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MyPTSD Pro
i'd seen the christians unite thread and had to physically recoil into myself like an armadillo. was glad to see this one peek out. like many here religion was a tool used primarily to torment me. god or spirituality is something i don't really care to parse. it is not relevant beyond what may be studied. quantum mechanics, particle physics. there are qualities within both that intrigue but they are still measurable if not explainable as of yet.
i personally do not believe that a sentient man sits in the clouds and casts aspersions upon us due to arbitrary rules that have been interpreted and re-interpreted for thousands of years. that is nonsense. the bible does not even say half of what people think it says. a majority of religious adherence to date is essentially cultural. or it's paul's homophobic jesus fanfiction.
people die every day due to religion. people kill each other over religion and blow each other up. much of the unrest in the world today other than covid is due to religious tension. it makes me sad to see the violence perpetrated in the name of religion but then i recall my father who used to force me to write lines with my opposite hand and punch me in the back as hard as he could if i got them wrong. or drop weights on my fingers because i am not being respectful of god.
and i think. no. those are exactly the same kind of people. certainly there are good and kind religious folk (hey, some of my best friends are religious!) and i've had conversations with a couple. i enjoy the jewish tradition of questioning and commentary which is conspicuously absent from most of christianity (and it helps that my father's primary source material was famously the "old testament"-christianized for your reading pleasure.) that were certainly fascinating.
i think insofar as it applies to history it is interesting. one of my friends was studying the book of joshua & was describing how the genocide of canaanites is historically proven not to have occurred and that the whole thing was published as war propaganda. things like that interest me because i'm curious to know what is real and what is a fantasy.
but religion no longer has a place in dictating civilized culture. we are beings of enlightenment. law. reason. ethics. religion is not necessary for that and it creates environments of insular communities of people who are reliant on a handful of leaders who often are abusive and suppressive. sexual abuse runs rampant and then victims are shamed for speaking out because sexuality is a sin. and on and on and on.
the concept of sin is repugnant and immoral to me. it is not a "sin" to be a human being.
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