Comments by "Be N S O N" (@Colddirector) on "ReligionForBreakfast" channel.

  1. IMO the most recent example of this is how in my own lifetime Burning Man has gone from a small event only attended by friends to a massive commercialised thing attended by Silicon Valley millionaires/billionaires.
    34
  2.  @LearningAndLiberating  it reminds me of how some people who, rightly or otherwise, feel disenfranchised don’t really bother thinking about the future because they don’t think they have one.
    29
  3.  @fij715  it's wild the disdain people like you have for people who also believe in jesus, but not in a way you like. you do realize that's also not biblical right?
    27
  4. @ He also probably loves the open contempt you have for your fellow man.
    16
  5. I don't hate God because I don't think he exists. That being said, if he did exist as depicted in the Bible, I definitely wouldn't like him very much.
    16
  6.  @timmccarthy9917  idk if there's a term for this but I think negative creds are a big factor too. If your experience with religious people and religious institutions is more negative than positive (something I think is pretty common these days), you're less likely to become religious
    15
  7. Lena Bean the white ones maybe, the black activists who had a dog in that race certainly had less abstract reasons to want civil rights.
    12
  8. I honestly think I've always been predisposed against it. Even when I was nominally a believer, I don't think I ever had any genuine feelings for it and praying felt like writing a letter to a distant relative who never wrote back.
    10
  9.  @exoplanet11 Honestly while the Christian “reject the truth with unrighteousness in their heart” canard is stupid, I suspect the reasons a lot of people become atheist are more emotional than they like to think. For me, the religion was top to bottom completely unappealing to me. Church was sickly saccharine, the concept of heaven was completely unappealing and a lot of the rules made no sense (ie being against homosexuality, lust being bad, no remarriage after divorce). Basically I had to follow rules I didn’t like in order to go somewhere I didn’t want to go to avoid being tortured forever. Combine that with having never felt any spiritual presence (and now seriously wondering if I’m neurologically incapable of it) and I was already kinda eyeing the exits by the time I started learning about atheism. To be clear I revisited the subject later wanting to believe during a low point in my life and I still found the actual religion too unappealing and frankly man made for me to seriously consider.
    8
  10.  @infinitemonkey917  or… get this… they might just think that joke is funny
    7
  11.  @GreySimurgh  A system like that sounds like it would be good for preventing some of the vile predatory grifting seen in the evangelical christian world.
    7
  12.  @KyrieFortune  I do think there's some people who are neurologically inclined against spiritual experiences and religious thinking, though. I suspect I am, because I've been in situations that are meant to induce spiritual experiences and felt pretty much nothing. Apparently they're quite similar to what a concert or a club can induce, and I never liked those either - the only thing they make me feel is "the music's too loud and I want to go home" lol. Also even when I believed in God, I never felt anything even remotely similar to "god speaking to me". Prayer was pretty much me writing a letter to a distant relative and never really hearing anything back
    5
  13.  @Willy_Tepes  translation: “I have nothing but arrogant bluster to back me up”
    5
  14.  @AlcazarJones  maybe try speaking without acting like a child, hey champ?
    4
  15.  @josephposenecker9741  “religion” as a term is fuzzy at the best of times, but you’d have to stretch the definition of “religion” to its breaking point to say that atheists are religious.
    4
  16.  @thethrowbackguy4319  If god is omnipotent, it's by definition impossible for him to be too busy. And if he wants a personal relationship with people, it's very shitty of him to just ignore child abuse like that. This would not be acceptable from a person - to just ignore that kind of abuse, why should it be acceptable from a god
    3
  17.  @UzairSayyid237  Honest question - why Islam, specifically?
    3
  18. Not American, but I had to read Shakespeare in its origional form. I really didn't enjoy it, hated Romeo and Juliet and used the internet to pass that part of the class, but Macbeth's story was compelling enough to see me through the tough English, so maybe there's your solution haha.
    3
  19.  @Willy_Tepes there’s also no proof that there’s a magical all powerful creator that’s always existed. you’re trapped in a worse bind than the atheists
    3
  20. I honestly think that whatever processes induce religious and spiritual thinking for me are broken or at least underformed. I've always found religion to be a wierd and alien concept, and even when I was nominally a christian (mostly from culture and environment), trying to pray was like writing letters to a distant relative who never wrote back.
    3
  21.  @danielpaulson8838  The thing is - I’ve always been agreeable and as a kid I never questioned things much. Even as a teenager I was unusually nonrebellious, I had almost no interest in the underage drinking and partying going on, even with the adults all but egging me on to break those rules. Any true skepticism I have now was formed as an adult, well after I left the religion. It makes it all the more puzzling for me - like 90% of my personality was perfectly geared towards being a religious person but I lack the wiring required to actually have a spiritual life.
    3
  22.  @stantorren4400  Also Jesus intended for the crucifixion to happen, it was literally the main reason he was there at all.
    2
  23. I've been bouncing similar thoughts around my head recently. There's research about how spiritual experiences are very similar to what people feel at live concerts, and I've never liked those either. I honestly suspect my head simply isn't wired to get anything out of these things.
    2
  24.  @EmmaWetahrd  if you like it, then fair enough. it's still an objectively bad translation.
    2
  25.  @Willy_Tepes  such as…?
