Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy the beauty of the morning. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church,” he recalled.
Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades.
“Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches. “I can’t buy into that,” he said.
I really cant wrap my head that religion still exist in this age. Like we have mass destruction weapons, rockets that go beyond earth, have proof of how vast the universe is and then what we fight over is how some God has dictated our life to be.
Every time I think about the fact that the belief that a dead body came back to life, floated up into the sky, and is expected to float back down at the end of the world isn’t considered to be a psychotic delusion because it’s so commonplace as to be normative I feel like I’m on crazy pills.
How?
How the heck do we live in an age of measuring how long it takes for light to cross a hydrogen atom, of seeing the complete observable universe, of building our own virtual universes - and yet intelligent people who are aware of or even involved in such efforts genuinely think magic is real?
I get that there’s a lot of people who just don’t have a good grasp on reality and think lizards running world governments is somehow a probable explanation for the state of things, but the part that destroys a bit of my soul is seeing people who clearly should know better but don’t.
How are we supposed to collectively solve real problems when so many are unwilling to come face to face with what is actually real?
Yup. Like how we tell kids there are no ghosts, we should tell me there is no God.
Well, at very least “there’s no objective evidence for either ghosts or God.”
100%.
I have that same problem with meat eaters too. How is it possible that we know we are brutally mass breeding and killing animals for food we don’t need, is fucking up the planet and isn’t all that healthy either, while at the same time also pretending to be civilized human beings that care about animals and the climare. And every time I raise the issue people make the dumbest excuses I have heard a thousand times…
People, once brainwashed into a way of thinking and behaving, can just be really hard to change even if you have all the arguments on your side.
It’s so dumb and pretentious. Like nobody knows why we’re here, if there is a creator or not, what happens when we die, etc. Religious people act like they really have the answers to these when they are so comically wrong and fooled by people pulling stuff out of their ass.
Then, on top of that, to deny all of the things we have actually figured out about our universe and our place in it, the things we have actually observed. It’s a plague on humanity, stifling our progress.
Yes. Exactly 💯.
If the god was so powerful, where was he during CoVID? Why didnt the holy water treat COVID?
“GoD aCtS iN mIsTiRiOuS wAyS”
aka: Sky daddy doesn’t exist.
The only purpose religion serves is copium for people who can't face reality/don't want to think, and exploitation of power. If God existed and gave a shit, it would be clear, but it's so obviously man-made to anyone who wasn't brainwashed to be religious.
Religion gave my family and the closed groups I was forced to be raised around excuses for all their abuse and desire to judge others. Religion is a core part of all my childhood abuse and trauma and my own adult issues. I have zero interaction with any of them anymore, and I cannot respect anyone who proselytizes in the slightest about anything.
In my lifetime, those who followed organized religion of many types are always those who are the meanest, most ruthless, judgmental critical assholes I have ever dealt with. They sure put on a good show, but I’ve seen who they truly are enough to spot it anymore. All bullshit. Excuses for liars to hide behind.
I have zeroninteraction with any of them anymore, and I cannot respect anyone who proselytizes in the slightest about anything.
Agreed, and this is coming from a religious person. I think people who proselytize are extremely misguided. I understand wanting other people to be a part of something that is such an important part of your life, but that’s not the way to do it at all.
I was raised agnostic and became religious later. I couldn’t have the relationship with my religion I do now if I was solicited by someone else to do it. You can’t give someone that experience if they don’t want it. All you can do is be nice to them and help them if they are genuinely interested.
Non-Religion is cool if you get used to it. 91% of all Germans are “Not practising any religion”. On paper some 70% still are members of religious communities but otherwise we don’t give a fuck and instead going to church we meet for beer and bretzel breakfast on sunday. We stopped being religious after two World Wars as God was never on our side. Now we ain’t on his side either. Never been more happy.
Funny thing, officially Religion is part of school. But from what I remember it was more a history lesson. I remember every jewish and muslim holiday but not a single Christian Martyrer. Yes, around half of religious lessons at school was about other religions. Most likely because of selective memory - on holidays I could have beer and bretzel breakfast. Martyrers don’t feed me.
