Once, I was on a bus with a typical Chick-tract distributing fundamentalist. I was polite, so he was polite, (Chick tracts are fucking hilarious so I accepted the one he offered me), so I made some small talk.
The thing he said that stood out to me most before the bus reached my stop was "do you know that if everyone was Christian, there would be no more war?"
That's bullshit, of course, and medieval Europe alone disproves that. But then I realized a lot of smug atheists have the same belief: if only religion vanished tomorrow, surely war and other problems would just vanish in a puff of euphoria. Also bullshit.
Yeah there's a big difference between believing im secularism and wanting the liberation of people from religious oppression and hating religious people, as well as blaming religion (or bronze age morality) for things caused by modern colonialism and imperialism.
I'm sorry, but I was raised by them. I saw people indoctrinated into believing North African religions were Satan worship who wants to harm Good Christians, that women don't have reproductive rights and that gay and trans people are scum. Liberation of the proletariat does not exist without liberation from religion.
There are nonreligious homophobes and misogynists and racists and trans phones. There are religious people who aren't bigots at all.
Clearly the religion is an excuse for the bigotry and not the ultimate source of it, or neither of those would be true.
Saying that Judaism inherently inclines one to the kinds of genocidal crimes Israel is committing makes you a fucking antisemite and is clearly disproven by the number of religious Jews who have been vocally opposed to the genocide and to Zionism generally.
You don't get to "I'm oppressed too" your way out of being called out for bigotry.
You seem to think my view is that "all religious people have the same beliefs". It's not. But I think a system designed to indocrinate reactionary beliefs and hatred towards people towards people who don't belong in those systems from a young age on the premise that it's your sole reason for existance causes people to have reactionary beliefs. Guess it's bigotry to call someone out for spreading bigotry towards you.
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies.
Let's see if he was right, you said:
You seem to think my view is that "all religious people have the same beliefs". It's not.
But no, here's what I think your view is:
Are you saying that Judaism is an inherently genocidal religion/culture?
Your response?
Not any more than other religions, but yes, it's in the book preached as the word of God and prophets. Israel is what happens when you put bronze age values in practice
Let me cut out all the weasel words for you
Yes
Yes, you think that Judaism is inherently genocidal.
What the fuck happened here, in a Palestine section of Lemmy of all places?
How would these two fucking fedora tippers fare if they walked among suffering Palestinians in Gaza and said "religion, all religion, is bad actually" with the smug-ass tones they're putting here?
No clue. I thought this kind of dumb reductive nu atheist "religion is the cause of all evil" had kind of died out when they morphed into acolytes of the Jungian fascism of Peterson
You know, I said that on a whim, but on second thought I am. I would rather not argue with people I think are cool, but in my view, religion, as an institution, proliferates and helps perpetuate hatred. It's not the only one, and it's often a tool for others to do that. But I'm conviced it's an outdated institution we (in general, not each specific person) would be better off casting away.
Religious superstition and prejudice is a problem, yes, but if you think religion is the singular source of society's problems and of human suffering in general, or that its absence would make those problems all go away in a puff of euphoria, you should be sorry.
No, of course not. I agree with you on that. Ultimately how a religion is followed is a reflection of the society, but I hope you'll agree that the source materials have a lot of outdated beliefs from a time where people knew little about a lot of things and it's fertile grounds for otherwise well meaning people to do harm.
but I hope you'll agree that the source materials have a lot of outdated beliefs
So does Reddit New Atheism. The Sam Harris-era atheist craving to glass the Middle East and seeking the mass murder of Muslims after 9/11 comes to mind.
There's no special monopoly on unqualified false expertise, bad hubris-laden ideology, or even propaganda that justifies murder and mayhem that is exclusive to religion, and not all of it is ancient. In fact some of the most fucking ignorant people in the industrialized world get taken for a ride and get into some very bad beliefs because they think that abandoning religion makes them objectively smarter than everyone else and immune to being fooled.
This is a problem. Anything coming from hatred is not coming from a good place.
However, I do have a problem with what monotheism did to the world as a colonising force.
