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this is the exact reason why exile, excommunication, shunning, disfellowshipping, and all the rest are so effective. and a big reason people go along with glaringly wrong bullshit
Religious shunning / disfellowshipping is immoral and should be banned by law. It’s disgusting. I don’t understand how it still is such a big issue. Jehovah’s Witnesses for example are breaking up families daily. It causes much suicide unfortunately. Evil practice. Done in “the name of god” - I should point out that it is unscriptural, so not actually a biblical teaching. Just a good way to control the flock…
You’re right that it’s wrong, but ostracism doesn’t strike me as something that can be outlawed—not just because it’s one of our fundamental primitive social behaviors, but because of logistics. I’m curious how you envision it working? That is, you could probably forbid a church from declaring excommunication in a formal fashion, but could you actually stop its members from shunning someone? It would raise a lot more questions, like what if one member of the church is revealed to have abused another? Does the church still have to welcome them back?
Well my experience is with Jehovah’s witnesses. In that religion some of the top reasons for being officially shunned (forever loosing your family and friends) are: *Reaching adulthood and deciding to leave the religion. *Premarital sex, including making out, even mild things that many would not include in sex. Even if you then get married. *Smoking cigarettes. *Being Gay. *Openly disagreeing with a doctrine. (To name a few) So there are many JW parents who cut off and do not talk to their children, because reaching the age of 16-18 the children get a girl/boyfriend and leave. The parents are forbidden to talk to their own children. (Don’t be quick to judge the parents, they are victims also here) Then there are the ones that upon reaching the age of 25-30 they genuinely realize that the religion is man-made and not for them, so they leave. They loose there parents and friends. Then for the poor souls that work it out when they are in their 50s+ they loose their children as the religion tells the children that God wants them to shun their parents for leaving. The family members do not want to shun each other, but they do, because it is brainwashed into them. Many commit suicide. All of this just mentioned has nothing to do with biblical sin. I believe that the law should not allow a religion to tell family members to shun each other (in the name of God) when a family member leaves the religion. It should be the personal decision of the family members. This is a MAJOR problem in the JW religion. The reason it continues is because it is all hidden from the media and public. JW is a very secretive religion.
If (on the rare occasion) a member was to abuse another, then the church could expel the guilty party from the church building. But should not have the right to tell that person’s family to cut them off in their personal lives. That is too far. In the JW religion it’s rare for this to be the reason though.
why do you think they’re pushing so hard to force jesusism into public schools? so the kids who toe the jesus line can bully the kids who don’t. they’ll police themselves and inform on their neighbors. christian fanatics LOVE that particular thumbscrew to keep people compliant and obedient. and don’t let anyone tell you that a single goddamn thing will be done to stop bullying–it already doesn’t happen.
And the internet has given the folks with wrongness in their heart an out to find communities who will act as a bulwark against internal progress. No one around you likes you because you’re an asshole? Go on 8chan and get validated
Yes, or lemmy.
On the other hand, it can achieve the exact same thing for people who belong to an irl community that insists on being wrong, allowing them to find better information and a group to validate it. That’s certainly the vision people had of the internet back in the 90s. Too bad it hasn’t been anywhere near as ubiquitously a force of fact-checking as they envisioned back then, but I’d be willing to bet it’s been a stronger positive force than negative.
I mean. Yeah. That’s the thing. A lot of us have found solace online from our lived oppression. There is a degree to which when you realize there’s a core human need to connect that people fill going to some of the bad spaces online you start to realize that bad things happen in human history because we aren’t addressing the true problems. Its hard to say what to do once you realize that. I’m still grappling with that. But yeah… People turn to authoritarianism because they see the current thing isn’t working. My view is there’s too much top down authority. Their view is there’s not enough. Just… Something I’m processing
It seems so obvious from the outside looking into these online echo chambers, that you wonder how anyone participating can’t see it.
The really hard part is identifying these sort of things in your own online spaces.
