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Religion may be a lie but it’s a comforting lie and that helps a lot of people get through their daily life.
Thing is it shouldn’t be comforting to anyone if they really take the details seriously. You could do as much damage really educating someone about Deuteronomy and other fun parts of the Bible and ultimately leave them in a worse state than finding a way to make them an atheist.
We forget an atheist is just a non-theist. Someone who doesn’t believe in any specific canonical god. I’m an atheist with a genuine faith the universe has more in store for “me” (whatever that is; I don’t believe it’s necessarily or eternally “ynthrepic”) than a mere human lifetime given what we know about the universe as a whole and how mysterious and seemingly fundamental consciousness is to it all. That gives me some relief and comfort from the existential dread. More than I could possibly get from Yahweh and his totally uncompelling biblical heaven and hell dynamic.
Most people I know who are religious don’t take the bible very literally; most haven’t even read it. The comforting lie is stuff about the after-life, heaven, and a caring universe.
And that’s great so long as it’s a source of comfort and not dread. The fear of God and hellfire is real. We need people who carry faiths to recognize that this is by definition an uncertainty for which no real evidence exists, when it comes to consequences in the real world. Maybe that’s a contradiction to some, but it doesn’t need to be.
You’re forgetting that some people have coping mechanisms for life around systems containing a kind god that’s there looking after them, and will reunite them with people they desperately hope to see again when they die.
Your coping mechanism is hoping the universe is magical and mysterious and has something more for you when you die. You’re not an atheist, just a non-denominational theist with a different hope for continuing on after you’re dead. I hope it brings you comfort, but don’t shit on people who have a different post death comfort they hope for.
Nonsense. I don’t believe in any divine entity, which is the definition of theism. Moreover, my “faith” isn’t predicated on any actions in the world. It’s a musing about the universe. A hopeful fantasy that I think is worth wanting. But it’s not a gospel for how you ought to live in the world. That’s why organised religions are a toxic force in the world overall, and we should never shy away from criticising them.
Honestly, this is why I don’t discuss Mormon history and the massive, gaping chasms in their claims of Truth with my parents. My parents are old–old enough that the family is talking about who is going to call the coroner, who’s going to deal with tying up finances, etc.–and knowing that they’ve wasted an entire lifetime and hundreds of thousands of dollars in tithing on a con isn’t going to do anything useful at this point. Fifty years ago? Sure, they would have had plenty of time to come to terms with it. Now? Meh.
When I worked in a nursing home, I was Christian.
I mean, I wasn’t. At all. But the dying little old ladies who sundowned so bad that they sometimes thought I was their grandchild? When they asked if I believed in Jesus, I’d bite my tongue and tell them yes. I hated having to lie to their faces, I hate even thinking about it all these years later, but some of them had nothing to look forward to except “going to heaven” by that point. Lying seemed the most ethical choice.
I would think you’d need to tell lots of lies to someone in that state to not make things difficult over and over for them. Jesus would just be another one on that pile.
You got it. Sometimes the safest thing to do when somebody’s having hallucinations is to play along, and that means telling lots of lies. Sometimes people think their kids (who are well into their 60s) are still newborns, and they will have a panic attack because they don’t know where their “baby” is. I’ve reassured people that I “just set the baby down to nap” numerous times.
I’ve seen people treat dolls like real babies, too, and one time a lady rolled up to me in her wheelchair, asking to see a doctor because her baby (a doll with food smeared over its mouth) wasn’t eating. I even went so far as to get those “magic” doll bottle things that appear to “empty” when you tip them.
Point is, you’re right. But I don’t feel as conflicted about all the other lies I told, I guess the religion thing is just too … I dunno, “icky” for me? I’m an out atheist with pretty much everyone else. I don’t like having to go back into a closet.
One set of lies is about their past or present. The Jesus one is about their future. It’s a lot easier to lie to someone about the former two than to tell them there’s no future, they’ll never be whole or happy again. We all need a reason to look forward, a reason to keep the chin up and carry on. Most anyone can empathetically understand how crushing it would be if they were told that they were going to die soon, so telling an Alzheimer’s victim that there’s nothing to look forward to rings a similar bell in our heads.
I mean to make it easier I guess I would just tell myself I am convinced that Jesus existed. So I believe in him. But not “in Him” capital H.
Or you could imagine yourself cheering Jesus on and hoping he will do well in sports ball for the Jerusalem league. I could see him as a solid basketball player with the magical powers and all.
