this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
372 points (80.3% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27006 readers
1398 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Hopefully, a slightly different perspective here...

Religion is not interchangeable with theism. Many people, including me, are religious whilst also being atheists. Depending on the source, religion can be defined as a supernatural based idea (god/gods) or (the way I see it) more like Emile Durkheim saw it "a unified system of beliefs and practices [...] which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."

So, for me, religion gives me a sense of community, support and a structure to guide me. It doesn't rule me and I don't have to worship or pray to a supernatural being that doesn't exist. So in my (biased) view, I get the good bits of religion without the shitty awful bits such as telling everyone only my religion is right, telling everyone what to do based on what I think and generally being an arsehole.

Most people like some type of community because we are, at bottom, social creatures. My own religion allows me to be both individualistic and also part of a community and I think a lot of people feel that their religion gives them that sense of community. A more worrying aspect of religion is theistic religion - worship of a supernatural being/beings - because that is irrational, which is not in itself a concern, but when whole societies are controlled via theism then people suffer.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Can't you just have a social club without having to bring god or morality into it?

[–] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's kind of my point. There is no god (or at least not one I believe in), my religion is an atheist based one. The morals that we have are our own, we don't see them as anything other than that. I don't want anyone to feel that I'm trying to evangelise or recruit here so I'm not going to go into details, but if you want to, follow the link to community I moderate thats in my profile and there are outgoing links on that community.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)