Good to be able to hash out leftist strains to counter reactionary hindu nationalists, etc.
EDIT: Also requesting c/jainism and c/sikhism (in addition to c/buddhism and c/hinduism requested in original OP).
EDIT 2: WTF these replies and the number of upvotes (except for some that seemed to be legit good faith)... No wonder POC don't feel welcome on this site. Mods? @Beatnik @ScreamoBMO @EcoSoco @Uncle_Hoe @Gorn
EDIT 3: To those asking "How would these comms be relevant?", asking this is kinda whack in the first place, because why would asking for a religious comm need justification to exist when there are other religious comms already existing? But just for those who do want "justification", here's a leftist podcast talking about Buddhism: https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/buddhism. As for Hinduism, it's pretty obvious with Modi and his nationalist goons that it's a relevant topic. Similarly, it is Sikhs who are risking their lives in the insurrection against the Indian government right now. Oh and one of the most important struggles against colonialism was heavily influenced by the non-violent philosophy of Jainism (i.e. Indian independence from the British). Like I said before, why I even have to justify this in the first place is mega whack, but there you go.
Yeah not gonna lie lots of weird racist undercurrents in this thread.
Yeah communities sound cool but I wonder whether we have anybody from kurdistan at all, or even just two that would want a sub to put content in.
Not too long ago people were saying the exact same thing about trans people. "ThErE'S bArElY aNy Of ThEm WhY sHoUlD wE hAvE a SpAcE fOr ThEm?"
So what, it's just supposed to be a comm about Jainism with no Jains in it?
The population of Rojava is like 2 million or so. There are probably 5 million Jains in the world. Yet there's a c/rojava.
I guess I need to repeat myself... what kind of smooth-brained reddit take are you trying to say here?
Because Rojava's a geopolitical entity and a political project that people want to follow the development of and possibly emulate? Creating a comm just for talking about someone else's religion is strange.
Who would mod it?
Because Rojava’s a geopolitical entity and a political project that people want to follow the development of and possibly emulate?
And people don't wanna emulate the communitarian principles of the Ummah in Islam? Or the communitarian principles of the Sangha from Buddhism?
Creating a comm just for talking about someone else’s religion is strange.
Yet there's c/christian, c/judaism, etc. I actually think there should also be a c/atheism or c/irreligious as well.
And people don’t wanna emulate the communitarian principles of the Ummah in Islam? Or the communitarian principles of the Sangha from Buddhism?
Well sure, and those people are here. But would a Jainism comm be for Jains and people seeking to emulate Jainism or just for a bunch of Westerners to idly comment on it without any representation from the actual communities or practitioners?
Yet there’s c/christian, c/judaism, etc.
I was under the impression that these subs are for and modded by Christians and Jews.
meanwhile no one posts in rojava
i think this topic should be brought up again once there is demand for that
OP makes a good point tho... why all this whining when certain comms are proposed when there are already other comms existing. Even if no one posts in rojava, it's still there. There's no dude saying "let's nuke this comm until there is a demand for it."
Even if no one posts in rojava, it’s still there. There’s no dude saying “let’s nuke this comm until there is a demand for it.”
Precisely.
I think we should make a comm if there are people who want to post in that comm
we should probably go and post about it more to see how many people would join
Sorry I meant that more about online communities in general, not specifically here.
I mentioned why in the OP... that it would be nice to have a place to hash out leftist strains to combat things like hindu nationalism.
I don't think I'm down for modding, but I'm sure there are plenty that are.
The only ones that I feel somewhat qualified to mod would be hinduism and buddhism. But even then, with Buddhism most of my knowledge is from the Theravada tradition of Burma. As for Hinduism, there are so many varying sects and my knowledge is more of breadth rather than depth.
I'm going to be honest, I had the same feeling of underqualifiedness.
I'm not a biblical scholar or theologian, but tbh....things are mostly quiet and manageable.
Of course that is due to the relative inactivity, which is it's own issue, but theoretically as the comm grows there would be more people to moderate and more people from separate buddhist traditions.
I don't think a comm needs to justify itself really.
If their is someone willing to mod it then I don't see what is lost by allowing it, even if only one person visits it.
:shrug:I apologize for the tone of my post, but it didn't start out that way. I just got somewhat jarred by the responses, and especially by the fact that they were getting a lot of upvotes.
It's all good. This stonk shit is also getting to me too so there's definitely some crossover from that.
