Attitude to Religion and its believers.

Imagine if that person did all the same things they do, but without the label of "religion" being attached.

Charity? Awesome! Habitat for Humanity is an explicitly Christian organization and does great work. In my neighborhood, the local Lutheran and Quaker churches give out free food to the poor, and they don't sneak any Lutheran or Quaker cooties into it. If you're good to others because you think God wants you to be good to others, that still really does count as being good to others.

Prayer? Okay, take "religion" off of it and they're meditating, thinking, or talking to themselves. That's good. Unless they're thinking and talking about torturing their neighbors eternally, or something creepy like that. (But even then, better to keep those fantasies to yourself than to act them out in public.) Die Gedanken sind frei — thoughts are free.

Going to worship services? Okay, they've got a weekly social event where they sing songs and listen to speeches. Sounds great, unless the songs are about "everyone outside this room is a terrible person and deserves to suffer forever" and the speeches are about hate politics. If they're about how wonderful it is to be nice to each other, or being brave and standing up against oppression, or something else that would be positive even without the label of "religion" on it, great!

Dietary rules? It's okay to have preferences, distinct cultures, cuisines, and so forth. For that matter: my family isn't Jewish, but when I was little, we ate kosher beef hot dogs, because my mom expected the rabbis would care about the meat being sanitary. (Unfortunately in retrospect, kosher slaughter is, shall we say, not clearly better than secular slaughter.)

What you said is all true, but you are ignoring the negative aspects of religion.

Religious influence, both on their followers and on government, is anti-science, misogynistic, and anti-LGBT.

Religions are funded like pyramid schemes, with the most desperate and vulnerable as their victims.

Religious indoctrination is child abuse.
- Anti-science, misogyny, etc. are bad independently of whether they are done in the name of religion, or pseudoscience, or political ideology. Doing bad things in the name of religion is exactly as bad as doing them in the name of communism, or capitalism, or racial ideology, etc.
I like this interpretation but last I checked the vegans aren't going to vote for a despot who will kill all non-vegans, and that they don't view the death of all non-vegans as a positive thing. (Most vegans I know are keenly aware they can only participate in veganism because of modern agricultural, distribution, and economic systems. They know veganism is an elitist choice that a lot of the world cannot make.)

I think that's the major difference here.
- Sure. Voting for religious genocide is just as bad as voting for non-religious genocide: e.g. on the basis of nationalism, pseudoscience, or the like.
- Wow, you sure did manage to slip in a bunch of self-serving misinformation about veganism for no fucking reason. Who are you actually trying to convince, I wonder. (I'm being sarcastic, I know perfectly well.)
I like this. You're good people.

I treat religion like my penis.

It's ok not to have one.

It's ok to have one.

It's ok to be proud of it.

But don't display it in public, and don't shove it down people's throats.

And NEVER whip it out in congress.

You aren't born religious. You are indoctrinated. I grew up in a cult. It wasn't nearly as bad as cults get, but it has its own insane ~~ramblings~~ "teachings"

I escaped my indoctrination because I took it too seriously. I wanted to adhere perfectly, which resulted in finding out how convoluted and hypocritical it is. It is impossible.

So in my confusion, I started to look more critically at the hows and whys. The result, religions all use the same dirty tactics to get people to believe. False promises, comforting lies and empty threats that will seem real to those who were taught magical thinking.

I reject religion.

But I cannot hate people who are religious for just being religious. They were a child when taught, or an adult so downtrodden they needed a fairy tale to continue life. Or perhaps just are a bit naive. It's a slippery slope. So... I can't blame people. I get it. I know what it's like and it saddens me the older people get, the less likely they'll ever escape the mental constriction religion brings.

I sure as fuck hate a religious person for commiting hate crimes. They can go to hell.

You are born with spiritual needs. It is clear that you still have unmet spiritual needs despite your religious trauma.
- My spiritual need was liberation from this projective bullshit.
- [x] doubt
  
  Don't project your needs onto others.

I don't care unless they force me to believe the way they do.

What would you say to a person that wont use preferred pronouns of a trans person?
- If you're trying to make an analogy here, that's incredibly short sighted.
  