Nothing wrong with lying there obviously.
knowing that they’ve wasted an entire lifetime and hundreds of thousands of dollars in tithing on a con isn’t going to do anything useful at this point.
It always gets me how people can be so comfortable with tithing while so prickly about paying taxes. I’ve straight up heard “every dollar I give to the government is one I can’t give to the church” as an argument, when the town and state I’m living in is joined at the hip with the church they love.
Fifty years ago? Sure, they would have had plenty of time to come to terms with it.
Church is one of those third-spaces that the unemployed and retired flock to when they’ve got too much time and not a ton of money. A great deal of the appeal of these places, especially back in my parents’ day, was as a social center with a feel-good energy. As a born-and-raised Houstonian I’ve seen it work on enormous numbers of otherwise-religiously-apathetic people. The whole Joel Osteen model is Good Vibes as a religious experience. One big Jesus Themed Pep Rally.
I think you can probably logic your way to a “God’s Not Real” conclusion with a generic religiously-ambivalent lay person. But I don’t think a simple logic chain is enough to convince folks who consider religion a form of community recreation to stop showing up. No more than you could talk someone out of blaring their favorite brand of Country Music or driving an oversized pickup truck or playing with their toy guns down at the gun range.
These just aren’t logical decisions. They are social decisions.
I got a Father in Law that tithes his retirement income from the military to his church and votes hard republican. But he abstained from Trump voting so he considers himself enlightened.
They are social decisions.
Exactly.
I don’t know that my parents were ever the kind of person that bitched about paying taxes. They might have privately, but i don’t remember it ever being a big deal. Me, I understand that my taxes are too low for what I expect the gov’t to be doing.
And you’re exactly right about the social experience. One of the enormous struggles for atheists has been building a community. Churches fill that need, even though they cause real harms in other ways. If you go to a church, it’s easy to meet people and make friends when you move to a new community. If you don’t, well, good luck because you’re going to need it.
With how sad and empty my geriatric mother’s life is, the last thing I’m going to do is take away her imaginary friend.
So many people in this thread completely missing the satire. The author is clearly also an atheist poking fun at the highschool reddit atheist stereotype. Taking this way too seriously.
I didn’t catch the self-deprecation. What makes it clear?
To me, what this comic is saying is that even if you’re able to debate someone out of believing in God it’s cruel to do it to someone like your mom who has God as the central pillar of their emotional well-being.
It presupposes that you’re able to “prove” that God doesn’t exist and to me it doesn’t necessarily paint the idea of being an atheist in a negative light, just the neckbeard atheist attitude that you should try to emotionally destroy people who do believe in God.
It’s a three panel comic so yeah, it’s a bit ambiguous, I just think that people are missing that the punchline is really only funny from an atheist perspective. From a Christian perspective the comic is awkward. The last panel wouldn’t be a punchline and wouldn’t make sense at all, how would these obviously loser neckbeards be able to prove God doesn’t exist?
Hmm, that is a pretty insightful point. On the other hand, I think most people I know who are religious are the sort who can appreciate self-deprecating humour themselves – they might think it’s funny for taking an absurd premise to its logical conclusion.
What suggests to me that this author is trying to paint atheism in a negative light is quite straightforwardly “score one for atheism.” It doesn’t really have a hint of irony to me. I think the author clearly thinks atheism just isn’t cool anymore.
Me at 13 discovering I wont see my loved ones ever again and there’s nobody’s hand on my shoulder holding me up:
Me when I try and pet a cat but they run away.
Oh boy, I sure love the ol’ “atheists are filthy neckbeards” canard. Haven’t heard that one before.
Don’t forget the “not believing in god = sadness” one. Realizing it is fake actually brought relief for the ex-religious people that I know (anecdotal, I know. I don’t have the actual numbers).
Thats a little unfair. Most religous people have been religious for most of their lives and it makes up a large part of it. Being convinced their whole philosophy is wrong would crush some people
Exactly. Use your own brain, not rely on a sky daddy who literally gave you instructions on how to own slaves.
To be honest, I don’t think a lot of people are ready. It’s a hard thing to deconstruct your faith and if you’re not careful it can take you to some really dark places. For a lot of people it’s the way they find meaning and solace in a world of pain. Ultimately if you can find that comfort without tying it to religion that’s better but not everyone can. That’s my take on it post-deconversion
Not to offend you but tbh I hate this thought process and imo this smells of superiority complex “peasants are just not ready for reality yet”. The peasants are actually really smart and humans are very good at adapting and changing their world model given appropriate motivation.
