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Is the United Asahi becoming the new WA delegate?
Yes, they won an election for the position.
Sauros and Nghft Syhah
Who wants a new topic!
What is your opinion on religion?
I just want to know what you guys think of it
I think- gets canceled
Kunskil and East Scoth
My paradox is that I'm strongly angainst religion BUT also a strong advocate for freedom of thought.
My short response is the abolition of all relugious institution, but the freedom of believing wathever you want unless it put at risk other people or the community.
Midterra, Sauros, Jackuul, Goraosvobozhdeniya, and 2 othersEast Scoth, and Nghft Syhah
Opiate of the masses and should not be encouraged. Those who seek comfort in organized religion are easily manipulated into policies that hurt them as their want of belonging is used against them and to control them. Authority over them is used to suppress the people from seeking to change or challenge the conditions they are in, and insofar as that, is used by the bourgeoisie as a means of control.
Capital always protects itself, and what better tool than to manipulate people seeking comfort? To co-opt religion as a cover, as a tool, and as an enforcer of their capital protecting policies is all within their scope.
In my years on this earth I have only ever seen organized religions impose restrictions on their "flocks" for who they love, how they love, where they love, what they think, how they think, who they 'should' be, and much much more. Manipulation of the working class at its near-worst.
Overall I view it as one of the worst institutions, and overall harmful for the human species.
It's quite easy to demonize and find fault with institutions that deal almost exclusively in ideology. However, dismissing it as indoctrination grossly oversimplifies the role of centers of worship in a community. Can they be an obstacle for reason, tolerance, and scientific advancement? Sure, sometimes. Yet, for anyone that has actually been involved beyond cursory attendance, one can begin to see what good it does behind the scenes. There are lots of lonely, dysfunctional people out there without a system of support or a means to build their social network. And when you become familiar enough with who's who in these churches and temples, you realize that many if not most of said neglected people make up the attendance. Why, you ask? There's no accessible alternative, and they aren't exactly competing and preventing anyone else. Rarely do other groups step up to the plate to fill these needs. In the absence of government programs, non-profits, and mutual aid, religious institutes are a primary means for people to come together to lean on each other, and use their strengths to help others where they are weak. They play socioeconomic cohesion in communities atomized by and neglected by capitalism.
Ebenia, Grod Island, Greylyn, Ghillemear, and 4 othersSauros, Folcvania, Neo-Commune, and East Scoth
I oppose organized institutions of religion, but I do not oppose individual people holding their own ideas of it. Ultimately it is more beneficial for society if individuals can develop their own philosophies/interpretations on the nature of existence and existential texts (except in the case of rejecting sound scientific theories like evolution), without being held to specific doctrines on these questions. Being able to both find agreement in and challenge existential texts at an individual level is valuable to society and public discourse on existence, because it promotes free thought, philosophical exploration, and develops a culture of tolerance in that "I may not agree fully with you, but I do agree with you on..." or "I mostly agree with you, but disagree on..." and so on. Being able to find agreement with others is key to keeping a society intact, and an approach of religious tolerance (enabled by the absence of religious institutions) makes this much more feasible to achieve and also longer-lasting overall.
Looking back on history, times when religious institutions held supremacy in different societies almost always led to widespread persecution or religious turmoil/conflict. And looking at now, many of these same institutions hold great strength in different parts of the world, and their strength helps to create the conditions for religious turmoil in many places. Thus it is therefore my opinion that by abolishing religious institutions, without abolishing religion altogether, religious persecution and religious wars would be much harder to coalesce and far easier to prevent.
I’m no expert by any means and feel free to correct me, but from what I’ve witnessed in my short time on this planet is that any religious/spiritual system will take on the attributes of its environment. If the rich and powerful are the ones standing at the pulpit, of course the messaging is going to be slanted in their favor.
I’ll speak on Christianity specifically it’s the religion I have the most exposure to as someone that lives in the US. (I don’t have any formal training in theology so I can’t speak from that experience — take what I say with a grain of salt.)
I grew up in a very fundamentalist and reactionary branch of Christianity. I’ve been to a few different denominations, but ultimately, it all boiled down to the Bible is the divinely-inspired Word of God, there are no errors in the Bible so it must be taken literally unless it’s a parable or something, and humanity is damaged and condemned to Hellfire unless we repent and accept Jesus’ sacrifice. This messaging was very damaging to my mental health growing up especially because of all the reactionary rhetoric I was exposed to. At the same time, now that I’m on my own, I’ve been exposed to a church congregation and pastors that are vocally anti-capitalist, provide material support to liberation movements and vulnerable communities, and denounce fundamentalism and Christian nationalism.
