this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
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Religious Cringe
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This is the official Lemmy for the r/ReligiousCringe***** subreddit. This is a community about poking fun at the religious fundamentalist's who take their religion a little bit too far. Here you will find religious content that is so outrageous and so cringeworthy that even someone who is mildly religious will cringe.
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You could say this at basically any point in hunan history and it would still be true
Oh! I disagree! I think religion probably served an incredible useful purpose in our social development.
Think about this: 500 years ago, or 1000, in some village somewhere, John hates Micheal. Or maybe John just wants Michael's cow or land or pants. What's stopping John from killing Micheal? Like, who's gonna even know it was him? Some magical man in the sky who sees all and knows all? And what would that guy even do! Does he have powers to send you to a horrible place? Or curse you?
Oh....
So does he have rules you gotta follow? What's the payoff?
Oh....
So how do I learn these rules, and stay on this guys good side?
Guess John probably won't kill Micheal. Not yet anyways. Best keep sky daddy happy.
Now did the "good" outweigh the bad? Did it ever? And at what point in human history did that ratio shift and the good no longer outweighed the bad? Are there reasons/situations/people where this is still a valuable tactic?
Discuss.
Most people don't want to kill other people. It turns out this is true with or without religion. We never needed it to do this. However, religion does tell people it's good to kill people from other religions.
Edit to add this quote I remembered:
-Penn Jillette
I also like and agree with that quote but I feel like you might be missing the point of it... It's not saying 'humans don't like to do that." It's specifically saying "I don't like to do that, so why do I need God?"
It's pointing out that maybe people can be good people without a sky daddy, and also kinda hints that maybe people use sky daddy as an excuse not to do things they otherwise maybe want to.....
At least that's my take.
I don't think so. The vast majority of people don't want to kill people. It's not that they don't do it because of religion. They don't even think about that. It's not something they consider. Maybe it stops some psychopaths, but average people aren't out there constantly thinking about murdering other people. It does create an excuse to view people as other though, which then allows them to view murdering them as justified, because they aren't as good as them.
I think the lens you are looking though might be a bit more modern than what I mean. Well fed, warm, secure people in general don't have a need or want to steal from, hurt or kill other people. Hungry, desperate people will steal, no problem, and they will "defend" themselves and their own (families, social groups, tribes, ect) and they will kill and take if it means they and their own get fed and get to live.
In addition, you are saying it will stop the occasional "psychopath" or other small percentage of the population who maybe doesn't mind killing, even if their isn't a good "reason". That alone is advantageous... If 1 in 50... 1 in 200 ? is disposed to that, it would be ideal to "bring them into the fold" so they aren't murdering and stealing ect ect.
Cause for everyone who ain't in the murdering way, it only takes one guy in the village to start picking people off in the night.....
So I think having religion would have benefited communities like that. Could it have worked without the religion? I mean, yeah I guess? Creating large social groups with shares goals and values is ideal. But that's kinda starting to blur the line.... Like what is religion compared to a group of people with shared values?
They sure will, and religion has never stopped that. We see this happen in all groups when resources are low, regardless of what religion they follow or how fervently they believe it.
Maybe, assuming it actually does stop them. Frequently, from what we see today, is they view others as following the wrong version of what they believe and use it as justification to kill. I don't know if it's more common to stop them or encourage them. It's probably a wash.
I think this is key. It isn't that it does "good" or "evil." It creates communities who view themselves as better than others. This allows them to take resources to help themselves and oppresses others. This for sure benefits that community, and prevents infighting to some extent. It focuses them against an enemy.
Religion is a tool for control. I would argue this is inharently bad. You could argue this is good because it allows some groups to out-compete others. I wouldn't agree with that, but the argument could be made.
Hey friend, thanks for the discussion, you gave me some stuff to think about!
Yeah, of course! You too. I'm always happy to have a polite discussion.
Except people don't go around killing each other for no reason with or without religion.
A lot of religions were quite progressive at the time they came up. The proplem is that the world changed a lot, while religions didn't.
Yes that's my conclusion as well. But I do find it interesting to discuss at what point in human history we went from "maybe it isn't so bad if my neighbour believes in a magic guy who will keep him on the straight and narrow." To "this is doing more harm than good".
For every John and Micheal there are an Achmed and Peter who have been murdering eachother specifically because of religion.
I'm not sure I agree. Yes religion has been causing people to kill each other for a very long time, but keep in mind for a lot of human history John and Micheal just never geographically came anywhere near Achmed or Peter, so it was a moot point.
That's probably a good data point for when religion maybe overstayed it's usefulness, and possibly also means that in some places, religion would do more harm than good sooner than in others.
1000 or 5000 years ago most human cities and towns were not very mixed when it came to religions, so except for a few men that are sent on some stupid crusade, the rest of that society would probably benefit more from the positives of the religion than that negatives.
A thought experiment could help: if everyone was the same religion, would religion be as bad?
skycake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55h1FO8V_3w