The world is absolutely ready to rid itself of religion.
Yeah, going from finding fulfillment through religion to finding it through other means isn’t something you can do instantly.
It’s more of a generational issue, really. Convincing someone who was already indoctrinated as a baby and began to “pray” as early as their arm coordination allowed it is almost cruel, really. At that point it’s reality-shattering. Let alone if your religion included any kind of body-modification, especially without anesthesia (that shit burns itself into the very fabric of your brain as a baby). In that case it’s even worse, as it’d entail the realisation that your body has been violated (some may use stronger wording).
At the end of the day what counts is that you’re a decent person, no matter your stance on religion or spirituality.
I mean the boomers were the hippie generation so really its only the silent generation that really as a matter of course had that indoctrination and the youngest of them is in their eighties. For those below eighty its about being raised in a culture that can keep you insulated enough to not watch media or meet many people not like yourself.
Sure, but the sooner they start, the better off they’ll be.
I try not to be too judgemental of people who are religious. We are not evolved enough as a species to be able to comprehend the unknown or unknowable, and everyone to some degree has to cope with this somehow, even if we aren’t consciously aware of it. Faith is an easy, convenient and catch-all solution to all of life’s unexplained phenomena, so it makes sense that people tend to gravitate towards it naturally, all it takes is a little push during childhood.
I take issue with it when religious folk try to force their views onto other people. Proselytizing is one thing, but converting people by duress or force, or by weaponizing the government apparatus to conform to their views and their views only, is where I stop caring about the feelings of those religious cults and do everything in my power to stop them or undermine their efforts.
Also, it really just depends on your age. Have you believed for decades? Not believing at some point in your life will be some kind of earth shaking change.
The drawing of him kicking in the door is hilarious.
this guys stuff is great. heres a bit more
Throwing a stone is a dick move. Now he’s imperfect Pete!
Dick move… But not a sin! Still perfect pete!
DEAR LORD PEOPLE, SOMETIMES THERE IS NOT A DEEPER MESSAGE AND IT’S JUST A DUMB JOKE!
Seriously, check out the other comics by this artist. They just like absurdist humor, like this one:
Dad’s reaction is exactly what I’d do.
Don’t be anti-intellectual about this silly comic. People can apply intellectual analysis to stupid things if they want to, and they damn-well may find deeper meaning sometimes.
Let people have their hobbies.
So you’re saying you should just let people believe and leave them be? /s
Depends on whether or not their beliefs harm themselves or others.
Sure, but that also means that I get to make my own contribution to the discussion. 😀
People seem to forget that and think they own the limit in what is related conversation. I could talk about how I knew a group of people that looked exactly like these neckbeards and talk about their hygeine. Somehow acceptable but other works from the artist and a mention of their use of absurdist tone?
It feels it’s not about conversation here often, but an actual competition to be the most analytical and factual.
I’d rather comments be part of the open conversation.I mean, you get to make your own contribution because we’re on an open platform, not for any other reason. quite often intellectual spaces shut down and deplatform anti-intellectual rhetoric and thought-terminating cliches such as what you’ve stated. It serves no one discussing the intricacies of any work to have someone yelling “The curtains were fucking blue!”, and this comment section literally exists to discuss the above comic and its various aspects.
Example intellectual comments being posted here:
I didn’t realize neckbeard atheists oppressed so many people compared to religion, thanks to the author for opening my eyes
So many militant atheists. Saying so much, all just to prove the comic right.
Having said that, my specific objection is not to all of the discussion taking place here, but to the fact that a lot of the comments seem to be projecting their own personal viewpoints onto the comic.
Also, I was not shouting people down; I was speaking in all caps to be funny. It’s fine if you personally did not think I funny, but that was the intent (which in retrospect could probably have been conveyed more clearly if I had also dropped the comma so that it was purely a stream of words), just like it was the intent of the comic author to make a dumb joke rather than to state a strong opinion about atheists. I think that it is useful to separate the intent of what an author was trying to accomplish from your own thoughts on the subject.
That’s somewhat my bad for taking the adversarial tone of your original comment to being serious and about all comments looking into the comic’s unsaid meanings.
