy.world avatar

    I mean the way to find god, to know if he really exists and if so benefit from his existance

    RadicalEagle ,

    Ah… Yeah. Idk. If I was god I’d make it so anyone who wanted to find me could find me through any path regardless of where they started at. Assuming “god” exists and is at least that benevolent then there’s nothing to worry about regardless of your religion.

    tobogganablaze ,

    Religion can’t do even that.

    Carighan ,
    @Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

    Ah.

    That leads into my thinking of why it frankly doesn’t matter whether god exists or not. Either way, we would be unable to know one way or the other, and hence concerning ourselves with the question is inherently wasted effort.

    It’s like asking what is behind the edge of the universe. It does not matter. By definition we cannot perceive or interact with it, as the very concepts that make up our space of perception and interaction terminate at the edge. Likewise if there did exist a higher metaphysical entity, by definition it would exist outside of our sphere of perception and interaction, and hence it is exactly the same for us whether it does exist or not.

    Or, to quote Futurama:

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/eae03a35-9976-4a25-b692-57850bc7a034.jpeg

    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

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