• MeetInPotatoes@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    5 months ago

    Religion itself? Or man using religious dogma to justify the uglier natures of their internal belief systems and cherry-picking religious quotes to shoehorn their false righteousness into moral discussion? Religion is a powerful tool and it can be used to drum up donations for an orphanage, or leveraged and wielded by people who aren’t seeking to enlighten themselves at all apart from learning how to use religion to control people.

    • LeFantome@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      5 months ago

      I agree with you. Using religion to manipulate people for political reasons is not really a religion problem. If you eradicate religion, there are many other levers to pull. In fact, manipulating religious groups these days after requires using these other weaknesses against people and then convincing them to ignore the conflict with their religious teachings.

      • MeetInPotatoes@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 months ago

        Ahh yes, agreed. Like prosperity Jesus wanting you to be wealthy despite saying in the Bible “it’s easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

        Or a year round favorite: “Love thy neighbor” (unless they’re people we don’t like, such as LGBT, immigrants, liberals etc. )

    • A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      Both. Texts like the Bible tell you how to conduct slavery, endorses violence against men who have gay sex, and in no uncertain terms (and in many different ways) tells you women are worth a fraction of men and shouldn’t be trusted to preach.

      Yet there are things that aren’t endorsed in the Bible are far too commonly preached by Christians. Like being against trans people, opposing abortion rights (in fact the Bible tells you how to induce an abortion and that you should do it if your wife cheats on you)… and like you said, some drum up donations for the express purpose of leveraging control over others, or to buy private jets, in spite of the life Jesus led and in spite of his teachings.