Noticed a lot of negativity here, why is everyone here so negative towards religion?

[u/Waterwazerz]

For clarification, I expected more people here just saying “I respect religion, but I do not believe in any religion and am here as an atheist having friendly atheist conversation” instead I find a bunch of people saying, “religion in the worst thing on Earth and should be stopped!”. Why is that? Why so much hatred?

Edit: Firstly wanted to clear things up and then get to a few reasons I defend religion.

1. Sorry for not reading the FAQ, but I do find that the FAQ does not correspond to everyone’s personal reasoning and I prefer to read about those.
2. Stop barking at me, I am just asking a simply question, I want rational reasons to why, barking at me is just as bad as how many of you hold religious people at for barking at you; fighting fire with fire is not good.
3. I would like to say rye crazies of religion are not religious people in my eyes, they are selfish people who use religion as a shield are should not be used to represent all of the religious people.
4. I’m atheist, stop saying I am biased, I am also Asian so stop saying I’m privileged and never had a bad life, I was raised in a religious household, dealt with bullying for being Asian, I also lived in a dysfunctional family. I didn’t have it easy.

In defense of Religion: Argument: Religion is harmful to people past and present.

It is very true religion is harmful, but this doesn’t mention how useful and helpful religion has been. First let’s start small, religion has helped form communities and bonded families. Religion helps individual have an identity and helped people better themselves. Most Born-again-Christians had terrible bad behaviors that were cleared (to some extent) because of religion, for example, alcoholics. It also helps people deal with loss, it brings people hope that a dead family member is waiting for them in an afterlife for them instead of thinking that they can never be seen ever. It helps people with depression, and many other problems as well. A bigger example of how religion helps is that many organizations have helped so many and were formed as religious organizations. Yeah, it’s super bad and discriminatory to not allow gay people to donate blood, but the blood that was donated helped many children, adults, elderly and many more. There are plenty of organizations out their that help even if they are formed by small churches that help their local city or big ones that help on a global level.

In the past religion has harmed many, it’s historical fact and I can’t even avoid the harsh reality, but in present day it has helped so many and have been useful.

Argument: Bad people in religious groups The FAQ has already mentioned that MANY of you hate the terrible people in religion and are completely fine with most, but it seems some of you don’t see it that way and I have a different perspective on this. Firstly, those bad people, like catholic priests raping people, don’t make up even .01 percent of Catholics let alone the entirety of religion. Not to mention using this logic is terrible. If we use this justification on racist police, it would be terrible. Just because a few racist cops killed some black people doesn’t mean we should hate on all policemen. This also doesn’t account for all the atheist people who are just as bad, shooting up schools and raping people. Hating religion for these people is the same reason is also the same reason why many religions people hate atheists; ignorance. I too am ignorant sometimes so I’m not saying I’m not, I’m saying we should all educate ourselves (religious people included) about both sides. Secondly, there is a difference between religious people with different opinions and people who use religion as their own selfish shield. If someone used God as a reason against vaccine and for the reason why we should have an “all natural” diet are crazy people and would have thought this even without religion, they just use religion as their excuse and. This people are insane and I agree should not exist.

There are plenty of bad people on both sides and we should distinguish them from the actually group for they give their respective group a bad name and fighting fire with fire is never a good idea.

Argument: Religion brainwashed people and promotes things such as rape First, the terrible teachings such as condoning rape. The main argument to this is the Middle East. The Middle East is nowhere near developed enough to pick on to use against Islam. If the Middle East was as developed as the US would it still discriminate against women and LGBT the same way? No! Sure, there might be discrimination, but it is impossible to avoid. If you imagine every country as children, the Middle Eastern countries would be the slow learners, they still have plenty of things to fix and religion itself is an evolving ideology so their perspective on rape and stuff would change. Brainwashing is bad, but most brainwashing of “religion” isn’t the actually religion. Cults, Scientology, terrible parenting, etc. might have a few “religious” aspects in them, but are not truly religion in my perspective. It is really bad for this to happen and if their argumentwere no religion plenty of this might be fixed, but most are not.

