To be religious is to be an extremist.

Over 80% of people in the US believe in one religion or another. The country is not 80% extremists.

Are you kidding me? Religion is supremely useful in controlling and exploiting people. It promises all of the wonderment and fantasticnous you can imagine while also promising the absolute worst nightmares you can imagine, and all you have to do is pay and pray, and the prayers are optional.

"Work in service to your masters and you will be rewarded after you're dead. Defy your masters and you will be punished for eternity" is the perfect tool of control for the uneducated/unintelligent.

"Religion for yourself" in the age of internet of called "personal belief". So, the term "religion" now only means, like it or not, "institutionalized religion".

This is 100% caused by the fact that people "identify" as Y (not using X as a variable, as it is now a fucking confusing buzzword), and are subsequently grouped together in "echo rooms" by various platforms algorithms. This happened so overwhelmingly that in less than a decade, it redefined the default behavior of people, online, and you will now see people automatically seeking those echo rooms. Even on Lemmy, where people are literally seeking instances that will validate their own beliefs, and block those they do not share.

Well that's certainly a hot take!

Religion is for the feeble minded.

Extremism is not bad. The only proper response to fascism is antifascism, for example. Balance is not a virtue, that's like saying we need both the KKK and the antiracists to make a nice balance.

1. I am not a christian lol
2. I mean extremism by any person who uses religion as an excuse, not any particular one

Well then you should not try to convince people to accept atheism as well🤷🏻

Edit: This is not a serious counter argument in case it isn’t clear, ofc no one is going to every individual person, events and stalls are put up for this purpose, so it is obv. that the only one who will go there are the ones who are interested, there should be no force involved

A system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object.

All religions are cults.

That there exist congregations that aren't actively being taken advantage of, or doing evil shit, doesn't mean people living their lives believing things that aren't real and making choices based on that belief, are harmless.

You can be the kindest soul on earth, but if you believe stabbing someone in the heart helps them, you might still do it.

Believers do that type of shit all the time, like words spoken while meaning well, but doing harm. They look at reality through the distorting lens of faith, they can't ever truly see it. There is a fatal disconnect between perception and reality.

They thank God instead of their doctor, they tell their depressed children to consult Jesus when they need medication, they feel crushed by bad luck because it can't just be bad luck, everything is god's plan, meaning they feel they deserve it.

Religion adds so many tiny twists to reality, and every single one hurts someone. Both the believer and those around them. If you haven't seen it happen, you're the exception, not the rule.

I'm Italian.

Four years ago the DDL Zan, a law that sought to fight language and deeds that amount to religious, political and racial discrimination by adding aggravating factors for sexual orientation, gender and gender identity, was proposed.

Among its detractors, the Vatican itself, who urged Italy to stop the law because, according to them, the Law calls into question church’s ‘freedom of organisation’ and threatens ‘freedom of thought’.

While those cartoonish evil cults aren't common, they are not the only evil religious organizations in the world. The head of one of the abrahamic religions, and one of the most popular religions in the world, fought against the freedom of my fellow LGBT+ individuals because of their supposed right of hate speech, apparently. So no, it's not an American perspective, and yes, all religions are evil.

I am European and haven't been to the US in over 15 years and I still firmly hold the believe that religion is cancer and every religion is a cult, especially the christian organizations both big and small.

And don't tell me I don't know what I am talking about.
I was raised catholic and probably know my way around the bible better than most christians.

Now what?