Comment sections were a mistake
I don’t fully agree with this sentiment. There have been plenty of times where comment sections have pointed out additional context/bad and/or missing information on articles that I wouldn’t have otherwise known about. But on the other hand, they also can lead to cultivating echo chambers, as already mentioned. I think the best way to combat this is to teach people how to better recognize internal biases/prejudices and circle jerking, AKA some form of critical thinking.
Oh for sure. I’m over simplifying for shock value. The real problem is our brains haven’t adjusted to being able to access communities further away than what’s on the other side of the nearest hill
phpBB was a mistake.
Yes, but for lots of reasons.
Like social media, like AI, like air travel, like all things of this nature, comment sections are just a tool. The problem as always lies with our inability to figure out what tool is right for what situation and what job without an incredibly frustrating period of painful trial and error first, it seems.
I need an Instagram fork with the comments removed, I am too weak to avoid them on my own.
When I used Facebook briefly many years ago, I made extensive use of adblock to hide gross parts of the side with custom filters. I expect you can do the same with Instagram, if they still let you see it via a browser.
I was very recently banned for exactly that behavior. I wear that ban as a badge of honor and intend to never return
The funny thing is that those spaces are themselves very heavy on enforcing dogma through fear of social rejection. For example when the Christchurch massacre happened, I decided to go see what /pol/ was saying, and there were actually a few comments expressing mild disapproval, in a “I hate muslims too but cheering at people being brutally murdered as they try to get away is too far” kind of way. These people were of course shouted down and insulted and their sympathy painted as weakness. That validation is conditional.
The less leeway people are given by their community to explore and express their genuine thoughts and feelings, the more inaccurate and fucked up the popular consensus is free to get.
Fascists know exactly what they’re doing. They study this shit. The study the environmental and mental conditions that led to the original fascist movement and they actively want that. The part I don’t get, the thing that scares the shit out of me, is why. They got scooped out, emptied out, by our culture of emptiness and are refilling themselves with violence and they view this as good. Instead of building community through love, they build it through hate. Best I can figure out is that its easier to hate than to love.
My thoughts on this are, humans are pattern propagation machines. If someone is infused with spite and misery to begin with, love which fails to acknowledge and process that spite comes off as hollow and meaningless. Seeing others express the same things you feel is cathartic and generates trust. There is a profound need for sharing in feelings like contempt, rage, and the desire to hurt others that isn’t fulfilled, and that gets exploited by people crafting those feelings to fit into their ideological narratives.
It’s interesting that being completely shunned and outside of community though makes you either immune to the group think and therefore able to recognize and see the glaring oppositions of reality or lets you completely fall into madness with no recourse to pull yourself out of it.
we’re not as evolved as we like to think we are. ultimately we’re driven by the primate brain’s relentless urge to be part of a group (ANY group, apparently), on top of the more primal survival/mating dance instincts
Survival dance sounds interesting ;) But yes, humans are herd animals really. We figured out we’re stronger together and set some common rules, and we don’t want to be left outside so we conform.
Irony is, we’re also predators - and crucially our own is not excluded from predation. (in the nature sense not the sex offender sense)
(in the nature sense not the… child sense)
wanna see something scary? go here and type in your address
Oh yeah, I meant to express I was painting a comparison with animals and nature, not pedophelia.
Also, my address won’t show on that site :)
Blistering irony.
I had to institute a no-politics rule with certain family members during the pan. It’s saved relationships.
I have zero friends who are intolerant or hateful or shitty to others. If I found out someone I hadn’t spoken to in a long time had become like the right wing nuts in my family I’d first try to talk to them about why that happened with hope of saving them, but if not: get out of my life.
If I found out someone I hadn’t spoken to in a long time had become like the right wing nuts in my family I’d first try to talk to them about why that happened with hope of saving them, but if not: get out of my life.
I had to institute a no-politics rule with certain family members
Typical moderate: full of principles until they require sacrifice.