At the same time, though, the comic is 100% meant to make fun of militant atheists, as in atheists who make their whole personality atheism. The folks who’s sole goal seemingly is to make everyone stop being religious. And the punchline is that despite achieving his goal, he only managed to make his mother’s life worse by forcing her through an epiphany she wasn’t ready for and then abandoning her with her own thoughts. The comic is partially funny because of it making fun of militant atheists. The other portion of the humor is the absurd nature of the situation.
The first comment you show takes that joke personally and the second resonates with that message. Neither of these are really off the mark, as grating as their tones may be to some.
I agree completely that the comic is parodying a particular cliche of a militant atheist. I disagree that the intent was to provide serious social commentary.
And I did not find either of those comments grating; I was merely citing them as evidence that not all of the discussion here is “intellectual”. Honestly, the real avenue of criticism that was left open to you that I was expecting you to take was to point out, correctly, that they were heavily cherry-picked for their unreasonableness; it actually surprises me a bit that instead you called them not “really off the mark” as if they were inherently reasonable responses.
Sure, that’s what satire is. A parody of something to criticise it. Often using clichés to ensure the subject is immediately identifiable.
This comic is a satire of militant atheists, because the author finds that militant atheists are insufferable and deserve to be made fun of, as the comic is doing. Why else would the author choose them specifically to satirize?
You chose those two comments to point at examples of unintellectual discussion. I am pointing out that they are not as unintellectual as you paint them to be. I don’t strongly agree with what they are saying, but that does not immediately disqualify them from contributing from the conversation. Your comment was the only one calling for the termination of the pursuit of deeper meaning in the comic, which is an anti-intellectual stance.
Yeah, I warn those who are challenging their own faith that naturalism isn’t for everyone. For me it was a stark process to come to terms that I’m thinking meat, and my species is looking at some imminent great filters even before we are able to create a dependent colony on our own moon, so mostly harmless is going to be more of a footnote than our society deserves.
As someone who had an early aspiration to add something significant to the collective community that it could take with it into the future, this proved to be a bit of a let-down.
What aspects of naturalism do you feel negate the reality of our collective community? I really don’t see how the one led you to the other.
I don’t think naturalism negates our collective community, but it does mean it is up to us to navigate an instinct for small tribes. Once we took up advanced agriculture and stopped migrating, we built large societies. And since then we have been contending with subversives who favor their own smaller sects over the good of the community, and they are very good at subverting larger systems for their personal gain.
Most theistic paradigms insist that there are higher powers to assist us when we confront existential threats (such as the climate crisis). Naturalism is one of the paradigms (not the only one) that confronts that there are no safety nets or training wheels. The human species can die out without the assurance of self-sustaining off-world colonies, and there are no higher powers to care or even notice. (Again, not to say they don’t exist, but we’ve looked hard and been unable to detect them.)
Human society may, possibly in the face of the Trump regime, finally take class consciousness and community-focused governance seriously on a large scale. (There have been smaller scale examples.)
However, this isn’t the first time we’ve thought about it and been subverted by established political power. Rather historically, often just after a bout of tyranny, societal collapse and its consequential horrors, we decide as firmly as we can that this time we’re going to do it right! and then it gets diluted and subverted within even thirty years.
So to address the matter of uniting our collective community in a global cooperative effort: It’s going to take a sociological miracle. We need to discover some new method, invent some new technology that enables all of us, even Trump, Musk, Vought and Thiel to recognize that every one of our fellow 343 million Americans (or 8 billion plus fellow humans) is, as Jesus put it, our neighbor who we should regard equally, that the worst renegade and the most wretched transient deserve the same benefits and treatment as themselves. And then this new thing needs to be resistant to efforts to subvert it.
(Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal imagined such a gimmick, though I can’t locate the specific comic. In it a point system is invented, and it’s noted that people are nice for the points rather than for a sincere interest in community, but the system works, so it doesn’t matter much.)
And we need to do it soon. We’re running out of water, and the global average temperature is now at levels where experts warned us could prove a challenge to responders even at the national scale as hurricanes and wildfires rampage across the planet. The unlucky ones will survive until the global famine.
Naturalistic philosophy doesn’t say we can’t navigate our way to a community-driven society that acknowledges the least of us deserve a comfy life and we should mind the environment, rather, it only acknowledges that if we don’t we risk human extinction, and if we die out, there’s nothing watching out for us. The greatest cosmic horrir: throughout the universe not even a fraction of a fuck will be given as all of our culture, all of our ideas and works will be reduced to another geological layer on a speck orbiting a spark.