We have depictions of full genocide in the Torah due to a chosen people doctrine (remember, at this time gendercide was nearly the exclusive form of genocide). We had Christians take this after Constantine to take a proselytising mission and turn it into an imperial casus belli. We saw the same with the formation and expansion that lead to the Golden Age of Islam.
While religious tolerance and practices have an increased amount of personal choice now in the "Western" world, that does not mean that the institution that they inherent aren't any more colonial now then they were then. They are ideas that replaced other ideas, often through a theology of "god strengthens my arm and weakens the heathens, so might makes right".
It's not hatred for any set belief, but the "In" and "Out" groups created by "chosen people" dynamics that are inherent within monotheistic religion. They have always been used to perpetuate division among the "foreign", wealth for an elite, and loyalty from the masses.
I think you need to be careful with throwing around "choseness" in this way because this is the exact perversion of the Jewish concept of choseness set forth in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf. I'm not trying to let Judaism off the hook for its genuine reactionary and regressive components (particularly with respect to women and non-normative sexuality), but it really muddies the waters when you overlay it with full-throated anti-Jewish projection onto Judaism.
Not really? There is an in-group (Jews) and an out-group (non-Jews, or Gentiles). The same applies for all monotheistic religions in a way that doesn't gel with the fabric of polytheism. These concepts, over centuries and through different forms (especially Christianity for the "West") were used to subjugate people by creating these in-groups and out-groups (to the point that the earliest use of the star of David to highlight the Jewish population I know of was done in England by Simon De Montfort (though I'm not an expert)).
That legacy still exists today and the institutions of wealth and (especially in places like the UK & Iran) governance. It's a legacy of us vs them and colonialism that needs to be examined.
I mean, you just did it again. Wasn't Simon De Montfort a Christian Crusader who persecuted the Jews? You are taking an antisemitic interpretation of "choseness" applied in a Christian framework that was then used to persecute Jews with a "they started it" argument. Which is exactly what the PEZ and MK did when they framed choseness. Rabbinic Judiasm (which is Judaism following the Roman conquest) deems "choseness" to be chosen NOT to control other populations. The Noahite laws, which apply to everyone whether Jewish or not (in the Jewish religion), specifically command the non Jews to create fair governments that the Jews could live under as 1 of 7 requirements. The Jews are "chosen" to follow the more stringent 613 commandments, which include following the laws of the just governments of non-Jews. Just saying that it creates categories of people is not unique to monotheism (or religion - see "America First"). And I don't think it tracks that creating groups in any context necessarily leads to genocidal intent and practice.
You are conflating my criticism of monotheism with a direct criticism of Judaism. I am saying the core value of monotheism (i.e. there is one god and its the one I picked) has created a colonial mindset in all monotheistic religion. You're saying "I did it again", but I'm doing it for all. I mean the Arab conquests soon after Muhhamad's death is the same as well.
Monotheism, as an ideology, has stolen a lot from us in terms of ways of thinking, belief, and added division in its stead. This continues to be true in major geopolitical states including America, Israel, Iran, and many, many more countries.
I think you are trying too hard to conflate the colonial/genocidal mindset with monotheism when the evidence doesn't really support it. Was Ancient Rome not colonial and genocidal? Greece? Egypt? They also had slaves. They conquered everyone they could. The exterminated whole swaths of peoples. They didn't need monotheism to do that. You could argue that the legacy of those polytheistic societies (specifically Egypt for the ancient Jews, Rome for Christians) laid the groundwork for the same genocidal/colonial mindset. But the main point is that the colonial and genocidal mindset is easier to understand from a class/material analysis than one tied to any specific theology. The monotheist theologies were used as a tool to organize and mobilize populations because that was the easiest tool to grab and it was couched in a language that the populations already spoke, but polytheists and other non-monotheists are just as capable of using their theological tools to do the same. For a more modern example, see for example the relationship between Hindu and Buddhist sides over Sri Lanka. Neither are abrahamic monotheisms, yet the colonial and genocidal tendency and forces are still at work.
Okay, to be clear, in the discussion you're jumping into, one of the interlocutors has stated that Jews are inherently genocidal.
I'm an atheist and I don't particularly value religion but I do value people and there are many good people who do value their religion and I won't stand for them being painted as inherently genocidal and neither should you.