I don’t presume to know your situation or the people you’ve dealt with so I’ll be charitable and imagine you cut your losses and quit similar situations in good faith, but you and I are both ignorant about the lives of others. It seems to me like the behavior you label an abandonment of principle leaves the door open to future redemption of a loved one. That’s worth fighting for. On that ground, I think you should stop sharing this opinion even if it’s true for you. If they don’t want to damn their own mother to a propoganda echo chamber full of malice then I’m rooting for them.
Don’t share your truth because it’s not true for everyone.
No.
Ok coward
I love my mother, so you can fuck right off.
If you sit at a table with 11 Nazis, there are 12 Nazis at the table.
Yeah that’s genuinely a tough one. If my family were a part of the cult (thankfully they’re not) I don’t think I’d be able to cut them out outright. They’re misguided, brainwashed, but maybe those words are just my excuses to downplay the horrors they condone/believe, that they’re just my way of justifying keeping them in my life.
And then when I try to picture a nazi family back in Nazi germany, and the one member of that family realizing the horror of it all, instinctually I want them to cut ties or fight against their family, not turn a blind eye simply because they’re related. That feels gross, until suddenly I try to imagine myself in the same situation, with my loved ones, and suddenly it’s infinitely harder.
I hate this, and am forever grateful that I don’t personally have to deal with it. My heart goes out to those with family members that have been sucked in.
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My dad bought into this horseshit and I’ve all but cut him out of my life entirely. Him being an asshole to me didn’t make it any harder to do so.
I am glad my immediate family, and the family I had a relationship, with didn’t fall for this shit. Though I didn’t worry that they might. The parts of my family that did were already the parts I avoided, because they have a long history of other similar behaviors, over other shit.
I hate that stupid bitch
Coward.
Wow so enlightening, thank you very much for joining the conversation!
Ever run analytics on your post history? You’re not doing so well on literacy or hostility. Best of luck.
Internet shithead.
Some call it hypocrisy, others call it “survival instinct”
I call it the great stumbling block in our stride towards freedom.
As some guy who grew up in a Mormon community…this shit sucks and I don’t hear from anyone anymore after making it clear where I stood. (Really fucking weird how many of my uniformed family that trained to fight USSR is now pro Moscow but ok)
But, that’s kind of the point and how they get ya, a lot of these wannabe revolutionaries are just looking for a friend group. We need more board game cafes and places to make proper friends
Honestly the board game cafes and such don’t work. People don’t want to make new friends.
Dear everybody: Your heart is a irrational, stubborn, reactionary idiot. It makes some valid points, but it should always be weighed against what your brain has to say. And that’s assuming your brain isn’t also being an idiot at the time. Man us humans are stupid.
I listen exclusively to my tibula
Or just to get fake negative points on Lemmy.
I’m terrified of just finding out that all I do is for nothing and nothing means anything at all.
This describes Christianity (to an extent). When I turned atheist (because I couldn’t believe in God/Jesus anymore, not because I didn’t want to) there is this very Church-shaped hole in your proverbial soul that needs time to close. It’s a very sobering, yet lonely, way to live life, but due to the internet you don’t find yourself lonely for too long, but I imagine it used to be a pretty terrifying way to live life pre-internet.
I am lucky my Christian family still loves me, and I know they only proselytize to me (every now and then) because they care.
My faith in Christianity was actually fading, and I started to research it. Doing so actually strengthened it and led me to being baptised lmao.
I don’t agree with the downvotes here. I fall on the other side of the theistic question from you, but if you’re being sincere in your comment then I think you deserve appreciation, not condemnation. The way I see it, I have no answers, so I can’t judge anyone else’s conclusions, I can only judge them for being unwilling to ask the question and weigh their beliefs against it. A genuine belief, a conviction, should be one that survives trial by fire and stands up to any reasonable scrutiny. If your belief can’t do that, it’s not an actual belief, it’s a superstition. Taking you at your word here, if you genuinely weigh your belief against opposition rather than run from it and still come out with the conclusion of deistic belief, I’m not going to judge you. At least you’re doing the work.
Sorry for the unnecessary soapbox here, seeing the majority downvotes just left a bad taste in my mouth on this one.
edit: improved wording slightly
You haven’t seen them going around posting that exact same comment elsewhere then and telling people it’s the only true faith and going all evangelical with “if you don’t specifically believe in Jesus you go to hell and that’s the only truth that’s real” then?