And a lot of people are not prepared to confront this.
Don’t get two hung up on great filters. We could’ve easy passed a few of them in the last hundred million years. You’re much more than thinking meat, you have feelings and a perspective over time. its amazing not a liability.
Even if boom over, it was loads of fun.
Nobody said reality was all smiles and rainbows. However, it’s entirely possible to find happiness without believing in fairy tales so you can sleep at night.
Im an atheist and I listen to The Lord of the Rings audiobook so I can sleep at night. Reality is fucking awful and I like my fairy tales.
Yes! Exactly this! So many atheists love fantasy and sci-fi. Why not? It is wonderful to have some magic in the world. We just know the stuff is made-up.
If those who share such things with us, demand crazy shit from us, we call that out for being toxic fandom or corporate enshittification and go away, if we please. In religions, that is just another day.
And also I don’t see how life looks better while believing in a greater power. Starting with people going to war and desolation all the time in the name of their god…
It’s possible but unfortunately when people have spent their entire lives with religion being their (seemingly) only source of happiness, it can be really hard for them to find a different source.
And her son completely failed to demonstrate any of that. She presumably spent her life trying to take care of her kid, (the quality of which can only be guessed at, but she cared enough to listwn to his points about atheism) and as soon as her child shows her a new way of thinking he completely abandons her without giving her any ways of handling it.
Whew. Must have been hard work carrying all those assumptions in.
Name three.
There are two big ones, both of which imply other assumptions like she didn’t argue or tell him he was going to hell or a ton of other negative stuff that religious people tend to toss out when someone anknowledges atheism in their presence.
She presumably spent her life trying to take care of her kid
she cared enough to listwn to his points about atheism
People are far more receptive to listening to someone they trust over someone they don’t. It therefore follows that the mom was far more likely to have trusted/respected her son enough to hear what he had to say than the opposite. It’s all the same assumption.
But sure, let’s go with the alternative; she’s a complete asshole who used religion as her crutch to do horrible things to her son all her life, and her son finally talked her into realising that she is the monster who has been causing issues this whole time. This is its own assumption too; we don’t know what their relationship was like.
Her son, after showing her how horrible she has been her whole life, runs off to celebrate this victory with his friends, and leaves her to cry on the floor, alone.
He cared more about being right than anything else, including helping her through this discovery or damn, even just calling someone she trusts to talk her through it.
So the point of the comic stands regardless of this assumption. The son abandoned his mother after turning her worldview over completely. The consequence of that was his mother lying on the floor, devastated. (Whether she deserved it or not)
Does anyone really deserve that? Did you enjoy having to figure out what to do with yourself when you realised that it’s entirely likely that nothing outside of this single life exists, all on your own? Would you have appreciated a friend or family member walking you through the way to handle that?
A little bit of empathy goes a long way.
Or they just talked it over calmy and respectfully and she didn’t break down crying until well after he left and the reality of all of the time she wasted not being herself because of being told her natural attraction to women was a sin hit home. The son is happy when telling his friends because his mom can be herself!
Or he could be an evil, heartless athiest like you apparently want him to be.
I mean, I guess that’s one interpretation. If you go with those assumptions, the takeaway is that, what, changing changing your views can be devastating? Where’s the value in that? ‘Big worldview changes can be stressful’ is not at all a valuable takeaway from this.
My point really has nothing to do with his atheism. Obviously he cares too; he wouldn’t bother talking with her if he didn’t care. My point is that there are better ways to care, and it’s worth keeping them in mind whenever this sort of situation comes up.
I’d be happy knowing our family wasn’t financially enabling organizations that hide and protect rapists and pedophiles.
YMMV.
I mean, the celebration was not unwarranted. It’s just that he left quickly enough that all the emotional breakdown happened to her while she was all alone, instead of with him there to support her.
I didn’t realize neckbeard atheists oppressed so many people compared to religion, thanks to the author for opening my eyes
?
The last panel is ambiguous about whether the woman is having an emotional breakdown and lying on the ground in tears, or if she was killed by her son and was crying as she died. Both would work as someone being “convinced” their religion is wrong, as being dead would “convince” you about god.
I think it’s the former, but i see the latter.
Honestly I initially interpreted the comic as a joke about the dichotomy of how the son would feel good about it but it’s a lot of emotional processing for the mother.
The last panel isn’t ambiguous. She’s emotionally shattered because her fantasy was destroyed.