  Forcing religious values down other ppls throats is trying to dictate their life.
  
  "forcing" aka asking to be referred to with certain pronouns is asking to have your own life respected.
  
  One is about having your beliefs respected, the other is demanding others to act as if they were part of your faith no matter if they believe or care.
- I’d tell that person they’re being intolerant and offensive, and to fuck off.
  
  And I’ll tell you that that is an unrelated question to the topic, and that you are being offensive by injecting that question in such a manner. You can pick your religion. You cannot pick whether or not you have gender dysphoria.
- It's not analogous nor related to the topic, but since you asked, this scenario requires a lot of assumptions.
  
  Is said person intentionally misgendering? I'll make it quick. "Please respect [trans person]'s preferences." It's not my business to force them to comply or not.
- What would you say to a person who refuses to acknowledge or take into consideration the belief of a religious individual?

I am agnostic, and if a god exists, I hate them.

I hate the belief not the believer

preach (pun intended)

I consider myself an anti-theist. Religion is used to control unintelligent/mentally challenged people and shouldn't exist in any form.

I don't hate the people unless they are forcing it down my throat.

Congratulations, this is the vision philosophers shared during the Lumières
- Ramen

All religions are made up. No one has ever proven that a "god" or supernatural entity exists, no one, ever. It's all mythology, fiction and "supernatural" nonsense. Ghosts, angels, demons, gods, spirits, pick a name, pick a flavor, none of it is real. It's like insisting that Harry Potter, James Bond, Tinkerbell, Captain Kirk or Superman are actually real living people / spirits / entities, and they have the ability to control you now and after you die. Just because you, or someone claims it's real does not make it factual. You are allowed to believe in whatever you want to, but you are NOT allowed to force others to believe that same thing. If you truly believe in your "religion", you would research it in every way possible, reading pro and con information to get a balanced understanding of what you decided to believe in. You will learn where all the stories of your religion originate from, and that will actually decide what you choose to believe in. Religion is a lifestyle choice.

Growing up in religious circles I kinda learned that there's no good in religion. Surely there's good religious people, but they spread the evil word the same as those who want to bring the oppressive shit onto others.

Religion has never been good for anything but for controlling masses

I don't mind them doing their thing at home, but I could do without them shoving their lifestyle in everybody's face in public.

I don't tell non-straight people they can't have their pride parade, I don't tell people they shouldn't kiss or hold hands in public, I don't tell religious people they can't have public displays, either. What I object to is if any of those groups insist I join them, or insist I don't.
- I hope my sarcasm was clear

Mostly I find them annoying. I mildly understand the need for human meaning as it kind of, tends to come up later at night, or for the elderly, or when life really sucks or you tend to even just be really really bored right.

I also understand some of the benefits, right, like. As much as people will despise to admit it, you don't get, say, the number zero without the Muslim science guys, and you don't get science without the enlightenment which stemmed out of some weirdass Catholic Christian theory guys. and then everyone's all like, oh no well you can't attribute that to the Catholics and if anything they hampered progress, and I'd say, well, maybe, maybe, but also maybe science sucks as we commonly understand it and maybe also you can't really divorce any part of things from their cultural context, or else things get fucky.

On the other hand I find them annoying and I find that all to be totally null and void because the vast majority of people are just using it as an opiate to placate literally all of their anxieties about the world with a bunch of meaningless thought terminating cliche style statements, and even actively reinforce their own participation in some of the worst aspects of their own culture and society even at points in which they really don't want to or know that it's horrible and is causing them pain.

So I dunno, mostly it sucks.

I just don't support dogmatic thinking and indoctrination, especially when it creeps into politics, which is inevitable at the scale of the most popular religions.

In theory I have no problem with other people's faith, but in practice it degrades the critical thinking capacity of our population and, paradoxically, the moral capacity as well. That's a net negative in my opinion.

Charities exist without religion. I think religions often teach good moral frameworks, though very traditional. But those come with a huge caveat that you cut out a big hole in your brain for the belief that God exists and cares about how you behave. That one idea leads to so much trouble, from false prophets to normalized misogyny and hatred of gay people.

