Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. — Seneca
What’s a mob to a king? What’s a king to a god? What’s a god to an atheist?
Which one?
nah, religion seems like a scam that usually results in unhinged beliefs and abuse.
Not a fan generally speaking.
if you dig into any religions beliefs, it goes into some wild fairy tail stuff that just…doesnt happen.
Not to mention that folks tend to base their morals on religion, and religions have very flawed morals.
the difference between god and myself is that if I could, I would prevent a child from getting bone cancer.
Religion did have good morals in theory. Not in practice.
Also, unrelated to your points, religion didn’t evolve. It stayed about the same for thousands of years, despite new science.
That jesus dude had some pretty liberal thoughts. Buddhism was a nice reaction to the caste system. The method of delivery may not be inherently moral, but it is possible to manipulate a population in a way overall beneficial to society.
i didnt say religion only had bad morals. broken clocks and such.
but christianity in specific has a lot of flawed morals that christians handwave. like Mary being 12 when she gave birth to Jesus, or pretty much everything old testament.
claims of a perfect and just omnipotent god while stuff like that flies is sloppy.
I’m an agnostic theist, I believe in the possibility of god(s) or god-like entities.
There is a quote I resonate with by Marcus Aurelius:
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid.
Wow, I had no idea that there was a quote out there that aligns so well with my beliefs. I grew up in a semi religious household but was never forced to go to church. My parents encouraged me to go, not only to theirs but even go with friends that were different religions.
After going to various churches through some really vulnerable times I still don’t subscribe to any religion, but I also can’t bring myself to go full atheist.
Too bad that quote is way too long for a tattoo 🤣
It’s a bit wordier (well, most people are wordier than the stoics lol) but Socrates had the right idea too I think:
Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: - either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another.
Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king, will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this?
If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world, and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and other sons of God who were righteous in their own life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. I, too, shall have a wonderful interest in a place where I can converse with Palamedes, and Ajax the son of Telamon, and other heroes of old, who have suffered death through an unjust judgment; and there will be no small pleasure, as I think, in comparing my own sufferings with theirs. Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not.
What would not a man give, O judges, to be able to examine the leader of the great Trojan expedition; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or numberless others, men and women too! What infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions! For in that world they do not put a man to death for this; certainly not. For besides being happier in that world than in this, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.
No.
Imo the more you think about it the more you realize that “god” is just a very human way to cope with feeling lonely or powerless, and life having no ultimate direction or purpose. People imagine a friend or guardian who has a plan and will set things right, and some use this shared fantasy to make others do what they want.
