You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments View context

That’s the thing, by religion losing it’s place as the arbitrator of certain social norms and by being able to believe in modern Christianity while not having to accept nonsense beliefs (like the world being created in 7 days and being 6000 years old, denying the existence of evolution, extreme homophobia and sexism, being able to wear a “satanic” outfit without being excommunicated from Christianity like Musk did here) belief in religion, paticularly this new kind of Christianity can actually be reinforced.

The quote even checks out in my personal experience. I’m a closeted bisexual, and the church being homophobic and forcing that belief on us was a big reason I left the church and became an atheist as a teenager. The other big part was the denial of science. I couldn’t accept that nonsense from them. However, I am meeting LGBT people a few years younger than me who are religious and still go to church, as it’s a more accepting environment for them at the particular churches they attend. Thinking back, if I had gone to a more accepting church as a child, a church that accepted the scientific reality of evolution, the big bang, etc and was accepting of LGBT people, would I be an atheist today? Honestly, probably not, I probably would’ve stayed a Christian.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points
*

While I still agree with oldhead talk about religion being the opium of the people, I think contemporary times have demonstrated it is not the only opium or even the leading opium at this point, and I often find myself agreeing more with liberation theology religious people than I do “this new tech treat is so awesome that there is nothing we can do about it so we may as well cheer the masses’ increasing precarity and hope and wait for the excesses and vanity projects of the rich to trickle down to the masses” bazinga defeatists.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Going to drop another Samir Amin quote about that phrase in particular.

Nevertheless, another reading can be made of Marx. The often cited phrase–“religion is the opium of the people”–is truncated. What follows this remark lets it be understood that human beings need opium, because they are metaphysical animals who cannot avoid asking themselves questions about the meaning of life. They give what answers they can, either adopting those offered by religion or inventing new ones, or else they avoid worrying about them.

In any case, religions are part of the picture of reality and even constitute an important dimension of it. It is, therefore, important to analyze their social function, and in our modern world their articulation with what currendy constitutes modernity: capitalism, democracy, and secularism.

Techbros and bazinga defeatists are firmly in the “inventing new ones” category. Even in your example, they are acting as if the new technology is some all powerful, inevitable, unstoppable force from above so they may as well worship it cheer on this technological progress. They have essentially in a way, reinvented the concept of God.

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

Techbros and bazinga defeatists are "firmly in the “inventing new ones” category. Even in your example, they are acting as if the new technology is some all powerful, inevitable, unstoppable force from above so they may as well worship it cheer on this technological progress. They have essentially in a way, reinvented the concept of God.

I lost count of how many people I’ve met that saw “progress” as some Civ game style bar that only crawled upward toward specific goal milestones. A lot of inevitabilists seem to see dae le singularity or even FALGSC as inevitabilities, and even otherwise self-described leftists can convince themselves that they just got to sit and wait for that progress bar to fill up and everything to just change in a way that suits them (while rhetorically shitting on people for being “afraid” or “emotional” for not sharing their toxic positivity).

permalink
report
parent
reply

Under late-stage capitalism, we have so many opium options available now, both literal and metaphorical.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

Just talking negatively about some such opiates can even be perceived as a threat to the opiate supply.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points
CW suicidal thoughts, kind of a long rant

I struggle some with this because when I was young, I was taught to weave together every aspect of who I was with the church, then essentially told every part that was me was evil and rotten while every part that was the church was perfect and unassailable. Trying to separate myself from the church or faith often felt like (and often added up to) suicide. So I’ve mever really been able to fully separate for those reasons, then add in a psychotic disorder with frequent religious delusions and I’m a mess. I believe in Jesus, but I try to keep away from the science denial and queer-phobia. (personally am trans, but that was a long and painful process of discovery) I also try to let other people believe what they believe. If faith is an opium to me, then I am direly addicted to it with no way out I can see. But I’m trying to still be a good human while believing in a faith that all too often oppresses and suppresses other folks, identities, faiths, and cultures.

permalink
report
parent
reply

the_dunk_tank

!the_dunk_tank@hexbear.net

Create post

It’s the dunk tank.

This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.

Rule 1: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.

Rule 2: If your source is a reactionary website, please use archive.is instead of linking directly.

Rule 3: No sectarianism.

Rule 4: TERF/SWERFs Not Welcome

Rule 5: No ableism of any kind (that includes stuff like libt*rd)

Rule 6: Do not post fellow hexbears.

Rule 7: Do not individually target other instances’ admins or moderators.

Rule 8: The subject of a post cannot be low hanging fruit, that is comments/posts made by a private person that have low amount of upvotes/likes/views. Comments/Posts made on other instances that are accessible from hexbear are an exception to this. Posts that do not meet this requirement can be posted to !shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml

Rule 9: if you post ironic rage bait im going to make a personal visit to your house to make sure you never make this mistake again

Community stats

  • 1.8K

    Monthly active users

  • 4.6K

    Posts

  • 120K

    Comments