There's a time and place for nuance but I don't know that this is it.
I'm saying the entire structure of monotheism has created a system of colonial thought and destruction across much of the world. Even the good theists I have met (and I have met many) will think less of or sorry for someone in the out group.
It's not Judaism, it's not Islam, it's not Christianity: it is the colonial ideology embedded in these ideologies that I'm saying are a negative force on the planet.
I was replying directly to the comment above, not so much the context. You are right to point that out.
Religious people aren't inherently genocidal. Their religion is. If you follow a book that says gay people must be put to death, you follow a homophobic book. Wether you actually believe that is up to you and God, but that's what is taught.
There are good religious people, they're the ones ignoring most of what their literature says.
Help me understand, and I actually mean this, this isn't a framing device for a dumb point though it looks like one. I mean this, I would rather be taught.
If the religious texts say genocidal stuff, why is it wrong to say if an institution believes in it, it believes in genocidal stuff? I can understand if sects qualify or revise it and I wouldn't call them that, but why is saying, for instance, "Christianism is homophobic" wrong when that is what the bible teaches? Again, if one church recontextualizes it, or says it was just Paul who said it, God is Love, fine, but can that sect speak for all Christianity when even in context the book preaches homophobia?
The main problem i have with this entire train of thought is that it's completely untethered from anything material and is therefore fundamentally wrong no matter what conclusions you're trying to draw. Well actually my main problem is that you're using this thinking to make (whether intentional or not) an anti-semtic conclusion which makes it way worse. But I'm going to focus on the first thing, because that's where i think where you're making a common mistake and stumbling into antisemitism.
Religion is a part of culture. Culture is an outgrowth of the base of society/system. The system itself is driven by material reality. Culture can work to reinforce and strengthen the system, in fact that's the main point of it, but it doesn't dictate the actions of the system. Colonialism, imperialism, genocide aren't caused by religion, anymore than they could be caused by a movie or a song.
This relationship is also why religions are malleable. Religions change and peoples relationship to them changes because they are in a subservient relationship to material drivers. The easiest thing to look at is the period of religious upheaval in Christianity coinciding with the emergence of capitalism (Protestant Reformation, 30 years War, English Civil War, development of Calvanism, etc.) - and the need for theology to either adapt to be compatible or become discarded.
The kind logic you're using is predicated on idealism the belief that ideas are the primary driver behind reality and actions. That applied to religion is the MO of nu athiest pseudointellectuals like Golden Girls fortune heir Sam Harris. He's known for making your exact same arguement but in an Islamophobic way - the target being Muslims and not Jews.
It's hard to understand how you don't get that saying Judaism is genocidal is incredibly antisemitic. But a lot of people repeated Harris's bullshit and claimed they weren't Islamophobic by hiding behind one hadith or another as proof that Muslims are evil. Some may not have understood. Harris may not have even really understand how rascist he is because is exceptionally stupid. So you might not mean it. If you don't want people to call you antisemitic you need to do a little self-criticism and examine what you really think and want to say here.
Religion is a part of culture. Culture is an outgrowth of the base of society/system. The system itself is driven by material reality. Culture can work to reinforce and strengthen the system, in fact that's the main point of it, but it doesn't dictate the actions of the system. Colonialism, imperialism, genocide aren't caused by religion, anymore than they could be caused by a movie or a song.
That's the problem I have with it, how good it is at reinforcing and justifying hate. Yes, a movie or song also reinforces hatred (which, mind you, those should be shat on appropriately), but I think having your spiritual life tied to it makes specially good convincing people. People use it to justify what they already believe, yes, but I know people who take the bible at face and believe in things just because that's what's in there, I don't think it's purely a one way street.
do a little self-criticism and examine what you really think and want to say here.
I wouldn't be putting any effort if I weren't. It upsets me. Is it objectionable if what I say is uncritical, unqualified belief of the texts that preach genocide is itself genocidal belief?
This particular person is from .ml but honestly I've seen this kind of rhetoric popping up a lot recently on Hexbear and it's frustrating.
If you have hatred and contempt in your heart for all religious people, you hate and despise the global proletariat.