Like you said, delineating these things is difficult and to some extent subjective and arbitrary.
Christianity, for example, is obviously experienced differently by different people in different cultures.
The type you might run into in the rural midwest of the US will be different then like you said in Latin America or Ethiopia and so on.
Furthermore we could divide it up between Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant etc, those are different.
But then what kind of Protestant? Evangelical? Mainline? etc.Idk what I am exactly getting at, but I think it has to be a balance between what is practical , while also not being overly broad.
If at some point the c/christianity comm grows to the extent where there is a large enough presence of Latin American comrades saying "this is too white...or american-centric" and they would prefer to have their own then I think that is fair.
As of right now though, I think the separation of the Abrahamic faiths into separate comms is logical and understandable based on the unique experiences of these groups solely in a US context.I can't really speak for the dharmic or other religions though.
The Discord has a single text channel for religion and spirituality. We ought to do the same and roll any religious communities into one.
That sounds fair. It's kinda like c/languagelearning. There's lots of languages but they all fit under one.
It's just curious that there's all this pushback when "the brownz religions" like hinduism, buddhism, etc. are proposed when there are quite niche communities already like c/rojava or c/kurdistan. I also wonder how many of those pushing back against what I proposed in the OP are also wall street bet bros who were pushing hard for a comm to do their stonk shit.
I think they're mostly pushing back because the communities would be dead. The text channel I mentioned is pretty slow as-is. People who are religious at all are bound to be a minority on a far-left forum, and people who follow Eastern religions even more so on a primarily English-language forum. A single religion/spirituality/occultism com would generate more discussion than a series of individual subs.
This problem of niche coms is something that we see clearly with c/kurdistan and c/rojava. Instead, we could have a single com for Middle East news that would be much more active.
People who are religious at all are bound to be a minority on a far-left forum, and people who follow Eastern religions even more so on a primarily English-language forum.
Actually, with the prevalence of mediation and interest in Buddhism really poppin off these days, I'd argue that there would be more people in a comm like c/buddhism than c/christianity.
This sort of seeker would get more from an all-inclusive com than they get from a com centered on a single tradition.
if there's a few buddhists we can manage to find interested in starting one i think it would grow
that could lead to the feed being dominated by one (likely western christian) religion
I'm not intrinsically opposed to the idea, but a concern I would have is at some point one of the communities overshadowing or smothering the others.
I guess there could be the reverse and these communities receive more traffic...but then the question is traffic from whom?
I'd also understand if these comms would want to not be grouped up with all the others and remain independent to also serve as a secondary function as sort of safe space for those groups.
I don't think it's something we really have to worry about right now, as c/judaism, c/islam, and c/christianity to my knowledge aren't getting all that much traffic.If one religious tradition ends up overshadowing the others, then that is the time to split off a new community. As near as I can tell, that's how new communities have been formed recently - too much of one thing in main. Stocks, for example.
A fair point I suppose.
But I don't really see what is gained...besides maybe a sense of religious solidarity?
If people are interested in multiple religions they can subscribe to multiple of the comms or even click on them individually to check them out, no?Multiple religious traditions each have something to offer. Dialogue between them is, I think, more valuable than each in isolation.
Sure, but I'm not convinced cramming them all together is the way to go about that.
I could say the same about leftist organizing. The point is to have them in place so that when new people do come in, there is an infrastructure set up.
So then why don't we just eliminate any of the other religious comms? Funny, were you saying this when people were proposing c/judaism or c/islam? Might wanna interrogate why you're saying what you're saying.
c/dharma would be good to cover all the relgions that came out of india.
By that reasoning c/christianity, c/islam, and c/judaism should be grouped under c/abrahamic.
Your idea would be good for a short seminar on world religions, but there are too many differences in theology, philosophy, history, and culture to group them together in that way.
It would also be kinda orientalist to group together the "dharmic" religions in one comm while allowing islam, christianity, and judaism to be separate.
I would actually agree. Consolidating comms is good, fragmenting is bad. If I had my way, I would literally halve the amount of comms on this site.
Consolidating comms is good, fragmenting is bad.
:chavez-salute:
True. I was just thinking the communities would be small on this website and any jains or sikhs might feel excluded not having a community but I probably went too far the other way and cast too wide a net for the community.
I'll tell you from personal experience, Jains and Sikhs do get a little irked when they're grouped in with Hindus.
But then there's still the issue of comms like c/christianity, etc, which are explicitly religious.