I'm atheist. My mom is a devout catholic (and raised me that way) and my dad is an atheist Jew. I never truly believed and mostly think religion is dumb, but I'm fine with everyone believing or not as they see fit. I'm not fine when others' religion is forced on anyone else - e.g., abortion restrictions, the 10 commandments being displayed in Louisiana classrooms.

I used to be fence sitter agnostic but Qanon has made me deep on the athiest side. I don't care what ones religion is but I don't want to hear about it. Its fine to mention it but if someone is always talking about it then I will avoid them.

I’m an ex-Christian, the more I read the Bible, the more it doesn’t make sense. But I respect others choices to believe in their higher power, whatever that may be that makes their life work. Double points if they respect back. They all can’t be right.

I don't really care if they believe in something.

I would never try to convince them to stop or anything like that.

I think the type of people that frequent Reddit and Lemmy and constantly complain and mock religious people are the worst.

personally, i don't get, like, at all. i don't care what nonsense folk put their faith in, so long as they don't use it to justify being a dick, or try to justify others being a dick. maybe they get some pity/sympathy from me, to a point, cause they probably got brainwashed when they were a child, or otherwise in a vulnerable state, and maybe some amusement depending on how 'out there' their counterfactual beliefs are.

i generally get on well enough with my religious friends, but it's not a topic that comes up much in real life.

i don't usually care for organized religion, but that has more to do with my anarchism than my atheism.

this all goes equally whether we're talking about conventional religions, modern conspiracy theories, new-age mumbo jumbo, or what-have-you.

I respect the fact that people believe. They even can form their own clubs as far as I'm concerned. Forcing those beliefs onto other people is something I do have an issue with.

For the don't-anger-the-sky-daddy religions, roughly the same as having a crazy aunt who gives 10% of her shit to a psychic or Trump. I haven't experienced the be-one-with-the-universe religions being as exploitative, but I guess those wack Theravadan Wats don't pay for themselves.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/10/india/dalai-lama-apology-kissing-boy-video-intl-hnk/index.html

Buddhism has its own set of worthless freaks, you know.

I myself am Christian and have never had trouble getting along with others no matter their religious beliefs. The only conflict is when someone thinks their religion or religious precepts should be made law; I have no tolerance for that.

Those who believe in an invisible sky wizard (or any other delusion) belong in psychotherapy.

It's ok, I'll pray for you /j

I have a spiritual need and that's liberation from this discrimitory bullshit /srs
As someone who is mostly agnostic, those who belive that absence of evidence equals evidence of absence belong in psychotherapy.

There is zero evidence either way, the best we can say is that we don't know.
- Yeah man something about Russell's tea pot
  
  We have no evidence for gods, that's it. There's no need to provide evidence for absence of god, the burden of proof belongs to the person who makes the claim (that there's a god/gods).
- Literally anything that anyone can ever imagine, is not all equally probable.
- As someone who is mostly agnostic, those who belive that absence of evidence equals evidence of absence belong in psychotherapy.
  
  This position is a straw man. Atheists generally do not argue that God categorically does not exist. Instead, we usually say that we don't believe in God because there is insufficient evidence. Much like the proverbial invisible unicorn in your backyard - since there is no evidence that it exists, there is no reason for it to affect how we go about our daily lives.
  
  When it comes to whether you're agnostic or atheist, I think it helps to answer the following question on a scale of 0 - 10: How confident are you that God exists? If you say around 5, then you're agnostic. If you say around 1 or 2, then you're an atheist.
- I believe in that which we can prove, because we have evidence of those things.
  
  Not invisible sky wizards. Lol

Despite the claimed ostensible "good" Religion can supposedly bring...

We're literally in the middle of a mass extinction event and facing our own extinction and belief in this religious horseshit precludes people from caring or believing in man-made disaster.

We're literally facing our own extinction because these people can't be fucked to face up to reality instead of playing cult games of "but I'll have everlasting life after death so who cares what happens to the planet!"