    2
  26. I mean, money food and social acceptance is what keeps you alive, and belief in a creator doesn’t exactly pay the bills. Also relationship is a compromise - if god wants to be loved, he has to meet individuals halfway like anyone else in a relationship.
    2
  27.  @gabor6259  I think the problem is that working absolutely can be good for your confidence, but not when it feels meaningless, dehumanizing or abusive. Which, unfortunately, is a lot of jobs these days.
    2
  28. Everytime you guys blast other branches and denominations and say your particular flavour of religion is the true one, it reminds me of scammers who deride other scammers to give their grift more credibility. Especially when they tend to display most of same odious traits. Also given christians were pretty much a-okay with slavery not even 200 years ago, I would not be talking about objective morality if I were you.
    2
  29.  @PajeetAlaburnosa also word of advice - advertising orthodoxy while being really smug is more likely to make people avoid it rather than join. It’s not in my interest to help you convert people, but oh well, consider that a gimme.
    2
  30. @ It's not so much borrowed/stolen as it is employing mythical tropes from the time. It's sort of like saying Friday the 13th "stole" from Halloween because they both involve some masked git killing people.
    2
  31.  @Rocky-ur9mn  Reason is merely a tool we use to make sense of the world around us, and whether or not our senses are faulty, they're the only inputs we actually have at our disposal. Moreover, this applies even in a theistic universe, we know for a fact that our senses and reasoning faculties are faulty (ie biases, tribalism, magical thinking), but we still must rely on them. It isn't irrational to make the best of the limited information and tools we have, I'd argue it's the only rational thing to do.
    2
  32. I think the Bible condemns drunkenness instead of just drinking alcohol. You don't have to abstain entirely, just keep it in moderation. Also wine/beer back then was generally safer to drink than water, so it'd have been foolish to ban it outright.
    2
  33. @WeAreTheEggmen22I mean you can make the same argument about Christianity - it inherited a lot of culture and social norms from the Pagans. I think it’s an overly simplistic argument though because it’s letting religion take credit for the thinking of people, even when fellow Christians at the time seriously fought back against those norms/concepts. But sure, call your own religion a tapeworm if you must.
    1
  34. @WeAreTheEggmen22 Like the christians did with pagan philosophy, I am more than happy to take good ideas that work and discard the bad. If you wish to return to worship of Jupiter, by all means do so.
    1
  35. @WeAreTheEggmen22 because typically I don’t worship things with poor evidence.
    1
  36. @Stoned_GooglyEyes I was referring to Jupiter the Roman god, not the planet. Point was if we’re supposed to believe Christianity or be deferent to it because of the social and political advances made under its tutelage (the countless times christians pushed back against those advances notwithstanding), Christians should be deferent to paganism for a lot of the political, cultural and philosophical frameworks it provided to Christianity.
    1
  37. @ I am well aware. It was still very patriarchal, but relatively progressive compared to broader pagan society. I have no problem adopting the good ideas while discarding the bad, and neither did the early christians for pagan philosophy, culture and politics.
    1
  38. The KJV translation isn’t considered to be a very good one.
    1
  39. I hate the “reading the Bible makes you an atheist” thing because it’s clearly not true. I think however it’s impossible to read the Bible critically and not deconstruct at least a little bit. Especially if you look into biblical scholarship - you can come out the other side faithful, but you are unlikely to have a fundamentalist view.
    1
  40. if that's the case, then there is arguably no real scripture in existence.
    1
  41. I think that’s called cultural christianity
    1
  42. You really think that'd be a good idea? Openly calling out a literal emperor already infamous for his cruelty - particularily against your religion? Really?
    1
  43.  @connectingthedots100  I think the point is plausible deniability - sure Nero's number is 666 but there's no proof that's definitely who he's referring to.
    1
  44. Aphantasia's an interesting thing. I think I'm... partially aphantasic? I can visualise things in my head, but only in brief flashes. I can't "hold" images for longer than like a second at most. I think I can do it longer if I really practice or I'm emotionally invested, but outside that no luck. It's not because of my aphantasia, but I'm convinced I have neurological reasons for my lack of spirituality. I've tried engaging in those practices, like praying, meditation, fasting, reading holy books, none of them give me any sort of spiritual or non-materialistic feeling.
    1
  45. they apparently make pretty good cigarette wrappings too lol
    1
  46.  @thoughtsuponatime847 A god who isn’t omniscient could doubt.
    1
  47.  @AmitySapiens  fine tuning in particular falls pretty flat for me when pretty much everywhere known outside our tiny blue dot is uninhabitable. Also we have a universe sample size of 1, so we can’t exactly tell how likely life is to form in other universes, or if our specific form of life is the only that can form.
    1
  48. IMO most “former atheists” tend to be people who just live their lives and don’t think about religion much before converting, either because of an impact event, social pressures or something else. There are exceptions to this but in my experience they often play up just how serious they were about atheism because it makes a compelling story, even if they converted when they were like 14 at the time.
    1
  49. Eh, there's neopagans but I'm not sure how much that counts.
    1
  50.  @hasan.radawi  Nobody is 100% unbiased, but that's the reason we have scholarship. People aren't just throwing darts at the wall here, translations are judged by how closely they're believed to emulate the intent (if not the letter) of the original content.
    1