• BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      9 hours ago

      Welcome to the reddit nu atheist pile on. I was not expecting antisemitic Sam Harris to be a thing, but here it is

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        5 hours ago

        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?

        • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]
          ·
          4 hours ago

          so-true >religion, all religion, is bad actually very-intelligent

          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

    • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
      ·
      10 hours ago

      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 But I'm conviced it's an outdated institution we (in general, not each specific person) would be better off casting away.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        10 hours ago

        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.

        • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
          ·
          edit-2
          10 hours ago

          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a religion is followed is a reflection of the society, but I hope you'll agree that the source materials have a lot of outdated beliefs from a time where people knew little about a lot of things and it's fertile grounds for otherwise well meaning people to do harm.

          • UlyssesT [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            6 hours ago

            but I hope you'll agree that the source materials have a lot of outdated beliefs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.