I don't give one flying fuck what "good" it can do for an individual, it's going to be the downfall of human fucking civilization.

Whatever "good" it brings is destroyed and overshadowed by the cult like behavior that would worship corrupt figures like Donald Trump and who choose to live in a false reality simply because it is more comforting.

Don't ask don't tell

Same way I get on wih other people who have imaginary friends, I just ignore them and worry about the inevitable indoctrination (aka abuse) of their children.

I don't hold belief against people so long as they act appropriately toward others.

I have some positive and negative opinions toward particular religions based on their foundations and practices.

I kinda long for a sense of spiritual community, but I can't make myself have faith in something I don't believe, no matter how nice it seems. So that kinda sucks

Keep it to yourself and don't hurt others. So long as that's the case, what someone else believes is generally not my business.

I was raised in various evangelical protestant denominations of Christianity, went through a Neopagan period, and landed in atheist-leaning agnostic.

I'm a Pluralistic individual. I believe everyone has a reason to believe. But I think the way someone believes is very telling about that person's personal values.

Ergo, I don't care what a person's religious beliefs are, I care what that person's values are. I believe that is a much more honest approach that doesn't needlessly alienate anyone or stoke petty, tribalistic behavior.

Religious or not, I don't care. What matters is their personality. (except for jehova's witnesses, every time I've interacted with them it made me think they're some sort of cult rather than a religion, so not sure if this counts.)

I do have religious friends that I get well with.

In New Zealand we're currently waiting on the release of a report from a parliamentary commission on the state of the Jehovah's Witnesses following decades of abuse claims. We don't expect it to be light reading.
As someone married to a JW and who is friends with several others, I will say this: like any group of people, they can be a mixed bag. Some are more closeted and "in the truth" whereas others are more outgoing and "worldly".

One the things that I actually admire about them (the individuals, mind you, not the Watchtower organization) is that they really seem to try and live by the teachings of the Bible and study it frequently. Much more so than, say, your average evangelical Protestant.

When my siblings and I were kids, our parents considered themselves christian and we went to church. But as we grew up, we all stopped believing, and we convinced our parents to stop too. I don't generally want to convince most religious people to stop, but we were kids at the time and didn't really know the ramifications of disillusioning our parents. If religious people can believe in "heaven"(or equivalent) and think they are going there, it's a really nice thought that I don't want to take away from them. But people that use religion to hurt people, yeah I kind of want to take it away from them. I guess like anything else in life, if you are using it to be nice and constructive, cool. If you are using it to hurt people, take it away.

The real version of death kind of sucks. It honestly kind of physically hurts/feels bad to even think about ceasing to exist permanently. I feel like that has always been the true purpose and main point of religion. Pretending death is absolutely anything else other than what it really is. I don't want to take that aspect away from anyone.

Pretending death is absolutely anything else other than what it really is. I don’t want to take that aspect away from anyone.

I do, because choosing to believe in a comforting lie is what leads us to despots killing anyone who is different. There's a direct line between the two.

Donald Trump is a comforting lie that a strong man (like God, the ultimate strongman) can come in and just "fix things" because it's easier to believe that than do the hard work of understanding how complex and confusing our world is. That's where we're at, the comforting lies appeal to humanity more than cold truth and it's going to fucking kill us all.

Sorry, humans need to get the fuck over themselves with this not being able to handle death shit or wake up to our own extinction. Eternal life, reincarnation, it's every flavor of stupid.

What is your general attitude towards those who believe in religion whether they are jewish, Muslim, Christian etc etc.

It's totally okay, just like when my nephew talks about dinosaurs.

If a person is smart an has personal opinions about everything or if they are a person of power I won't trust them. Because how can I prove they are a true believer and not a liar or sociopath?

If a person is average human who thinks what the crowd thinks then I won't care.

I am Anti-theist, If anyone brings up religion around me I will not hesitate to tear it down. These people are playing make belief and if affects my life, I have to live in a world where people make decisions based on some imaginary sky friend.

I will not play nice for the sake of someone feeling good about their bullshit.