Just don’t forget that it wasn’t easy for us to hem in religion. It’s not like the churches were okay with becoming irrelevant. They got dragged into the age of enlightenment by their hair, kicking and screaming and fighting against progress with all their might. We tamed that tiger, but it still remembers its claws and it is still a dangerous beast.
Also please don’t forget the huge amount of influence the churches still have on German politics. Public Broadcasting has representatives of the churches in their Broadcasting Councils, the two churches continue to be some of the biggest lobbying-groups with explicit offices connecting them directly to the government. You can’t party and dance in the street on a Good Friday, Public broadcasting is not allowed to air “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” on Good Friday, and even public screenings by secular groups are illegal.
Well, a hypothetical god not being on your side in WWI and especially WWII seems kinda warranted, no? That would be the kind of god you read about in the bibl… Oh… ummm… wait
misread your comment and thought you said that most people only went to church on Sundays for beer and bretzel breakfast. Was like, shit, I could get behind that religion.
Go back 50 years and that was what we did: Go to church for 30 Minutes and sing, then feast with beer, sausages and bretzels for 60 minutes.
most are just pedophile rings anyway.
why
Im not religous but am spiritual, I prefer to come to my own conclusions about certain things.
One of the least spiritual things you can do is go sit on a pew and listen to a boring person talk.
Though it is a great way to catch up on sleep! Back when I was a “true believer” a lifetime ago I used to catch some serious Z’s during a sermon, because even then I realized that the way sermons work requires an inaccurate view of the Bible as a cohesive work rather than an internally inconsistent anthology. Had there been an iota of academic or historical rigor I might have taken longer to become an atheist. But actual church history is anathema to faith, which is why pastors have to pretend the text speaks for itself and is timeless, rather than a collection of texts representing the thoughts of various groups, some of which were almost certainly diametrically opposed to each other (e.g., even the so-called synoptic gospels present vastly different conceptions of the “point” of Jesus, if you have eyes to see).
Of all the things organised religion promotes, being spiritual is very fucking far down the list.
I actually really enjoyed that part when I was a young Agnostic at a private religious school.
I wouldn’t actively participate in services, but was required to be there, and the sermons were pretty neat in truth.
Honestly I think if society got together on a weekly basis to listen to discussions on ethics and mortality without the supernatural BS it wouldn’t be a bad idea at all.
It’s the supernatural part that’s super fucked up, and the guilt tripping. And the concept of inherent sin and unworthiness. And the authoritarianism. And the discouraging of critical thinking.
But the talks about the nature of the human experience and interdependency of society aren’t that bad at all.
And at the same rate, politics and “science” are becoming disorganised religion. I see many similarities in behaviours. It’s just swapping one form of religion for another at this point.
Politics, maybe, but how is science a religion?
I’ll take a stab at this one. A lot of educated people stop thinking the second they see a study that confirms what they believe. It is the anthesis of what science is supposed to be, examined constantly. But people intertwine their ideological framework with science and pick and choose which studies they believe and which they don’t. For some people, their belief in science is indistinguishable from someone else’s belief in religion, and often nearly as harmful to society. There’s tons of common knowledge rooted in science that turns out not to be true, but because of people’s faith in science instead of skepticism, people will believe anything backed by science, irrespective of whether it’s true. Laypeople have a hard time interpreting what they learn from science and remaining intellectually curious.
Even scientists can often be incredibly dogmatic. When Ignaz Semmelweis showed a mountain of evidence that washing your hands prevented passing infections to others he was ostracized by the medical community, despite there being way too much information showing he was right, he was ignored non the less. People tied their ideology and ego into believing he was wrong. Had people listened to Semmelweis sooner it could have saved countless of lives, some speculate millions. Semmelweis died from infection because the doctor treating him didn’t wash their hands…
A lot of educated people stop thinking the second they see a study that confirms what they believe. It is the anthesis of what science is supposed to be, examined constantly.
Sure, that happens. But since it’s science, there’s evidence, with which you can show people like that that they are wrong. That doesn’t exists with religions.