Applying this blanket condemnation of all organized religion implies that there is some intrinsically harmful and hierarchical nature to [organized] religion. There are plenty of critiques to be made about religion particularly in the Western world and I’m not entirely sure what I believe spiritually. But religion and spirituality predates these oppressive systems and will likely live on afterward. There are a lot of structural changes that religious institutions need to undergo so that they don’t become hotbeds of spiritual abuse and manipulation by reactionary movements.
Anyway, I’m not a theologian so I'm not an authority on this topic but those are my two cents.
-Grey
Eloren, Grod Island, Sauros, Rhenna, and 1 otherEast Scoth
i was raised by a christian family, but i’m not exactly christian. i think it’s fine, just don’t enforce it on other people. be respectful of people’s beliefs regardless of whether you agree with them or not. that’s kind of my opinion on most things honestly
Greylyn, Sauros, and East Scoth
The societal effect of religion depends quite a lot on the implementation and the principles of the religion, so asking about one's opinion on religion as a whole is nearly asking about one's opinion on ideology as a whole. The big issue is that religion often promotes blind faith and regularly conflicts with science.
We're so close, keep unendorsing me and endorsing 
United Asahi everyone!
Podria, Midterra, Sauros, and Larger Green Plants
So now am I banned from the region for being a devout Buddhist? I should not have brought up the topic to a bunch of anti theist s
I think it is important to define terms. Are we talking religion, organized religion, existence of spaghetti monsters, Sectarianism, Atheism, what?
My personal opinion is that religion in itself is a set of tools for understanding the world as we experience it.
Per Joseph Campbell, all mythologies teach you 4 things:
• How did the universe begin?
• What happens when you die?
• How does one acknowledge those things you are powerless against? (i.e. God, Fate, Death, Luck, etc.)
• How does one live a life in this world? (Be kind to others, shun excess, etc.)
These explanations worked for the time and peoples by which they were created. For example, Abrahamic prohibitions against eating pork existed in a time before food safety. They are usually listed in the "how to live life in this world" religious texts. The prohibitions held that pork was "unclean." They did not have the knowledge to recognize trichinosis and other food-related diseases, but they did know that consuming pork could kill you. Without microscopes and education whether a disease is caused by bacteria or by spirits is indeterminable. We've created a world where we can consume pork safely, but if you ever find yourself at the collapse of civilization you might stay away from bacon of indeterminable origin.
Religion is a set of tools encompassing the four questions listed above, and religious people are explaining the world the best way they know how. I don't fault people for learning fairy tales before they read Shakespeare – learning one helps communicate the ideas found in the other. Wisdom & education do not invalidate religion when it's all understood as allegory.
Sectarianism and "organized religion" are related topics, as are the social benefits of religious groups, but I think we should be careful not to confuse them all as part and parcel. I gain benefits from my religious upbringing, and as a tool religion has helped me to survive some of the wounds organized religion caused me.
You are not being banned, and most of the replies are in support of an individual's right to faith.
This one's a bit longer, so here's a spoiler
Often when Westerners talk about religion, they talk from a viewpoint formed from the most accessible family of religions. That being Abrahamic religions, and of those Christianity is the most accessible. There are two issues with the stances found therein. Firstly, you can not judge all religions by the misconduct of one, and secondly, Christianity is comprised of a spectrum of denominations and interpretations. Though is it absolutely true that some Christian institutions can be considered iffy, it is also true that other Christian institutions have been genuinely beneficial to both communities and humanity as a whole. Some Christian denominations put a high emphasis on community assistance, many homeless shelters, soup kitchens, second-hand clothing stores, etc. will be operated by Christian Institutions. We could also mention Liberation Theology, I.E. Christian Socialism, and its successes in Latin America.
Should the reader be the kind of person who finds themself conflating Religious expression with the misdoings of the Christian Church, I highly suggest researching the religions found in the rest of the world. In doing so, you will find that faith alone isn't the issue, and the issue isn't always organization. The issue is the misuse of the inherent power that religious institutions hold. Do not go after the faithful, go after the liars.
I was raised "Jewish". It's in quotation marks because the synthesis of the faith I was forced to believe in as a child was put together by people who did not truly know Judaism. My grandmother demanded that I be raised Jewish, she half-heartedly converted somewhere between 40-50 from Protestant Christianity. Her understanding of the faith was warped through her understanding of Baptism. She got certain things right about Judaism, but I was predominately taught things that she pulled out of her behind. My mother, who was never truly Jewish either, "converted" when I was born and never gave enough craps to research the religion. That span of my life was genuinely traumatising and caused me to drift to the extreme side of religious expression that is anti-theism. I thought all religions were evil because my only real interactions with them had been negative. I had never directly experienced the good sides of faith, so I had a natural blind spot.