So you're an asshole, using religion as an excuse to berate and bully people, got it.
- Flat-earther comes up to you and tells you the earth is flat. What do you do tell them to each there own? Or do you tell them no the earth is not flat and they should educate themselves?
- I actually care a lot about people. I don't care much for ideas though.
  
  How's it go? Love the person hate the imaginary "friends"?
  
  One thing that's nice about being visibly queer is that luckily people don't try to con me into their religions.
Unfortunately, "these people" have to live in a world where you exist too and your conflicting attitude affect their lives.

Learn to live and let live, my friend. You cannot expect the world to accept you if you are not ready to accept them.
- I accept people, I will never accept irrational/harmful beliefs. Luckily it looks like access to the internet's vast wealth of knowledge is killing religion in the next generations.

I'm greek orthodox, my family, is greek, and the religion comes with it

I get along with all amd you should too, religious or non-religious shouldn't be a question, a party is a party. Get messed up and regret it in the morning

The only one's I don't really like is protestants but thats because ~~of my racism against british people~~ I think quite a few of the protestant demoninations strangle the meaning of what it means to be a christian.

Although surprisingly, I've known anti/atheistic people who gave me meat on several occasions during fasting (where we go basically go vegan) even though i reminded them about it before they even started cooking. We also have some of them in the board with us aswell, the "the religious belong in psychotherapy" types.

One of the biggest mistakes faith has done is try and influence things outside of the church espically in modern day schenanigans like politics. The church should be the peaceful escape from the outside world, not the opposite

From how I see it, my religion is beautiful, provides me an undescribable sense of peace, and I know the people who are at my parish are people i can depend on if i ever need help

Attitude: I generally don't care unless they try to tell me what to do based on their religion. This is generally never a problem, I've had more vegans and environmentalists bother me.

Getting along: we have some high faith denomination of Christianity here. I've worked with a few and generally don't notice unless they drop something heavy on their foot and don't swear.

Thought of believing: not since I was 12 or something.

Do not like faiths: I acknowledge they can create a sense of community and belonging. I have a dim view of the dogma that tends to come with them.

As long as they’re not an intolerant dick about believing or not believing, whatever they go with is fine. It’s none of my business.

Don't say, don't ask.

I hate the ignorance that edgy kids have about religion, having exposure only to a very very very narrow sample and extrapolating to infinity. Not every religious practice opposes truth, or oppresses and exploits its practitioners. No more than every political practice does. Religious practice is an expression of our innate humanity. You cannot just get rid of it, any more than you can get rid of any fundamental human need. What is important is finding safe, healthy, ethical and helpful means of expressing it.

My uncle is a pastor. So when his kid came out as trans, he and his wife did the ‘good moral Christian’ thing and shamed her and harassed her until she committed suicide.

Then deadnamed her at the funeral, and wrote and published a book about how ‘his betrayal’ and ‘his unfortunate death’ were just tests from God to test their faith.

This is not a rare or unique story; many people all over the world have stories like this. Is it any wonder those who pay attention find religion distasteful? It may be a part of humanity, but many unpleasant things are, and there is nothing ‘edgy’ about rejecting them.

Yes, there are ‘good’ churches in my town that feed and clothe the poor; a far cry from my uncle’s church. But they are part of the same religion, and the fact that religion accepts both, morals be damned, means I have no interest in it.
- Their point is that there's more than 1 widely-practiced religion, and there are plenty of sects that are tolerant to different forms of self-expression. Saying food is bad because you don't like bananas isn't sound logic, and applying that same logic to religion doesn't work either.
  
  I can't speak for any Christians, but many of the religious people I know are some of the most tolerant people I know because their religious schools focused on doing things with good intent.
At what age does one stop being an "edgy kid" in your eyes?
- 50% grow out of it by mid thirties.
  
  The Internet atheism movement of the late 90s was extremely liberating and enlightening to many people. But, it has gradually become hateful and I think it has long since run out its useful lifetime. We can't just stop there, we need to collectively develop a more informed, nuanced and compassionate view. Today's threat isn't baptist fundamentalism, it's fucking fascism. You can't hate yourself out of that, you only sink deeper.

