I can’t really think of a reason for that as Reddit is hated somewhat equally by “both” sides of the spectrum. It’s just something I find interesting.
I can’t really think of a reason for that as Reddit is hated somewhat equally by “both” sides of the spectrum. It’s just something I find interesting.
Sadly we’ve got the smug ‘new’ atheists of the old sort on here too.
They’re not committed to progress, only condemning others as backwards while (generally) supporting punitive policies domestically and abroad.
Religion is going the direction of right wing politics in that its silly to argue something so ridiculous.
Faith is apparently on the rise (~84% of the world), and whether you like them or not they have to be worked with. Their culture and ideas will inform society whether we like it or not. By blinkering ourselves you’ll allow the worst opportunists to take advantage of both them and your ignorant selves.
Is it on the rise or is it apparently on the rise? Is faith including everything from Jesus to the flying spaghetti monster? Islam seems to be the only religion with growth, projected to catch up to Christianity by 2050. I guess you meant we will be working with Muslims as they will be shaping the world, sorry women of the world.
People like us in the wealthiest nations have no right to criticise Muslims as a group (if that’s even legitimate criticism, it isn’t) when we prop up the worst Muslims (Saudis and other Arabs) and have always worked against democratic, secular and relatively feminist and progressive elements in the Muslim world.
Your snide anti-intellectual new atheism is a cover for general snobbery and possibly a barely concealed racialised Islamophobia.
Oh put the pearls down and withdraw your exaggerated gasp. My snobby and racist remark of …“sorry women of the world” is not off the mark considering the state of women’s rights in those countries. And its anti-intellectual of me that I don’t believe in a god? I dont pay any mind to fairies and gnomes and wizards and unicorns, is that anti-intellectual? Yeesh
Pathetic of you to hide behind concern for women’s rights when you don’t acknowledge that we, the wealthiest countries have routinely worked against democratic, secular and relatively feminist and progressive elements in the Muslim world, as I say above and to which I referred to as anti-intellectualism.
Did we bring feminism and human rights to Libya when we democratized it with bombs and left it with slave markets for Africans? Maybe people like you and I should speak with some humility?
So its the United States oppressing all those women this whole time? It has nothing to do with the religious leaders of those countries using Islam to oppress women? We dropped some bombs on Germany and Japan and they don’t seem to be oppressing their women nearly as hard as the Muslim countries. Enlighten me, if you will.
Japanese women are not particularly free compared to similar wealthy nations.
But you are forgetting history - those countries had their own brands of capitalist expansionism within living memory. They both had periods of time pre-World Wars where they homogenised themselves: Germany formed a nation state out of smaller states and kingdoms, while Japan did similarly, as well as forcefully assimilating it’s Ainu ethnic minority groups. As a result of this, a powerful centralised state was able to direct the development of the economy as well as their respective society. Initially fascists exploited this. Then as the US, Soviets and other Western powers repudiated them, they were made to adopt the liberal capitalist model that they’d been on the path towards pre-World Wars.
The Middle East on the other hand has been under the boot of european puppet masters. Iran’s democratic PM was couped (1953), in Afghanistan the Taliban was funded by the US against a secular progressive leader, and in Saudi Arabia, their royal family were puppets for Europeans (UK) and for decades now, the US.
That’s not surprising. Religion promises a happy ending towards everything that makes life suck. Including death. It’s understandable that people ignore all the bad parts of religion just to be able convince themselves that everything will be all right in the end.
Sometimes I wish I could be religious.
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condemning backwards policies, beliefs and actions is fine and good
condemning people for comforting themselves with something that harms no one is not, nor is it the first step of progress
its actually just being a zealous asshole
Which is just circular logic when you yourself define what (social) progress is.
You can’t really anchor your entire good/evil definition on something vague that can be arbitarilly defined and redefined (often to serve hidden objectives of the ones doing the definition) such as “progress”.
Is it really smugness to deny one’s one magical origin and special status in creation?
I’m not sure what pleasure you get from telling e.g. women that magic isn’t real, that astrology is bs, and that crystals are only pretty and don’t have special powers. If I were such an unfulfilled person, I’d resolve to get another hobby. Possibly environmentalism or something.
And I’m talking about people that are specifically chauvistic for a hobby and anti-intellectual. I’m not talking about the average normal person that dislikes Catholics or some other misogynistic elements of religion.
The key to your misunderstanding is to assume it’s done for personal pleasure or fulfillment.
The UK for e.g. has less religion than ever, and it’s been turned into a shithole in many respects - Victorian diseases are back, a third of children lack food and they’ve had a decade of lost economic growth.
If you think your brand of atheism goes hand in hand with progress, you are equally as foolish as those people that thought liberal capitalism ensured democratic progress.
I will tell you why atheism, regardless of the horse on which it rides, is a step toward progress: it is because belief in fantasy is an opiate that numbs us and stymies progress toward improving the welfare of all.
Very marxian.
But I’m talking about ‘new athiests’ a specific cringe, backwards and reactionary movement from around the 2010s. Not atheism in general.
Have you seen this? https://youtu.be/tmk47kh7fiE
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/tmk47kh7fiE
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
You got all that from two sentences? Impressive.