When Ignaz Semmelweis showed a mountain of evidence that washing your hands prevented passing infections to others he was ostracized by the medical community
And since it’s like a religion, his warnings were never heeded as you cannot question religious rules. And so, still today, doctors don’t wash their hands.
Oh wait…
Since it’s science, the rules can be questioned and changed if they are not correct.
I think you’re reading more into my comment than I said. To be clear, I’m not a fan of religion and do believe science is the route to knowledge. But it took an entire generation of scientists dying out to have washing hands normalized. Our society places faith and belief in science in a way that still mirrors religion even if it is more flexible.
It isn’t.
Some believe in pseudoscience, but that isn’t science (hence the “pseudo” in the name)
Perhaps you’re younger, I can tell you I’ve seen a massive shift in how science is seemingly manipulated and misrepresented to push political or idealogical ideas. In my opinion it’s primarily to do with money and power. It could mostly be the media highlighting the worst and least reputable, however, you’d be surprised how much our perceptions and impressions of things can influence how we behave and feel on some things.
I can tell you I’ve seen a massive shift in how science is seemingly manipulated and misrepresented to push political or idealogical ideas.
Which ideas would those be?
My disconnect is when they consider Trump a saint, but then say Obama is a bad guy
Turns out that if you can convince people that unless they behave in a certain way and follow a specific set of rules, they’ll be dropped into a burning lake of fire when they die, they are pretty easy to manipulate for political reasons.
But shouldn’t the ones they worship also hold to that very same specific sets of rules?
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” [Mark 10:25]
They’re mostly concerned with one specific difference between the two. I’ll give you three guesses.
Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy the beauty of the morning. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church,” he recalled.
This is not a uncommon sentiment even among people who are religious. Usually, it is something like, “I’d rather be fishing and thinking about God, than sitting in a church thinking about fishing.”
Religion ruins everything.
Besides architecture. Cathedrals are dope. But everything else, yeah.
I don’t hate some older religious music.
Religion was at the center of everything 500 years ago. It’s gonna take credit for a lot of stuff because you could barely do anything art related without religious involvement.
Don’t forget about the part where the only way you could be somewhat literate was if you were indoctrinated into their little cult.
Gregorian chants are epic
That first Enigma record is a regular in my listening because of exactly that.
I do like the sense of harmony that comes from singing together, but yes you don’t need a church for that.
Some religions. Depending on how you use the word. Legally Buddhism is a federally recognized religion for example.
And it has so little in common with how Christian’s use the word I consider it a misnomer. But I’ll keep enjoying the federal protections.
And sihks! Those guys are just the absolute nicest people I’ve ever met, kinda wish I knew more about it
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And yet 70% of Sikh women who were surveyed by Sikh Women’s Aid reported they’d suffered domestic and sexual abuse in the home.
The story of the girl slapped in the face by her mother for getting raped by her uncle is especially harrowing ‘who will marry you now?’ it’s vile.
People of every religion have done horrific things, even Sikhs. I’d know since I’m originally from India.
All Eastern religions have their own problems and crimes committed in the name of their beliefs. Christianity might have some of the more global harms, but it’s hardly alone in being harmful.
I have to agree with you there.
I wish you ppl would stop with your fetishization for any religion outside of the Abrahamic ones. Sikhs are just like any group of ppl and have committed fucked shit in the name of their ideology. Imperial (let’s invade and massacre Asia) Japan was Buddhist who used it as justification for nationalism, violence, and persecution. Which sounds pretty damn similar to what Jews, Muslims, and Christians do/did. And let’s not forget Hindu nationalism and their problematic caste system
And no this isn’t a bashing of religion as a whole because I personally find the argument that religion is the root of all evil as childish. I have no issues with anyone believing anything they want. It only becomes a problem when you feel the need to impose your belief on others. EVERY group including religion, race, class, ethnicity, sex, political party, etc is guilty of that
Buddhism was probably 10% the justification for nationalism that Shinto was in Japan, so that’s a pretty bad example.
Also, using Buddhism to encourage nationalism ≠ Buddhisms fault
Every arguments you made can be used for Christianity
I would make the same argument, and say that radicalized religion is the issue, not religion itself.
Most every religion becomes radicalized over time, but that doesnt define the inital religious teachings.