Once, I was on a bus with a typical Chick-tract distributing fundamentalist. I was polite, so he was polite, (Chick tracts are fucking hilarious so I accepted the one he offered me), so I made some small talk.
The thing he said that stood out to me most before the bus reached my stop was "do you know that if everyone was Christian, there would be no more war?"
That's bullshit, of course, and medieval Europe alone disproves that. But then I realized a lot of smug atheists have the same belief: if only religion vanished tomorrow, surely war and other problems would just vanish in a puff of euphoria. Also bullshit.
Yeah there's a big difference between believing im secularism and wanting the liberation of people from religious oppression and hating religious people, as well as blaming religion (or bronze age morality) for things caused by modern colonialism and imperialism.
I'm sorry, but I was raised by them. I saw people indoctrinated into believing North African religions were Satan worship who wants to harm Good Christians, that women don't have reproductive rights and that gay and trans people are scum. Liberation of the proletariat does not exist without liberation from religion.
I was raised by evangelicals myself, and also went through a nu atheist phase when I was 14.
You're a bigot and you need to grow up and put that away.
Sure, I'll ignore all problems it causes once I get privileged enough that they stop affecting me
There are nonreligious homophobes and misogynists and racists and trans phones. There are religious people who aren't bigots at all.
Clearly the religion is an excuse for the bigotry and not the ultimate source of it, or neither of those would be true.
Saying that Judaism inherently inclines one to the kinds of genocidal crimes Israel is committing makes you a fucking antisemite and is clearly disproven by the number of religious Jews who have been vocally opposed to the genocide and to Zionism generally.
You don't get to "I'm oppressed too" your way out of being called out for bigotry.
You seem to think my view is that "all religious people have the same beliefs". It's not. But I think a system designed to indocrinate reactionary beliefs and hatred towards people towards people who don't belong in those systems from a young age on the premise that it's your sole reason for existance causes people to have reactionary beliefs. Guess it's bigotry to call someone out for spreading bigotry towards you.
Some jackass once said:
Let's see if he was right, you said:
But no, here's what I think your view is:
Your response?
Let me cut out all the weasel words for you
Yes, you think that Judaism is inherently genocidal.
Fuck you, you antisemitic trash.
"I can ignore everything you say except the part that I want to mischaracterise."
Get the fuck out of here and go back to Reddit where you belong. You'll be congratulated nonstop there no matter how masturbatory your takes are.
You're not.
Welcome to the reddit nu atheist pile on. I was not expecting antisemitic Sam Harris to be a thing, but here it is
What the fuck happened here, in a Palestine section of Lemmy of all places?
How would these two fucking fedora tippers fare if they walked among suffering Palestinians in Gaza and said "religion, all religion, is bad actually" with the smug-ass tones they're putting here?
No clue. I thought this kind of dumb reductive nu atheist "religion is the cause of all evil" had kind of died out when they morphed into acolytes of the Jungian fascism of Peterson
You know, I said that on a whim, but on second thought I am. I would rather not argue with people I think are cool, but in my view, religion, as an institution, proliferates and helps perpetuate hatred. It's not the only one, and it's often a tool for others to do that. But I'm conviced it's an outdated institution we (in general, not each specific person) would be better off casting away.
Religious superstition and prejudice is a problem, yes, but if you think religion is the singular source of society's problems and of human suffering in general, or that its absence would make those problems all go away in a puff of euphoria, you should be sorry.
No, of course not. I agree with you on that. Ultimately how a religion is followed is a reflection of the society, but I hope you'll agree that the source materials have a lot of outdated beliefs from a time where people knew little about a lot of things and it's fertile grounds for otherwise well meaning people to do harm.
So does Reddit New Atheism. The Sam Harris-era atheist craving to glass the Middle East and seeking the mass murder of Muslims after 9/11 comes to mind.
There's no special monopoly on unqualified false expertise, bad hubris-laden ideology, or even propaganda that justifies murder and mayhem that is exclusive to religion, and not all of it is ancient. In fact some of the most fucking ignorant people in the industrialized world get taken for a ride and get into some very bad beliefs because they think that abandoning religion makes them objectively smarter than everyone else and immune to being fooled.
This is a problem. Anything coming from hatred is not coming from a good place.