Nearing the end of my teen years I got into Paganism, as I grasped for anything at all that would provide me hope for the hell of a world we live in. In my nearly a decade of practising as a Pagan, I've come to understand what religion is on a societal level. It's a warm blankie, a hug from mom, a glimmer of peace in a violent world. People who express their connection to faith are not mentally unwell, or conmen, or evil. They're scared, they're lonely, they need something to keep them from giving in to the realities of life. Should a Socialist Dawn successfully come, they will naturally turn away from faith, as social systems are put into place to alleviate the gloom of living. As Socialists, we have to accept that people of faith have a right to grasp onto their beliefs, even if we disagree with them. Because they're ultimately just trying not to fall apart, and that's the means they've chosen to do so.
Over the past year I have been researching Abrahamic religions, trying to break false ideals I've formed about them. Doing this has been extremely beneficial, for the first time in 27 years of living I've come to understand Islam and think it's actually kinda dope (I won't touch on the Sunni-Shia schism, but I will quickly say that Islam has far more unity and tolerance than Christianity.). I understand what each of the Christian denominations believes in, and why they disagree with each other. And, most importantly, I've begun healing my religious trauma by unweaving the web of falsities my grandmother wove for me. And I've realized that, if I had grown up with real Judaism, I might've never left the faith. I've considered converting back, once I can talk to a Rabbi.
TLDR; Religion not bad. Religion can be socialist. Researching religion is important. And yaboi Jewish.
You likely don't have to worry a single bit here.
It seems to me you couldn't get to terms with what a lot of the responses were meaning, and that is that your experience of your own religion is a quite personal and intimate part of yourself, and should be fully lived on your own terms, albeit inside the framework of legality and respect of others' free will.
But, even more important, your religion, as an institution or as a life philosophy, shouldn't be let to create conflicts, unnecessary tensions and divisions, between you and others that deals with the same socio-economic problems as everyone else and would rather have the same core principle as you: to live better, here and now.
All institutionalised religions tend to instill division in the masses, if let go uncared for and have them reach down on people in a sensible state of mind and life.
Something that could be materialistically good, within the short terms, since they usually are the first that offer, to those in such situations, true immediate help and fulfills actual needs... with the danger being that this also give them an emotional leverage to instill a specific, strict philosophy and worldview with it.
It has to be said that, if you are a part of the people that has grasp on materialistic realism, you really shouldn't worry for yourself because you should quite understand in what your own religion contradicts socio-economic and scientific progress and in what it could be healthy for yourself, or others that share your religious identity.
Anyway, why namecalling others that don't share your view in a single cathegory (antitheists) that clearly, from their own articulated responses, don't suit a lot of comrades here? It seems quite rude and antagonising.
The simple fact regarding religion is the most people have very set views on this subject and no amount of discussion will change that.
As a devout atheist, the one thing that irritates me more than anything are people who follow any religion and are so convinced that theirs is the only true way, that they seek to "convert" others to their belief.
I have my own personal views and I would not dream of trying to impose them upon anyone else.
I do not want to convert others forcefully, I just want to share my beliefs and educate people not to insult others beliefs. Plus I think we can live harmoniously together. The only thing I really hate are he anti theists who’s sole job is to insult us religious people and make us feel like a huge joke
Not at all. I'm a practicing Buddhist myself, albeit an irreligious, ignostic one and a "religious naturalist" / pantheist at that. On top of that, I was raised apatheist, and then went through an extensive Unitarian Universalist religious education (AMA, lol). There's merit to be observed here in the diverse range of perspectives and experiences, even if they seem to challenge us, and all are welcome.
Biotopia and East Scoth
you know what time it is? PREMIER LEAGUE SEASON. Some mid games, but Tottenham vs Luton should be interesting. BMouth vs Everton
Um… hello it’s Kunskil here. I am moving my main to a region to help my friend make it so I am using this alt for TLA until my friend’s region is doing alright
Religion, whether we like it or not, is an important aspect of culture that shapes society. It should be studied, understood and even fit to the revolutionary narrative. Lenin presented us in State and Revolution how the working class should use the state to protect their own interest and fight the bourgeois state. The same I say about religion. If not, then the same thing will happen with the previous failed attempts to establish a socialist country. While not entire socialists, it is why China, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, and even Venezuela and Bolivia have managed to maintain (at least) a socialist or a left-leaning government.
A good win for the Cherries. Everton making a silly own goal to choke away the game. Up the Cherries 🍒
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