• quacky@lemmy.worldOP
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    4 days ago

    Yeah, I agree with being skeptical of rules of churches. However, something must have worked out well for them to maintain an ideology or pattern of behaviors over the generations, from parents to children, parents to children, parents to children, on and on for hundreds of years. I can’t even follow-through on my new years resolution, yet the church has figured out how to keep people praying beyond their lifespan. We could learn a thing or two as to how they are able to change patterns of behavior consistently for a long period of time. Rituals, concerts, rankings, aesthetics, events/meetings, these are all factors

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      We could learn a thing or two as to how they are able to change patterns of behavior consistently for a long period of time. Rituals, concerts, rankings, aesthetics, events/meetings, these are all factors

      it’s called being a manipulative asshole.

      More to the point, christianity’s “popularity” literally has more to do with genociding everyone and everything else. Colonialism was literally because up until recently, Christians straight up thought and believed the didn’t just have the right, but the obligation, to subjugate everyone else. This is why, for example, they absolutely genocided- or tried to- native peoples literally everywhere they went.

      They also don’t stop behaviors that are very negative to society- rape, misogyny, being anti-science, or even things like murder, theft, or drunk driving. So no, I don’t think christianity or any religion is going to be a net good. At best they’re useless social clubs. At worst… use your imagination.

      • quacky@lemmy.worldOP
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        3 days ago

        I recognize that this is a dark thought. If good people die off, then is good not biologically adaptive? We can think of institutions, colonialism, religion as predatory super-organisms or hiveminds. If they keep propagating while those who you are sympathetic toward don’t, then it seems like something is not working here, yeah? It could be adopting predatory behavior yourself, but obviously that’s not desirable. Then all I can think of is anti-predator adaption such as hiding/ invisibility/camouflaging, pretending to be a bigger threat, being part of a big crowd, or fighting back. I got most of these from this wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-predator_adaptation

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          yeah. you just sound like an asshole.

          Sorry. But no. I’m opposed to all of that.

          They literally genocided entire populations of indigenous people (and other Christians,) and your attitude seems to be “yeah but it seems to work for them so we should do that too”

          NO. absolutely not. FUCK NO.

          I’m not the nicest person, but at least I chose to be better than that.

          • quacky@lemmy.worldOP
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            3 days ago

            I chose to be better

            to what end or by what metric? I mean you ought to be anti-materialist, religious, or idealistic if you don’t value your own survival for its own sake. It’d be spiritual or non-materialistic to believe that there’s something more significant than the outcomes of who gets to survive/die. Same applies for associated cruel but successful strategies (i.e., capitalism, colonialism, statism, militarism)

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        is it still peer pressure if you torture a person to behave? I mean, have you seen what any of a dozen different inquisitions did?