this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
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Religious beliefs aren't real, they're delusions, and being gay or some other random "sin" isn't at all comparable to what I'm speaking of. Cars are the #1 cause of death in the US other than health complications, most of those SUVs, they are demonstratably extremely harmful to society even if you don't consider how their dominance destroys our infrastructure design, increases stress, and how they pollute the Earth a ton.
It's silly to cater to people who believe in Christianity or something similar when we have actual problems that we have proven solutions for, like getting rid of car-dependent infrastructure. Compared to say, being gay or uttering the words "oh my God", which according to Christian belief are equally as bad as murder, slavery, and rape or even worse than it on the sin scale. If a religion believes in a hell, especially when believing in an omniscient and omnipotent future-seeing God, it's worth immediately disregarding everything from.
Even entertaining the idea that the Christian ideas of morality have any basis in reality, especially putting it on the same level as actual science, is unbelievable.
That is your opinion and not shared by others.
The point isn't that you have to do anything. You theme here is that you live your life and respect others living their own life. You have argued as if its a zero sum situation where you can force your belief on others and you refuse to accept that allows others to do the same.
Religion is very real to some people and not respecting that can absolutely lead to the same attitudes being presented in the above. It leads to one group initializing the other and acting like they know better.
It is not an "opinion". It is fact.
Either way, religion has no real life basis, it's not scientific. You can, however, use science to observe the mass murdering of children, destruction of cities, plowing down thousands of neighbourhoods to build highways, caused by SUVs and dependence on cars. The point is that SUV drivers do not respect life because SUVs exist to, and are popular solely to, be the bigger tank in car crashes, have a high hood so you kill pedestrians when you run them over, and endanger the lives of others for your own perceived (and fake) safety, while also blasting out a ton of pollution while you're at it.
If religion is real to someone, they are crazy. Just as we shouldn't entertain the delusions of a schizophrenic as real, we shouldn't entertain the delusions of religious people as real. What matters is the actual observable scientific facts we have available to us, which supports things like ending car-centric infrastructure and not using SUVs and trucks if you don't need them and are just doing errands the city in them like a loser. Civilization's completely fucked by car emissions and SUVs have a higher pedestrian killcount than a hundred 9/11s but hey man gotta drive my kids to soccer practice in a tank, and besides the pastor said the rapture was imminent or something anyways.
Going to an atheism community or science-based community and saying "but religion might be real though, their bigotry is equally as valid as actual facts/science" and expecting anyone to take that seriously at all is crazy.
This is a centuries old debate about empiricism vs rationalism. Take some time to learn about it. Ultimately though, science has limits. One thing I often hear is that science can't prove anything; it can only disprove things. The point I'm making is that we can't prove religion is not real, nor can we prove it is real. Yet, people believe it to be real. Likewise, you can show measurable things like deaths caused by cars. However, that does not justify imposing your will on other people. What are you measuring those deaths against? Given that almost every person owns a car and drives daily, is the issue moot? Am I wrong for driving a vehicle if another person gets into an accident?
The internet is one of the biggest tools used by sex traffickers and pedophiles. Should you smash your computer? Does it make it okay for you to smash another person’s computer who has nothing to do with any of that?
Science has limits. It can't solve questions that do not have measurable or empirical evidence. It can't provide answers to moral, ethical, and existential questions that are deeply personal and subjective. These questions often require us to draw on philosophy, religion, and personal values to find meaning and make decisions.
Things that are not measurable or lack empirical evidence are not necessarily any less real than anything else. You can't prove why two people are in love. You can measure process and hormones in the brain and body. You can't scientifically explain why. You can't measure consciousness so is that not real? Are we just brains inside a jar floating in space hallucinating all of this?
Hell trusting that science is the be all end all is a belief itself.
All that to say that taking the position that you have a right to tell others how to live is an asshole position. Sometimes its necessary but its easy to go too far even if you think you're doing good.
Yeah no not at all when they literally only exist to endanger the lives of others. This is like saying it's an "asshole position" that neo-Nazis and the KKK can't rally and fire guns in public spaces because they have a right to live how they want. After all, they totally aren't a danger to literally everyone who's not a right-wing white guy, they're just living how they want. Although you apparently listen to Joe Rogan so I wouldn't be surprised if you are a neonazi collaborator.
"Science has its limits" is no reason to entertain seemingly schizophrenic beliefs in the divine. We have actual facts, they have their fake God.
If you think "communication devices can be used by pedophiles" is anywhere comparable to "this specific type of vehicle is literally killing thousands of children and polluting the environment and is one of the greatest threats to you in your everyday life" then you're unable to be reasoned with. They have a choice to literally just use a sedan or even a van or something that isn't superbly effective at murdering pedestrians, but they choose to blow a hundred thousand on a fancy orphan-crushing tank.
Also...
YOU LITERALLY CAN DO EXACTLY THIS. This is a matter of technological advancement and the fact that human brains have an inconceivable amount of complex data in them for our current observation methods and have a lot of plasticity, not whether it's possible. You can already use biochemistry/neurology to accurately predict this kind of stuff, even exact responses to environmental stimuli, in some simpler creatures. It is scientifically possible to do the same thing for humans, it is just physics/chemistry. You're gonna need a lot better argument than "[obviously complex thing in science] isn't solved yet so science and religion are equally as rational". It's like saying we shouldn't trust mathematics because we haven't solved the Riemann Hypothesis. We already have real, reproducable proof that physics, chemistry, and all that are objective and accurate to reality and can be used to accurately tell the future, even if we haven't completely solved them. There is no such thing for religion.
You also can't measure "consciousness" because "consciousness" doesn't mean anything. It's a completely subjective word that wildly changes based on who you ask. There is no "having consciousness" or "not having consciousness" or "having 50% consciousness" or something. It's a ways we try to think of our perception/responses to the environment, which you can measure.
"Rationalism" doesn't mean believing in shit some guys made up vaguely based on other shit guys made up a long time ago and saying it can't be any more absurd than science. You wanna know what Rationalism is?
And you wanna know what empiricism is?
Neither of these are fond of religious garbage. They are both ways of interpreting science, and they aren't a complete dichotomy because scientists use both. Religion is just emotional, illogical, completely subjective, and not based in reality.
Schizophrenic people may often believe the delusions in their head are real. It's excusable because it's not really their fault, but I can't excuse religious people for the same thing because they choose to believe this garbage, sometimes even well into adulthood. It is irrelevant that you think it is real or that schizophrenic people and people with dementia think their delusions are real. Or that children think the tooth fairy and santa are real. That doesn't make it any more up for consideration to actually rational people. The logical conclusions from data are far more important than the make-believe of the Pope.