Why, what were you expecting?

You haven’t asked me to explain anything, let alone asked me what I actually think.

How very odd.

its a belief that religion is a net negative for society.

Ok but you are ascribing this to my making of an assumption, which I am not.

I have mentioned myself that religious indoctrination of course still exists

And yet you asked for evidence and method, for which there is an awful lot. Which leads me to -

There is no instance of a society without religion

We aren’t talking about whole societies, just individuals. This can be studied very effectively.

There can be no consensus on what is beneficial and what isn’t, as morality itself isn’t objective.

We aren’t talking about consensus, again it’s only individuals, which can be effectively studied.

These benefits are those claimed by the religious themselves, not whole societies.

You would have to so create a set of all the benefits religious people claim to get, which in and of itself would be a monumental task.

As I’ve said, we’ve been doing this for a long time and have vast data from many people. Social activity and personal motivation are well studied and include the religious.

Then, you would have to demonstrate that nonreligious people can achieve all of the exact same benefits.

Again, this is well studied with mountains of good evidence. It’s what I meant when I said I’m surprised you’re not aware of it.

You’re welcome to your view, but I disagree. Don’t feel you need to continue, but I’m happy to if you want.

I don’t believe correcting you would be helpful.

I’ve made my suggestions, which I believe you would be much better served by exploring.

I’ll repeat for your benefit, that if you want to know what someone thinks or what they mean, the best thing you can do is to ask them.

Give it a try, you may be pleasantly surprised or possibly even learn something.*

*Maybe or possibly are not guarantees. I make no promises, but I’ll try.

No, this is incorrect. Feel free to ask.

Well, thank you for that.

However, I’m not making an assumption. I’m merely pointing out that if religion isn’t necessary for the implied benefits, then why use that method? The fact is that no one uses blind faith as the basis for anything else important to them.

I don’t have a strongly held belief regarding the existence of any gods. When presented with the assertion that they do exist, the lack of good evidence means that I remain unconvinced. I’m open to good evidence.

In the case of manipulation, as you call it, religious indoctrination from birth by family, community and peers is well documented. I’m surprised you’re not aware of this.

As for the assessment of benefits, there’s a great deal of research into what people do with their lives and why. We know a lot about these motivations and there are clear lines to known conclusions. It’s largely psychology.

There is nothing to suggest we need religion for any of the benefits that religious people say they obtain from it, or that they demonstrate through their actions.

I hope this makes things clear but feel free to ask if not.

Thanks for this, really useful info!

Your explanation reveals a misunderstanding of the terms, both of science and atheism.

If I may, could I suggest you would be better served by learning about what science is, and also, particularly in this case, just asking atheists what they think and what they mean by the terms they use.

This isn’t a put down, I genuinely think you would be better served by doing so.

I wish you well.

My understanding comes from many years of direct study and experience. As such, you’ll find that I don’t apply what I say to all people, or “every person.” I stand by what I said and painting it as absolutes is arguing in bad faith.

When it comes to beliefs which are very important to people, we aren’t usually going out of our way to believe things that aren’t true. What’s different with the religious is that they tend not to be rigorous in adjusting their beliefs when there is little to no evidence to support them.

While this is common with humans over all sorts of things, it’s particularly common with deeply held beliefs. There’s many reasons for this, but religion is a very refined method of influencing human belief. Much of it is designed to steer away from questioning it, and also to reinforce it.

With this in mind, it’s easy to see why it’s not so much a choice, but for those few we are discussing, we could say that it’s just something that happened.

As for the benefits, psychological or social, etc. I don’t discount them at all. What I do say, however, is that none of them require religion. Any and all benefits attributed to religion can be achieved without it, and very often they are.

When humans are born, they only acquire a religious identity if it is impressed on them. If they acquire it after childhood, it’s usually due to the reasons I’ve outlined.

I’ve not tried it yet. Give it a go and let me know :)

Cargo cult atheism

Could you expand further on this? It’s not a term I’m familiar with.

You are correct. However, relatively there are a tiny amount of them and their reasons are not good reasons.

Almost always, they are in a vulnerable state and at that time have also been exposed to some kind of religious indoctrination specifically tailored to take advantage of that.

It’s easy to see this from the perspective of brainwashing techniques used by cults. Religion just has more developed techniques for longevity.

some people start as atheists

We all do. It takes effort to instill beliefs and usually greater effort to change them. Education is the most common inoculation.

I haven’t tried it yet but I read in a similar post about Language Transfer.

It’s FOSS and they have an app. The languages are limited in number but most main ones are there (except Italian!).

It’s basically recordings of lessons that you pause and repeat back, which sounds crap but seems to be done really well. The recordings are stored on several platforms for preferred access.

It has a music theory intro as well, which is why I’m sitting on it.

This is so obvious, and yet even here on Lemmy people don’t like it so they down vote.

Humanity will get what it deserves. Just keep reminding people under comments like that. I’m with you, friend.

The Greenpeace statement was released the same day that the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) published a preliminary assessment of the “environmental impact of the conflict in Gaza,”

It’s relevant.

For those reading, the comment I’m replying to is attempting to minimise the importance of the OP by pointing out that the war itself is more important.

We can address both things, they are not mutually exclusive. The comment actually says nothing and only adds to both problems by being divisive and trying to make people angry.

This is not the way.

UK here, I love brown sauce on a fry up.

Sriracha mayo on chips.

No publicity is bad publicity, especially when you are trying to remind people what the world is being destroyed by.

Sites of human history have no significance if there are no humans.

And that response right there, that’s why we are all fucked.

I read today that major banks are starting to move investments away from fossil fuels. Your mentality has about as much foresight.

“Self-centred,” the fucking irony.

Except snake oil can contain bleach…

^I just wanted to do superscript markdown, I didnt know what else to write^

most doctors in your city/state can’t/refuse do anything about your problem

There’s almost nothing a chiropractor can do if doctors aren’t treating you. Except lie and steal your money.