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Until you can explain the universe with a formula religion will not die, and even then the formula could be argued to be the rational expression of god. And it is not clear to me that religion is bad. Bad people are bad, (although I entirely dismiss the notion of evil) and they use structures in religions, politics et all to do bad things. But that doesn’t mean that religion itself is bad.
I’m not religious myself, but there’s very clearly a place for religion even in modern civilizations. Also one fundamental aspect of religion that many critics miss because they confuse it with spirituality, is community. More than ever people need a sense of community, and I think that for many people religion can be the thing that gives them that.
And after saying all that, people should have the freedoms to believe whatever the fuck they want honestly.
You make a lot of great points here that I try (often to no avail) to explain to people all the time. Namely these two:
Arguing whether there's a creator or the universe began spontaneously doesn't really matter, as the existence of a creator (or architect, or programmer, you could phrase it different ways) only moves the goalposts one spot and the question still remains: why does anything exist rather than nothing?
Religion isn't inherently bad or evil. It's a human construct and is as susceptible to corruption and misuse as any other, from governments to sports organizations to scientific groups to academic institutions to PTA boards and HOAs.
It's holographic.
A reasonable rebuttal might be that all those other things have never been co-opted to instigate, for example, an ethnic cleansing.
Governments and the concept of nation-states have never been used to instigate ethnic cleansing? Sports organizations have never been complicit in something as heinous as slave labor?
Quatari Kafala is directly derived from Shiara. It's even alluded to in the article you linked. I know it's leaning into the stereotype and honestly I'm usually a whole lot less rude than this, but my dude that was a truly terrible example to go with.
(Edit: Sorry to be clear, yes, that's absolutely correct - I'm aware of no ethnic cleansing, government or otherwise, that's been divorced from religion. Nor do I know of any broad slavery schemes that don't use religion as a justification for their actions. I really really want you to check me on this because it'll be damned educational, and to be totally fair I'm not actually certain that there's never been a secular slave trade. Just fairly confident.)
Right. And FIFA, a secular organization headquartered in Switzerland, selected Qatar knowing all this and they were perfectly ok with that sort of exploitation to make the World Cup happen. To say nothing else of their history of bribery and corruption.
Companies with no religious affiliation are no better. They'll produce bombs, sell weapons to terrorists and genocidal governments, whatever brings home the bacon.
PTAs and school boards discriminate against trans and queer kids all the time. HOAs discriminate against minorities all the time.
People in groups have always used their power to enrich themselves, hurt others, and control the world around them. This is a phenomenon that isn't limited to any one organization, sacred or secular.
Not being churlish I'm genuinely a little unclear - what's your thesis here? I don't think it's news that a secular organization can be involved with vile systems, but that appears to be the crux (sorry) of what you're trying to say. I think we may be arguing past one another.
My point is that religion isn't inherently a negative thing. And not worse than any other human institution solely because of its belief in the supernatural, and that organized religion is just as susceptible to corruption and weaponization as any institution.
To be clear, I'm an atheist.
So, why are you an atheist?
Because I'm a skeptic, and I don't see any reason to believe in a creator or higher power. And if I did, a creator/architect is as far as that belief would go, I wouldn't think that being was personally involved in our lives or morals, just someone who pressed play on the program.
And if there was one, I don't think any human-made religion is so wise as to have found all the answers. That's just prideful foolishness.
I'm open to the idea that there may be aspects to our existence and the universe of which we are not entirely aware, though as long as we can't see any evidence of it I don't think there's much need to dwell on it.
On a more personal note, I think the way organized religion is the most damaging is how it makes people satisfied in their ignorance. Both because in their eyes it already explains so much so there's no need to learn more, and also because there is a divine plan so there's no need to question why things are the way they are or how they could be different.
Yeah sure, wars and genocide and slavery and all that. But like I said, people can find any excuse to be horrible and greedy and hurt others. It's not hard to do, doesn't need to be divine. But I think it's a lot harder to convince someone to keep themselves uneducated when humans are naturally curious.