How do you know that science is not a believe like the other ? My answer is in challenge it with other believe systems to explain reality. Of course some things make a lot more sense with science methodology, but to be faire, te main point of religions is not to explain gravity.

I consider other believes as opportunities, no to explain to others, or to be taught by others, but making both and strengthen us all.

However, we shall to care do not confuse religions and believes. A lot of people took part in religions and do not believes, and others believes and do not took part in a dedicated community. This is a different topic. Communities are generally a good thing, but hierarchy lead to abuses. This true in every organization, religions include

Not sure if I'm taking the bait but here goes.

Science is a set of processes where you take belief out of the equation. You can start with something akin, which when you have informed belief you have an hypothesis which you set out to prove. You don't hold that as truth and anything not falsifiable is not a valid hypothesis.

Science is not a religion, it's just a thing. Plenty of people need to belief to function and end up having (even a blind) faith in science, using it as a religion.

On your second point I'm with you on the last part though I think you are calling religions and believes things that are organized religion and religion.
- In any demonstration, you have to make some unproven statement, taken as true. It could be "1+1 = 2" or "God exists". So sciences are methodologies based on believes. Lot of religions use logic and reasons, based on science and philosophy, to deduce things from their core believes. This is theology.
  
  So if both science and religions are based on believes, and could have the same methods, how to distinguish one of the other ? We could argue that science try to reduce believes as possible. Personally I'm not good enough in sciences to argue with religious people, and demonstrate that point. In trying to challenge my believes in scientific models, I have to stay tolerant with religious people (I'm not sure I would otherwise); which is a most productive approach. Furthermore, it helps to have a critical point on view on science (as you've said, and to taking it as a blind faith)
Contemporary philosophy and sciences are different from religion in some aspects. One important aspect is that these academic fields rely on rational arguments, while religion today mostly relies on traditional beliefs and faith.

Let's say a philosopher is pondering the idea that direct experience is not necessary for knowledge. The only way to go and declare this publicly is to elaborate why, how, in a rational and rigorous manner. Most scientists work with objects that admit replicated experimentation, so they must do that, let's say in their case, to demonstrate that a rain frog only comes out with heavy rain, but not with light rain. In contrast to these two, a religious or spiritual person might give "arguments", but this argumentation is never to see if their belief resists examination, it is only to convince others of this belief that has been established as truth before everything else. In other words, philosophy and sciences examine their thesis (hypothesis, theory, etc.) and never assume they have the ultimate truth; on the contrary, they keep searching and exploring possibilities. Talking here about the disciplines and not the individuals who can be different from this from time to time (e.g., a dogmatic professor). Meanwhile, religion and spirituality do not have thesis or any beliefs that are susceptible to drastic change. They establish core beliefs or dogmas, and only later might try to prove them or not, depending if they find this exercise important.

Are they all ultimately unprovable statements? I guess so, but we should care how these statements come to be and how we justify them. To me, it makes an enormous difference.
I rather believe in climate change in which human action is definitely affecting the Earth (source: sciences) and the importance of stopping it as we seem to have a responsibility to others and to ourselves (source: ethics, a branch of philosophy), than to believe that there is a conspiracy to make us believe about climate change (source: perhaps imagination) and that we shouldn't do anything anyway because there is no reason to (source: ignorance or dogmatism, honestly).

I try to remain critical of rational disciplines too, but that's ironically done with more rationality. And here I do not mean "cold" and rigid pseudo logical analysis, but something that admits different approaches as long as they are solidly justified.

I guess it comes down to who we are. I simply cannot be convinced without this I explained. I cannot believe in religion or spiritual beliefs. I sometimes get short videos about people telling many different stories, about ghosts, ayahuasca trips where they talked to superior entities, gods and the way they know they're real, etc. How can I believe what they perceive is real? Mere "leap of faith"? And why choose one over the other? Just because I like a particular system or because it benefits me in some way? Sorry, too arbitrary even for me that I sometimes act impulsively and capriciously. As I said, I guess the way we are allows us to accept or to deny different ways to approach existence. This is me.

Thank you for reading my stupidly long comment.