However, I do have a problem with what monotheism did to the world as a colonising force.
We have depictions of full genocide in the Torah due to a chosen people doctrine (remember, at this time gendercide was nearly the exclusive form of genocide). We had Christians take this after Constantine to take a proselytising mission and turn it into an imperial casus belli. We saw the same with the formation and expansion that lead to the Golden Age of Islam.
While religious tolerance and practices have an increased amount of personal choice now in the "Western" world, that does not mean that the institution that they inherent aren't any more colonial now then they were then. They are ideas that replaced other ideas, often through a theology of "god strengthens my arm and weakens the heathens, so might makes right".
It's not hatred for any set belief, but the "In" and "Out" groups created by "chosen people" dynamics that are inherent within monotheistic religion. They have always been used to perpetuate division among the "foreign", wealth for an elite, and loyalty from the masses.
[Edited to clarify the last paragraph]
I think you need to be careful with throwing around "choseness" in this way because this is the exact perversion of the Jewish concept of choseness set forth in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf. I'm not trying to let Judaism off the hook for its genuine reactionary and regressive components (particularly with respect to women and non-normative sexuality), but it really muddies the waters when you overlay it with full-throated anti-Jewish projection onto Judaism.
Not really? There is an in-group (Jews) and an out-group (non-Jews, or Gentiles). The same applies for all monotheistic religions in a way that doesn't gel with the fabric of polytheism. These concepts, over centuries and through different forms (especially Christianity for the "West") were used to subjugate people by creating these in-groups and out-groups (to the point that the earliest use of the star of David to highlight the Jewish population I know of was done in England by Simon De Montfort (though I'm not an expert)).
That legacy still exists today and the institutions of wealth and (especially in places like the UK & Iran) governance. It's a legacy of us vs them and colonialism that needs to be examined.
I mean, you just did it again. Wasn't Simon De Montfort a Christian Crusader who persecuted the Jews? You are taking an antisemitic interpretation of "choseness" applied in a Christian framework that was then used to persecute Jews with a "they started it" argument. Which is exactly what the PEZ and MK did when they framed choseness. Rabbinic Judiasm (which is Judaism following the Roman conquest) deems "choseness" to be chosen NOT to control other populations. The Noahite laws, which apply to everyone whether Jewish or not (in the Jewish religion), specifically command the non Jews to create fair governments that the Jews could live under as 1 of 7 requirements. The Jews are "chosen" to follow the more stringent 613 commandments, which include following the laws of the just governments of non-Jews. Just saying that it creates categories of people is not unique to monotheism (or religion - see "America First"). And I don't think it tracks that creating groups in any context necessarily leads to genocidal intent and practice.
You are conflating my criticism of monotheism with a direct criticism of Judaism. I am saying the core value of monotheism (i.e. there is one god and its the one I picked) has created a colonial mindset in all monotheistic religion. You're saying "I did it again", but I'm doing it for all. I mean the Arab conquests soon after Muhhamad's death is the same as well.
Monotheism, as an ideology, has stolen a lot from us in terms of ways of thinking, belief, and added division in its stead. This continues to be true in major geopolitical states including America, Israel, Iran, and many, many more countries.
I think you are trying too hard to conflate the colonial/genocidal mindset with monotheism when the evidence doesn't really support it. Was Ancient Rome not colonial and genocidal? Greece? Egypt? They also had slaves. They conquered everyone they could. The exterminated whole swaths of peoples. They didn't need monotheism to do that. You could argue that the legacy of those polytheistic societies (specifically Egypt for the ancient Jews, Rome for Christians) laid the groundwork for the same genocidal/colonial mindset. But the main point is that the colonial and genocidal mindset is easier to understand from a class/material analysis than one tied to any specific theology. The monotheist theologies were used as a tool to organize and mobilize populations because that was the easiest tool to grab and it was couched in a language that the populations already spoke, but polytheists and other non-monotheists are just as capable of using their theological tools to do the same. For a more modern example, see for example the relationship between Hindu and Buddhist sides over Sri Lanka. Neither are abrahamic monotheisms, yet the colonial and genocidal tendency and forces are still at work.