Cause it feels like they are going sniping for followers paid for by the “He gets us” campaign.
To the best of my knowledge this is the only comment I’m aware of from them, and the only one to which I am referring. I am NOT attempting to endorse this person or their message in general or as a whole.
It’s alright just providing context for my down votes.
Thank you ❤️
I read it like someone saying they’ve done the math and determined the pyramid scheme is a great idea.
Me too, but like I said, at least they did the math. I can respect a bad conclusion, I have less respect for ignorance and unwillingness to question. That’s all I’m saying here.
This is something that is extremely difficult to process. Most religions that have persisted assuage some of our most natural existential worries (e.g. mortality, right vs wrong, free will, isolation vs being watched over).
When someone stops believing, all of those questions float back to the surface, and “we really don’t know” is such an unsatisfying answer.
Yeah I grew up before the internet was really big enough to find people in my situation so I just had to suffer in silence because I live in a very religious area.
It created a lot of resentment that I’ve had to struggle through because I was basically ostracized whenever my lack of faith was brought up. Some of the kindest sweetest people I’d ever met suddenly would act as if my existence was a disgrace.
But we can’t even process reality as it is. Our brains can’t handle it and hallucinate the gaps. Someone who might think their opinions are based on reality might base it on a lie that their brain made up subconsciously. Hence why eyewitness statements are not treated as a cold hard fact.
Agnotology is a very interesting way of studying this. Also, I’m vegan.
This comic is too true and everyday to be actually funny to a vegan, we just sigh and nod.
My sense of humor got ventilation-shutdown-plused.
Vegan, i aswell am btw.
Agnotology sounds interesting, i now know how i will spent some time on work tomorrow.
Reading theory on company time is just intellectualism 101.
That’s fair.
People are bad with reality.
Frame 4 is everyone who talks to a vegan
It’s scary how often we’re asked to question reality. It’s equally scary how easy it is to just give in.
Man, it makes me sad that there are people who feel this way. My friends and family all support research and facts and are willing to accept any that challenges their preconceptions. To anyone stuck with friends and family that doesn’t support them or is willing to accept reality, my heart goes out to you.
I fear this is the wrong take on this issue. The rule communities should follow should not be “make sure to get the facts right so that you don’t excommunicate those who get the facts right”. It should be “don’t excommunicate people who get the facts wrong, because you never know if you got them right yourself and if you punish dissidents too hard you’ll never be able to shift toward the correct world view”.
I didn’t say we should excommunicate anyone who doesn’t get facts right, I simply said it was sad that people thought like this at all. I think we should all learn to change our preconceptions when presented with evidence against them and that we should help others to do the same.
Can I join your family then… 🙃
Sure, we’ll invite you to thanksgiving
My friends and family all support research and facts and are willing to accept any that challenges their preconceptions.
So you might say that this is a trait that is considered essential for being a good member of your social group?
I would say so. I would also say it’s an important part of being an intelligent, rational individual, personally.
It sounds like your group wouldn’t readily welcome a member who wasn’t an intelligent, rational individual. I wonder, if a current member experienced a crisis that led them to a kind of blind, irrational faith, would they still be equally welcome?
Probably not, but I would definitely try to understand what led them to that faith.
I think the hard part is, almost no one realizes that they felt that way until they are finally on the outside.
I remember a really interesting article I read a few years ago that indicated the best way to change someone’s viewpoint was to welcome them into your community or group without requiring a change of mind first.
Turns out our social and emotional needs will trump our rational or logical side almost every time.
So you’re 100% right. What people need is a caring group of family and friends who encourage each other to question themselves in an effort to learn and grow.
If a friend or familiar is not okay talking about a subject, or clashes horribly with you in the topic, just give the silence hint and find something else to talk about. But if this keeps hapening or he/she doesn’t take the hint my suggestion is to soft ghost the person to avoid leaving a bad taste.
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