chapotraphouse

This is a ridiculous hill to die on.

Not saying we all have to be religious -- I'm not -- but there's a reason the new atheists over at ( .com/r/atheism) largely went fascist.

You and they basically follow the same sort of prescriptivist vs descriptivist approach to politics and religion as TERFs apply to gender. They define "man" and "woman" in a very narrow way that ignores how people actually are and actually behave and then apply those definitions. Similarly the "I'm 18 and just figured out that God isn't real (or I'm 40 and haven't learned anything in the last 22 years)" crowd construct an idea of what religion is and then condemn all religion for it. It's often more understandable because a lot of us get to atheism from accruing some sort of religious trauma but our trauma does not grant us clarity, it lets us see some aspects of the truth while risking blinding us to others.

The materialist, descriptivist fact is that Religion varies far more than these simplified prescriptivist models account for. I know Muslims who drink. I know a Catholic who denounced Pope Benedict for being against gay marriage. A friend knows an openly gay Catholic. There's massive differences in beliefs within Judaism. To pretend you know what's in the heart of every religious person because you think you read their holy text is arrogant and foolish.

The Bible is very clear that you cannot pick and chose, that you have to accept the full book or none of it, you can't just take the verses you like and still be Christian. To be a good Christian who follows the entire Bible you must be bigoted

This is exactly what I mean. Prescriptivist. But look at what people actually do and how religion actually functions and you'll see that plenty of Christians don't follow that. Why are the ELCA Lutherans fine with gay people but the Baptists condemn them?

Then there's a whole thing about the role of religion in different communities and ethnicities. Yes I have contempt for the conservative white evangelical weirdos that harass people outside Planned Parenthood, those people are assholes. That doesn't mean the people going to the Ethiopian Church near me are bad people. They're both Christians, but their actual religions, religious practices, and values are vaaaaaaastly different.

You're fucking painting with a broad brush here and then wondering why people get pissed at you.

There are certainly reasons to take issue with Religion, but it's not actually a fight worth having this way.

I have seriously pulled religious friends to the left by talking about how pretty basic "universal" human morals like take care of each other and don't let people starve to death align with Marxism. Wouldn't have gotten anywhere saying "akshually, in order to care about other people you have to first stop believing in your religion and lose your community".

Peasants in Europe expressed sentiments about class warfare long before Marx, and they did so using the language of religion because that's what they had. "The LORD gave the land to all to be held in common; why should the nobles lay exclusive claim to it?" or "When Adam delved and Eve span, who then was the gentleman?"

I used to be super anti-theist, I looked down on religious people, but I learned that that was just a silly product of some trauma. People have feelings and ideas and will express them in the language and stories they know. It's not so much that religion drives people's ideas as that people's ideas drive how they express or engage in their religions.

And YES, yes, religion can and is used to make very horrible oppressive structures, havens of sex pestery and abuse. But I've seen those same cultish dynamics come about in completely secular martial arts spaces as well. To blame religion is to miss the actual problem and shoot yourself in the foot when it comes to trying to address it.

Can't believe I'm going to bat for Christians, I usually only get like this when I see people being Islamophobic.

Religion has had incredible staying power. I don't know why, but it has. Even many people who leave religion just recreate religion and nonmaterialist thinking oftentimes -- see the ex-Christian atheists who get really into astrology and crystals, for example. While I do not believe in anything spiritual or supernatural, I think it is completely pointless to fight with people about it.

Also, lmao at condemning all of Christianity when Liberation Theology is based as fuck. Lmao at condemning all of Judaism when there are so many radical leftist antizionist atheist Jews activists struggling for Palestine. Lmao at condemning all of Islam when the religious fervor of Islam helps oppressed and colonized people stay strong in the face of brutal, brutal oppression from the global north. Just fuck this idea.