There’s a difference between religion and faith. Faith is belief in a higher power. Religion is an institution that exploits faith to opress people. This neckbeard atheist didn’t thwart religion, he just destroyed his mom’s faith. I have my doubts that his mom was doing a lot of oppressing.
neither of those definitions are correct…
They are sufficient for the topic at hand.
No, incorrect definitions are never sufficient. That is just making up stuff
It is not. Those are, roughly, what those words mean. I could use more precise ones, but this isn’t a serious philosophical discussion with serious people so the effort would be wasted.
Substitute whichever words you prefer, there’s a difference between an individual’s personal belief in a higher power, and the institution which exploits that belief to oppress. Half-baked semantic objections do not make you clever. Engage with the content of the argument.
Sorry you were downvoted for pointing out hypocrisy.
I get it. Never grew much hair on my neck but I went through an edgy Internet atheist phase. I saw myself as a champion of science and rationality, leading poor deluded people to the light.
I got better, but it took time.
The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.
Werner Heisenberg
That’s a beautiful quote thank you
Genocide is worse than murder but murder is still bad
Where did murder come into this?
Around the time religion started.
It didn’t. I’m using an analogy to show that criticising atheists like this does not mean I support religion. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Gotcha
Them religious zealots with their evolutionary biology and eugenics!
Is one of these murderous religious people in the room with us right now?
Way to completely miss the point of the comic. Tearing down someone out of a vain desire to be “right” helps no one. Fight people who use any belief to justify being shitty to others. Go read some Vonnegut and learn to leave people who get goodness out of shit alone.
Edit: The comment originally was about religious people being murderous. My first edit was to add an additional thought. This dude’s edited now to change the core of his argument from “murder” to “opression”.
If you are an adult and that is your reaction to understanding that god isnt real then you need serious psychological help.
To be fair, a lot of people need serious psychological help and get God instead.
Religion is often used as cognitive dissonance to avoid dealing with trauma.
This might be a popular opinion here on Lemmy but this is definitely NOT really rooted in reality.
Conceptually going from belief in a something you earnestly want to believe in to being proven it’s wrong will shatter who you are.
This is not much different than learning your partner is cheating on you or that your parents aren’t actually you parents and they hid it from you, or something like that.
Yes believing in religion may be absurd but c’mon this take is pretty off
Or finding out Santa isn’t real!
“If you have a deeply emotional reaction to your entire worldview being shattered in your middle age and having everything that once brought you a sense of comfort, however manufactured, suddenly ripped away from you, then you need psychological help.”
At least your brain-dead snark somehow still brought you to the correct conclusion, unintentional as it may have been.
Ofcourse if you think that peoples practical view of the world is strongly dependent on religion, then that would be your reaction to my comment. I just dont believe that this is true. At least in my experience with people old and young, no matter the ethnicity or religious background, barely anyone is so deeply religious anymore that their understanding of reality depends on belief in god.
This comic just doesnt make any sense in large parts of the world where people live either completely secular or only vaguely influenced by religion.
Yeah, I agree with your statement. Not in a degrading way though. I know people whose lives have been so difficult, agonizing and full of abuse. Religion is what got them through those times and gave them hope. I am an atheist too, a very radical one at that, but I can imagine these people would have similar reactions if their only source of spiritual comfort was aggressively denied.
So they do need serious psychological help, but not because they are stupid to react that way, if that was what you meant.
That was very insightful. Thank you, gay_sex.
Hey look, it’s the guy in the comic.
Seriously, if you are an adult and lack the empathy to see that it can be a traumatic experience to completely dismantle one’s sense of identity and community, then you need serious psychological help.
Is one of these murderous religious people in the room with us right now?
No they’re just ruling some of the most powerful and genocidal despotic countries in human history.
Fight people who use any belief to justify being shitty to others.
Yes, fight religion. Fight it with logic, science and facts. Otherwise you’ll get people like RFK jr, and a whole bunch of sick and potentially dead children. Or you might end up like the middle east, dead in the name of god.
Sharing your beliefs with family is pretty common. Would you not want your relatives to reflect the way you see the world?
Just because it’s going against the generational direction doesn’t make it somehow wrong.
Nor is making a relative upset necessarily wrong.
Now, freed from the expectations, worldview, and belief systems of a religion, she is able to choose her own way of living?
I don’t really see how this is a negative. Religion gives easy, comforting, often bullshit answers to difficult questions. Who are you supposed to be? What’s the right thing to do? How should you treat others? What happens after I die?