And what the fuck are you doing here, now, with your smug Reddit New Atheist bullshit?
Quick what year is it??? Is it 2006 again? It feels like the worst time travel experiment ever
Okay, to be clear, in the discussion you're jumping into, one of the interlocutors has stated that Jews are inherently genocidal.
I'm an atheist and I don't particularly value religion but I do value people and there are many good people who do value their religion and I won't stand for them being painted as inherently genocidal and neither should you.
There's a time and place for nuance but I don't know that this is it.
I'm saying the entire structure of monotheism has created a system of colonial thought and destruction across much of the world. Even the good theists I have met (and I have met many) will think less of or sorry for someone in the out group.
It's not Judaism, it's not Islam, it's not Christianity: it is the colonial ideology embedded in these ideologies that I'm saying are a negative force on the planet.
I was replying directly to the comment above, not so much the context. You are right to point that out.
Religious people aren't inherently genocidal. Their religion is. If you follow a book that says gay people must be put to death, you follow a homophobic book. Wether you actually believe that is up to you and God, but that's what is taught.
There are good religious people, they're the ones ignoring most of what their literature says.
I will say though, this is a great Sam Harris impression. Antisemitic Sam Harris is actually an interesting bit
Help me understand, and I actually mean this, this isn't a framing device for a dumb point though it looks like one. I mean this, I would rather be taught.
If the religious texts say genocidal stuff, why is it wrong to say if an institution believes in it, it believes in genocidal stuff? I can understand if sects qualify or revise it and I wouldn't call them that, but why is saying, for instance, "Christianism is homophobic" wrong when that is what the bible teaches? Again, if one church recontextualizes it, or says it was just Paul who said it, God is Love, fine, but can that sect speak for all Christianity when even in context the book preaches homophobia?
The main problem i have with this entire train of thought is that it's completely untethered from anything material and is therefore fundamentally wrong no matter what conclusions you're trying to draw. Well actually my main problem is that you're using this thinking to make (whether intentional or not) an anti-semtic conclusion which makes it way worse. But I'm going to focus on the first thing, because that's where i think where you're making a common mistake and stumbling into antisemitism.
Religion is a part of culture. Culture is an outgrowth of the base of society/system. The system itself is driven by material reality. Culture can work to reinforce and strengthen the system, in fact that's the main point of it, but it doesn't dictate the actions of the system. Colonialism, imperialism, genocide aren't caused by religion, anymore than they could be caused by a movie or a song.
This relationship is also why religions are malleable. Religions change and peoples relationship to them changes because they are in a subservient relationship to material drivers. The easiest thing to look at is the period of religious upheaval in Christianity coinciding with the emergence of capitalism (Protestant Reformation, 30 years War, English Civil War, development of Calvanism, etc.) - and the need for theology to either adapt to be compatible or become discarded.
The kind logic you're using is predicated on idealism the belief that ideas are the primary driver behind reality and actions. That applied to religion is the MO of nu athiest pseudointellectuals like Golden Girls fortune heir Sam Harris. He's known for making your exact same arguement but in an Islamophobic way - the target being Muslims and not Jews.
It's hard to understand how you don't get that saying Judaism is genocidal is incredibly antisemitic. But a lot of people repeated Harris's bullshit and claimed they weren't Islamophobic by hiding behind one hadith or another as proof that Muslims are evil. Some may not have understood. Harris may not have even really understand how rascist he is because is exceptionally stupid. So you might not mean it. If you don't want people to call you antisemitic you need to do a little self-criticism and examine what you really think and want to say here.
Thank you for the response.
That's the problem I have with it, how good it is at reinforcing and justifying hate. Yes, a movie or song also reinforces hatred (which, mind you, those should be shat on appropriately), but I think having your spiritual life tied to it makes specially good convincing people. People use it to justify what they already believe, yes, but I know people who take the bible at face and believe in things just because that's what's in there, I don't think it's purely a one way street.
I wouldn't be putting any effort if I weren't. It upsets me. Is it objectionable if what I say is uncritical, unqualified belief of the texts that preach genocide is itself genocidal belief?
Its not that complicated. Saying Judaism is genocidal is just like saying Islam is a religion of war. Its rascist.