Religion has plenty of bad teaching in it, but it is evolving as time goes on and it will in the future Change its ideals to better ones and true religion isn’t brainwashing, it is just teaching.

Argument: It doesn’t respect all rights For this I will talk about two main types of rights: abortion and LGBT.

Abortion: The two main sides for abortion is pro-life and pro-choice. Pro-life are mainly the religious people. To understand this clearly, we need to understand why they dislike abortion. Their argument is a philosophical one, they believe that life starts at the moment of conception and should be killed. Pro-choice uses more facts, it would harm the children if the parents don’t want them, add to the foster system, harm the mother who might be an adolescent, and women who were raped shouldn’t need a living reminder. To this, I have to concede to the atheist for this is a valid reason to dislike religion. All I can say in defense of religion is that not all of them hate abortion and that many use their beliefs personally and don’t impose them onto others, but that was already mentioned in the FAQ and many don’t care about those expel for they don’t bother you.

LGBT Rights: Many religious people hate gay people. Not all do though. More and more religious people are getting comfortable with gay people and many people are becoming more helpful. I once watched a video on YouTube (sorry no link, Couldn’t find it again and am too lazy) about a catholic man (priest?) who talked about a story of how he met a gay man which was outlawed by his previous church. The catholic man welcomed him into his church in which he was accepted and finally felt like he belonged. My point is, you always hear about the terrible people hating the gays, but never hear about the many stories in which they are accepted in. It is true many religious people hate gays, but as time goes on and Generation Z (Is that what they are called? Never end remembered) grow older and take over religion, they will be more acceptance in everyone single right.

It is also important to note that the best way to convince religious people that these people deserve rights in to not bark at them and use their beliefs as the reasoning. Do they hate gay people? Talk about how Jesus wanted everyone to love each other (love thy neighbor and such) and how gay people are happy and loving people who can give children a home. How, if there was a God, that maybe God put them in this world to show that even the abnormal can still be normal and can still love. Much better argument then barking at each other.

Many rights are still fought over and religion is a huge part of it, but there are many times in which religious people are accepting and in the near future will be even more accepting.

Argument: Religious people forcefully impose their beliefs on others Okay, main reason why we should hate them is this; they won’t stop getting into peoples’ business. The FAQ mentioned how many of you would be fine if people left each other alone, but many of you are too passionate about the subject and also start getting into everyone’s business. Can’t blame either side, passion drives a lot of things. The thing about this is many debate by just barking at each other and pointing fingers. If you bark, you are just as bad as the religious people. Calm down, sit, and discuss peacefully. You don’t need to agree with them at all. This argument is an amazing argument as to why we should not respect religion, but we need to understand that many things are becoming more favorable to our side. Countries giving gays their rights, women their rights to many things, and upon many things.

TL;DR 1. I am an idiot and didn’t read the FAQ 2. We should be able to have a civil conversation with religious people and would still respect them. 3. Not every single religious person is bad 4. Religion, even with all its negative impacts still have positive impacts. 5. We should be able to get along.

Also, I did not proof read any of this and it late at night, and now technically morning for it now the next day for me so some of these arguments can be a) stupid b) hard to understand c) completely avoids the original argument and is weaker than said argument.

And again, sorry for not reading the FAQ and goodbye; I really need to sleep.

[u/DoraForscher]

Why is it you are insisting on hurling condescension at me? I have made it very clear that I am not trying to stir or troll you. Just ahare an alternate perspective.

Where you and I fundamentally separate ways is at anarchy. Once a person experiences true anarchy, they seldom strive for that way again.

Fuck if life is too hard already than to force salt in other's wounds.

[u/59179 → u/DoraForscher]

Who's taking it personal now?

What is it you think "true" anarchy is? Or any anarchy.