No one is free from criticism. Harmful ideas should be condemned, when they are demonstrably harmful. But theist beliefs are such a vast range and diversity of ideas, some harmful, some useful, some healing, some vivifying, and still others having served as potent drivers of movements for justice; that to lump all theist religious belief into one category and attack the whole of it, only demonstrates your ignorance of theology, and is in fact bigotry.
By saying that religious and superstitious beliefs should be disrespected, or otherwise belittling, or stigmatizing religion and supernatural beliefs as a whole, you have already established the first level on the "Pyramid of Hate", as well as the first of the "10 Stages of Genocide."
If your religion is atheism, that's perfectly valid. If someone is doing something harmful with a religious belief as justification, that specific belief should be challenged. But if you're crossing the line into bigotry, you're as bad as the very people you're condemning.
Antitheism is a form of supremacy in and of itself.
"In other words, it is quite clear from the writings of the “four horsemen” that “new atheism” has little to do with atheism or any serious intellectual examination of the belief in God and everything to do with hatred and power.
Indeed, “new atheism” is the ideological foregrounding of liberal imperialism whose fanatical secularism extends the racist logic of white supremacy. It purports to be areligious, but it is not. It is, in fact, the twin brother of the rabid Christian conservatism which currently feeds the Trump administration’s destructive policies at home and abroad – minus all the biblical references."
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/5/4/the-resurrection-of-new-atheism/
Nothing is inherently good. Life is a crapshoot. But religion likes to say that it is good.
Your second point. I’m guessing you’re equating science and religion? Which is a terrible argument. We can see and do science using our own brains and so, I’m just going to leave this one alone.
This one is true. I was homeless and ran into a girl that had a crush on me. She said that she would pay for my treatment if I was serious about getting clean. Another opportunity wasn’t going to come like that, and everyone I grew up with was already dead from overdoses. So, she paid for it and I did the suffering. After all no man is an island.
The theists that would say I don’t deserve credit for my accomplishments are the self hating humans I was referring to. They think we are too weak to do anything for ourselves. It also gives them plausible deniability when they do something fucked up. The good and the bad. It was all me baby.
Failing to think critically is something that happens to all of us from time to time. The difference is that religion is used to cause a mass directed lapse in critical thinking. As an example “god doesn’t like gay people because it says so in the bible. so all gay people bad”. When someone thinking critically would just judge individuals based on their own merit. Regardless of who they decide makes them happy.
Last point. Whew. Man. Just to be clear. I enjoyed reading your counter points. I thought all of them but one were pretty good, and that one may just be me misreading it.
So, you aren’t wrong. Boy Scouts comes to mind. But I feel like there is something especially egregious about someone telling you they’re going to save your soul, but the whole time they’re fucking your kid. Ya know what I mean? Not very holy of them.
I'm not so much trying to equate science and religion but to argue against the claim that religion specifically is the issue, as far as your comment about certain religions taking credit for your own work. All sorts of institutions besides religion and science can and will attempt to do this.
I still think this is an overgeneralization of theistic positions. I get that some theists would do this. They are shitty for that. But plenty of non-theists would do the same. There have been millions of theists throughout all of human history. It just doesn't make sense to me to chalk this kind of thing up to being uniquely a theist thing.
I understand your point here, but this seems more like a point against abuses by religious institutions specifically. There's a difference between some extremist christian cult telling people they ought to murder gay people and some random innocent person believing the earth was created by a small women on mars who dispenses cotton candy from her hair. Condemnation of religion by many people often includes the latter case I mentioned despite it being pretty harmless.
I totally agree with you on this.
Ok, I see what you’re saying, and I agree. But, the difference is a chain of tangible things coming together to exert force one way or the other in my life.
VS.
An invisible force with no other proof than “because they work in mysterious ways?”
For instance. I am a white male, and I have a genetically? high tolerance to opiates (I only say genetically high tolerance because most of my friends are dead). I also won the genetic lottery. Not like the billion dollar genetic lottery, but like a really good scratch off genetic lottery. I am fairly charismatic. I live in a major city center in the US. All these things and more came together to for instance get someone to like me enough to pay for treatment. Keep my criminal record minimal.
I agree with all those things. But, at the end of the day. I still had to make the decision and have the constitution to stick with it.
But I definitely see what you were saying now, and I agree with you. Except I can follow the science one. The religious one is still just kinda silly.
So, on to the next thing, and I agree with what you’re saying. I’ll give you that one. I don’t really see any flaw in your thinking on that one. People just kind of suck. Heh
Yeah, I really was just talking about abuses. Because, truthfully if religions were happy to stay out of politics, and mind their own business. I wouldn’t care one bit. The only reason I am as outspoken against religion as I am is because their choices affect mine and countless other lives across the world daily, and not in a good way, or even a way that the majority wants. But here we are.
No worries, I see the logic in your point of view too. Thanks for hearing me out. I appreciated getting to see your view point too.
I was just telling my partner that I had a super cool discussion with someone online today. That doesn’t happen very often. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.