So yeah, Christian nationalism ≠ Christianity’s fault.
The non-Abrahamic religions stick with thr peace and love parts in the US because they are not the dominant religion. Any religion ends up being cooped into being used to justify violence when it is on top even when the core tenets are supposed to be peaceful and accepting.
This also tends to be true of most human organizational structures, but religion adds a layer that make it easier for members to accept extreme behavior by the people in their group.
There were Roman Christians who made passionate arguments for freedom of religion, before they took over. Not so much after.
People will fetishize anything and use anything to justify violence.
Buddhist practitioners can be as dogmatic as Christians, but having been brought up as one and studied the other extensively, Buddhism is not a religion in the Western sense of the word.
In fact there’s many teachings on avoiding dogmatic views in both ancient and modern Buddhism. Because dogmatism brings about the exact suffering we’re talking about.
Yes, Buddhists are as failable as anyone else. But the heart of the dharma begins with right view, which essentially means, don’t be dogmatic!
Which is the exact opposite of how I was brought up in a Christian family.
Buddhism is not a religion in the Western sense of the word.
Every religion claims that. Christians will tell you it is a lifestyle and a relationship. Jews will tell you it is a religion and culture. Buddhists will claim to be a philosophy and a mindset. No one wants to admit that they are just another way of doing X.
Of the three you listed only one doesn’t follow commandments given by an invisible supernatural entity.
And this exact false equivalence is why Buddhism isn’t a religion the way the West uses the word.
Cool we are just going to ignore all the Buddhists gods, like the seven headed snake (commonly depicted as the Buddha of Wednesday afternoon) and Maru. As well as the gods they borrowed along the way like Genash and about a million dead monks. We are also going to ignore all the passages in the Pali where the Siddathrata talks about his past incarnations and how he decided to decided to come to earth one more time to save humanity.
Hey remind me again, in the heart sutra what is the reason Siddathrata gives for the importance of giving gold to monks? I forget. Maybe I forget because he refers to it as a secret mystery.
Go ahead and continue. I want you to tell me more about what half remembered YouTube video from a fourlong secular Buddhist you saw once. I am just going to sit here and sort thru the hundreds of photos I have of me in South East Asia.
I’m only replying to your top paragraph because I sense a lot of hostility in your post and don’t have the patience at the moment to wade through it carefully.
Buddhism doesn’t extinguish other beliefs when it interacts with them. Nagas (the seven headed snake, who is not a God but more like a spirit, is a naga) already existed in southeast Asia prior to Buddhism. Likewise Genesh is a Hindu diety that already existed in India.
Some Zen Buddhist traditions even go so far as to draw parallels with Christian beliefs in the Kingdom of God and the ultimate dimension (a Buddhist concept for how everything is connected and interdependent).
Finally, I didn’t argue that Buddhism doesn’t incorporate the idea of spiritual beings (Gods, Demons, they can all be found in most Buddhist traditions). But they’re not beings to worship or revere simply on account of their spiritual status. Or to listen too without question like in authoritarian belief systems. So, it’s likely your post is a straw man but also possible you misunderstood my position and I didn’t communicate clearly enough. Either way, what you’re arguing against wasn’t my position. (See italics right above and below if you need clarification).
The Buddha said don’t take my word. See for yourself. And Buddhism is being incorporated under other names in all sorts of modern psychology practices. Because the shit works and is based on science (investigation of mental phenomenon with an open and unbiased mind) not dogma.
I hope someday you understand the difference. But I can tell by your tone that nothing I can say today will change your mind.
So this post isn’t for you. But the silent witnesses on the fence.
Take care.
Buddhism has a talent for conversion by syncretism. Tibetian Buddhism is Buddhism meeting Tibetian Shamanism, Chan/Zen is Buddhism meeting Taoism (which already was very close), both Therevada and Mayayana are rather more Hindu, and what we’re seeing in the west is Humanist/Christian, depending on the practitioner. A good dividing line might be belief in reincarnation: Legit Atheists don’t care, hell-conditioned folks find relief, whereas originally the whole thing was Hindu and Buddhism calls it dhukka (suffering, also mind that it’s tied into the caste system) and promises a way to break out of it. So what was a jail in one context serves as a comfy blanket in another.
