Spirituality is a base instinct, and most people -need- to believe something. What ever fills that need, whether it’s God, Allah, Buddha, Science or Spaghetti… They are all god if they fill that need for people.
I can appreciate spirituality.
People believing that they are the “true” believers is where the problem comes in, and unfortunately, most religions have that as a feature and not a bug.
To be so conceited… An omnipotent being would at least be smart enough to understand how regional culture works, and would present itself to everyone in ways that were culturally relevant. And a lot of religion started out very, very cool, but got changed and corrupted by whoever was ruling that part of the world.
We all believe in the same shit, just in different ways.
Also: There are far too many people in this world that are comfortable exploiting something so basic to being human.
/soapbox
This is pretty fluffy, and I guess that’s nice, but religion is actually harmful. And as much as religion and science may both satisfy a similar desire to belong to something greater, I think it is dangerously misleading to suggest that the two are equivalent - even in this limited context.
People believing that they are the “true” believers is where the problem comes in
This is incredibly divisive, you’re right, but … you might be due to rewatch the film if you think there aren’t foundational problems long before we get to sectarianism.
We all believe in the same shit, just in different ways.
You might have misunderstood me… I’m saying religion as an institution is harmful. I think we agree on that.
I’m not trying to say that religion is equivalent to science. I’m saying the believer of God and the believer of science are both drawing from the same place in their respective phyches. Its where we build our idea of what the world is, and our place in it.
What Wanda sees as a tornado sent by God, Debbie sees as the result of observable weather patterns. You can worry about who’s right, or you can realize that they are both right from their own respective world views.
How is it divisive to say “people who’s belief system specifically invalidates the beliefs of others kinda suck?” That idea is divisive by design, which is where we have the problem in religion.
The “same shit” I was referring to was the core need for belief. The comment was a plea for understanding, not a literal statement of fact…
Religion as a concept isn’t harmful. It’s a completely natural pairing of our need for spirituality and need for community. But it’s as suceptiple to manipulation just as any other system in society. It takes a human willing to exploit it to make it harmful.
What Wanda sees as a tornado sent by God, Debbie sees as the result of observable weather patterns. You can worry about who’s right, or you can realize that they are both right from their own respective world views.
Tornadoes are not sent by god, and no amount of belief makes it “right”. Even worse, it becomes harmful when people think a tornado is divine punishment against things that offend their faith.
So no, science and faith are not the same.