Now, freed from the expectations, worldview, and belief systems of a religion, she is able to choose her own way of living?
In the same way that throwing a child into the ocean is “free to learn how to swim”, sure. You can’t go to all this work to convince someone you are right, and then as soon as they start listening and agreeing with you, abandon them to despair. If you want to help someone see the world more clearly, you also have to show them how to handle this new world, especially if it’s your own family you’re trying to help.
I do agree that abandonment is cringe.
On their own journey, I’d be wary of introducing my own biases.
I feel that easily could’ve been excluded from the comic either for the author’s narrative, or simply to keep it a 3 panel. Could also just be alone time to process.
Totally random question chud: how do you feel about support for drug addicts?
Actually yes religious justifications for violence are fairly common, the comic is stupid
Soo what is the message here? Atheists are incel neckbeard basement dwellers and god is as real as one of their mother?
Edit: Oh wait I misread the comic in the most funny way! I read it as “my mum god” as if he stopped believing in his mum as a deity. Tired brain plays weird tricks.
Soo what is the message here?
That proselytizing about atheism without considering the needs and character of your audience can be just as bad as religion doing the same.
Love is more important than being right, and the son in the comic very clearly didn’t show any. As soon as he proved his point, he left to go celebrate with his friends rather than spend time with his mother. He failed to show her that just because there is no big sky god doesn’t mean that is no love.
Not shown is the mother hatefully oppressing others due to her religion.
Religion can be both helpful to those that follow it while also causing those same people to do or support horrific things in its name.
Not shown is the mother hatefully oppressing others due to her religion.
Yes. Exactly. “Not shown”. That’s not part of this comic. You’ve brought it in all on your own. You’ve missed the point of the comic if that’s what you’re focused on. Everybody here knows that religion can harm people. That’s not the point of this comic. The point is that the way the son character went about his goals was exactly as destructive as the way that religion does. It was a warning to ensure that your discussion include love for the people behind the discussion, and not just hate for them for being wrong.
It was a warning to ensure that your discussion include love for the people behind the discussion, and not just hate for them for being wrong.
I think I’ve gone over twenty years with this being the exact thing that bothers me and have never been able to articulate it as well as you just did in one sentence.
It’s about atheists who make atheism their whole personality.
In other words, “anti-theists” instead of just atheists.
Most people whose personalities revolves around being anti-something are insufferable. It’s far better to be for something than against something.
Like, I grew up Mormon, and left when I grew old enough to think for myself. Among my friends who also left the church, there are two major categories: the “post-mormons” and the “anti-mormons”. The anti-mormons are miserable to be around while the rest of us decided we’d rather build our lives around what we love, not what we hate.
Probably a better description/label tbh
If anything then, the post is depicting antitheists, not just atheists
This 100%, craft beer drinkers can be just as insufferable when they get someone to “enjoy” a sour for the first time
That no matter how righteous you believe you are, there are ramifications to your actions with religion. It’s very easy to understand and be comfortable with those beliefs, but with others you are quite literally messing with their identities who they are.
My family is deeply religious. I personally don’t care if they believe in God or not. I focus on individual teachings, that gay people aren’t evil, that they can be religious and believe contradictory things to what others believe, that it’s all deeply personal
There’s also ramifications to ruining one’s religious beliefs, as this comic shows.
If you’re going to completely and utterly destroy someone’s entire outlook on life (and afterlife or whatever), I’d argue that you have a moral responsibility to help them transition and be there for them. Not be a total asshole like the dude in the comic.
A good addition, I agree. I know my mother draws her strength from the church. Without it I’m sure she would be depressed at home. It would require someone showing her how to be self reliant and grabbing satisfaction from that to get her going again
Faces of Atheism was considered pretty cringe, and for the most part it was (as would have any “faces of x” group been on Reddit), but the idea behind it wasn’t made in isolation.
Your typing here says you’re still tired.
The message is it’s fucking funny to think about this situation.
Some people just can’t handle being released from Plato’s cave.
The first experience for many is crushing despair. It can take time to get out of that slump and learn to find meaning in a meaningless world.
The world has plenty of meaning that doesn’t involve any kind of faith or religion.
Not objective meaning, though, it’s all subjective. But nothing wrong with subjective meaning!
Faith doesn’t have any objective meaning either.
But they already grew up with it. Finding a different subjective meaning to replace an existing one is what’s hard.
