Anonymous #1 19h

my point is that you should hate psychosis, abuse, and cults. people shouldn't force their beliefs on people or treat people poorly or manipulate or abuse people. religious people aren't inherently abusive or psychotic

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Anonymous OP 19h

i can dislike all of them. no, religions are not inherently abusive. but i would hope someone whos vulnerable can heal with therapy and other social services instead of being funneled towards religion

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Anonymous #1 19h

absolutely!! i don't think religion should be a substitute for therapy or anything. but you can do therapy and believe in god and be a good person. they aren't mutually exclusive

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Anonymous #2 19h

exactly!! the idea that all religious people are just brainwashed and can't critique or have complex thoughts, religious or otherwise, is just so tiring

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Anonymous #3 19h

i can totally respect not being interested in religion and being wary of it, of course! and i think we should be careful of what we let slide on the basis of religion, but i just can't get behind, like you said, the whole extremely anti-theist shit

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Anonymous OP 19h

agreed! i do feel like many religious ppl are pro therapy & trust modern medicine but there have always been religious people who have said shit like "pray the gay away" "ur not depressed u just need jesus" etc etc etc.... and a growing portion are becoming extremely anti science and anti medicine. not every religious person is like this but religion itself is sort of detached from rationality, and its very easy for already vulnerable people to slip into these beliefs

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Anonymous #3 18h

I feel like this argument severely reduces the agency and complexity of the average person. Believing in something that can’t at present be proven or disproven (e.g., that the universe was created by an omnipotent god) is incredibly distinct from standing in staunch opposition to established scientific fact. People are fully capable of demarcating the extent of their faith as they please and the choice to disregard objective truth would exist even if religion didn’t.

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Anonymous #4 18h

I mean it’s still believing in something even when evidence is lacking. A lot of medical misinformation is based on wiggling its way into gaps. Plus there’s ghosts, mediums, etc.

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Anonymous #3 17h

Believing in certain things without evidence by no means necessitates disbelieving other things that do have evidence, nor does it force people to contradict current knowledge to fill general gaps in understanding. Religion and science are not mutually exclusive; in fact, science can easily be a mechanism by which to explain the ambiguities of religion.

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Anonymous #4 17h

kinda off topic, but i dont think science can really prove religion. using science to justify religion is like already having your mind made up about what the answer is, and using very specific cherry picked facts to prove it right. i dont think thats intellectually sound.

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Anonymous #1 16h

Science doesn’t need to prove religion, that’s not my point. Religion doesn’t only need to accept facts that corroborate its assertions either, especially because many of the assertions made by religion have undergone thousands of years of translation and aren’t always strictly literal, and there may still be as yet undiscovered missing pieces that reconcile any differences. The point is that if you were to say, for example, that the universe has an intelligent creator, you can easily accept any

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Anonymous #1 16h

proven scientific propositions by asserting that the mechanisms by which the universe/nature works (gravity, electromagnetism, evolution, etc.) are simply the processes said creator uses to manipulate the universe. Under this line of reasoning, scientific truths and religious beliefs can coexist

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Anonymous #4 16h

But the belief in insufficiently evidenced assertions based on faith alone is fairly contradictory to science as a method of understanding truths about the universe

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Anonymous #3 16h

Again, not necessarily. If you believe in a force or being that exists outside of the bounds of humanity’s perceptible reality, you can leave faith separate from research, answering questions about how the universe functions without recourse to blind belief while still holding those beliefs. For example, an entity inside a simulation can speculate that there may be beings outside of the simulation, dictating its processes, while still using the established rules of the simulation to determine

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Anonymous #3 16h

how it functions.

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Anonymous #3 16h

Also, the principles inherent in certain areas of inquiry are definitely not universal. Playing piano demands subtlety, and lifting weights requires strength. One person can have both. One does not cancel out the other. Just as faith in religion does not cancel out objectivity in science. These traits can coexist in people.

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Anonymous #4 16h

But if you choose to believe in something without evidence, that is a different worldview than a scientific one, and that often leads to conflict.

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Anonymous #3 16h

The basic idea of science is that evidence and experimentation is the best way to determine what is true. Believing in something not based on evidence is a different method of viewing the world than a scientific one.

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Anonymous #4 16h

yes someone can have faith and reason. but there are many instances of religion being in direct conflict with science. sure, the two can coexist in one's mind. but without cognitive dissonance imo

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Anonymous #3 16h

Your views in one area don’t have to dictate your views in all others. Believing something without evidence, especially in a case such as this where it’s nigh impossible to furnish evidence proving or disproving claims, does not condemn you to foregoing evidence-based reasoning entirely. The way and extent to which people approach other things with respect to their religious views depends on their personal way of doing things, not solely whether they’re religious.

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Anonymous #1 16h

There being instances of conflict does not mean conflict is always ensured. Modifying beliefs is the essence of understanding. Even in science alone, theories are constantly in conflict and overturned. An inability to temper your beliefs to what you know is a personal trait, not a universal characteristic. The fact remains that religion can and does exist in people who do not disregard science. Albert Einstein was religious, but that in no way precluded him from accepting worldly truths.

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Anonymous #3 16h

But not every aspect of people’s lives must adhere to the principles of science. It doesn’t even only have to be religion; people rely on faith when they trust others, they rely on faith when they believe in themselves, they rely on faith when they vote in an election. None of these things are nearly as theoretically justified as certain scientific principles, nor can they be, but do you really think they make someone disbelieve in science?

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