In that sense it’s very much a mistake to see Buddhism as a uniform whole, or western adoption as appropriation or fetish, or really infer terribly much about one strain of Buddhism from the other.
Then, second note: All those eastern things should be compared, if you want to compare them properly, not to western religion or churches but to that and the whole philosophical heritage dating back to at least Socrates. And gods know in that context we don’t need religion to fuck up, we’re still recovering from Descartes and like to ignore inconvenient truths such that Newton was an Alchemist. Christians like to ignore that all the stuff that is actually valuable about Christianity, is more than memes furnished to propagate the system (and doing damage while doing so), is lifted from the Stoics. Racism once was “scientific”. I could go on and on.
Moralists with authoritarian leanings are the problem.
Plenty of those around nowadays who, instead of a religions, latch on to some well meaning cause and then proceed to try and shove other people around under the cover of said cause, bringing along the more tribalist (hence unthinking and easilly manipulated with the right words) members of the cause, all the way to pretty much pogroms and purges (though, fortunatelly, not normally involving killing people).
Whilst the vehicle (religion, some ideologies, politics, any “cause” supposedly beyond questioning including nationalism), being something that most people follow in a mindless way is ideal for such subvertion and abuse as an easy source of supporting usefull idiots for people indulging their lust for power over others) the reall problem is, IMHO, a certain type of individual who will seek social situations they can abuse to be powerful (all the way down to the school social bully who uses connection rather than physicallity to have power over others), so it’s really such people we should be weary of and alert for rather than their chosen vehicles.
Yeah absolutely, and the problem is they’ll always find an excuse - someone on here recently argued to me that since we punch Nazis we should also punch people who use words like ‘unalive’ because it’s an attack on our culture - he was being entirely serious too.
You can see people rubbing their hands in glee at every climate change story too and it’s scary, I’ve been involved with a lot of green groups and eco-positive movements which are full of wonderful people who really care about making a better world - then there are overly online lunatics who never lifted a finger to help native species or anything like that but have decided it’s a wonderful excuse to live out their most destructive and hateful fantasies.
Religion is a way of harnessing that awful impulse in people and using it for the benefit of a small theocratic aristocracy, it’s a way of saying ‘you can get away with being the awfull person you want to be if you do it in the name of our gang and to our enemies’
I used to think Buddhism was an exception, sadly it is not.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence
As found in other religious traditions, Buddhism has an extensive history of violence dating back to its inception.
Buddhist sects as a whole are not exception, but I couldn’t find an example of violence at “its inception”. All the examples I could find are from much later.
That was perpetrated by Buddhist nationalists in Myanmar, whos actions are so fargone from traditional Buddhist teachings they can safely be considered not Buddhists IMO.
Ah like the Christian nationalists are so far gone they don’t represent Christianity right? Such a dismissive take against the reality of religions and their point to be a source of control over a population and society.
Yup
Not really, it’s just that people can’t stand by this
Nerevar, there you are. I have just started reading this Lemmy Post about Religion. What an intoxicating and grand waste of my time. Nerevar the only People that are happy without Religion are the Argonians, and you know as well as I, Dagot Ur(the god) how miserable these creatures are.
Not a single Dunmer in all of Morrowind would try to claim that they do not believe in god.
Yes Nerevar, i would kill them but that isn’t the point.
I was raised in church, and I would still call myself a ‘spiritual’ person. But church itself… it’s just not it
we are no different than the bug that just splattered on the windshield. one second your brain is screaming “pull up!”. The next next second, _________
Religious orgs are cancer, they also steal tax dollars by avoiding taxes, corrupt organizations and their mansions
Nerevar, there you are. I have just started reading this Lemmy Post about Religion. What an intoxicating and grand waste of my time. Nerevar the only People that are happy without Religion are the Argonians, and you know as well as I, Dagot Ur(the god) how miserable these creatures are.
Not a single Dunmer in all of Morrowind would try to claim that they do not believe in god.
Yes Nerevar, i would kill them but that isn’t the point.
