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Comment by aerodexis

1 day ago

If you abstract away the specific claims made by new New Atheists (either the leaders or the footsoldiers) and analyze it from a purely sociological point of view - it behaves identically to any other religion or faith - especially when you consider that strong, top-down leadership is not a universal property of religion.

Also relevant here is that the concept of "religion" itself was introduced very recently in the 16th and 17th centuries, and seems to have been created so that specific groups of people could consider their own activities as being non-religious. See Before Religion by Nongbri.

4 comments

aerodexis

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Curosinono  11 hours ago

Accepting, that we do just not believe in something someone else said, is not a different kind of religion. It is acceptance and growth and mental freedom

pstuart  7 hours ago

I had a lovely conversation with Claude where I tried to input the relevant conversation contexts for its analysis: https://claude.ai/share/49c55947-219c-4381-99fe-8aebbec3592c

While it's nice to be vindicated, I'd much rather we live in the same universe and this is why I try to engage. I saw dang's warning about this is a flamebait topic, but I need to stress a couple points:

  * I'm in no way trying to attack *anyones* spiritual beliefs
  * I'm not trying to denigrate their religion of choice
  * I *am* trying to point out the nature of their religion in regards to outsiders

The best analogy I can offer up here is drugs. I believe in bodily autonomy, which means that people should be able to do the drugs they choose to do. A lot of drugs can be done with minimal danger (even pure heroin when properly administered is less harmful to the body than alcohol).

That said, drug abuse can happen and it can spread in society in a very unhealthy way. My point analogy is: let people do what they want but let's not have a public health crisis with people overdosing in the streets.

It's a crude analogy, but it's the best I've got for the moment.

I think you see my comments as an attack and that I am "the enemy", but I'm not. I just want to be able to live my life the way I choose to, rather than by somebody claiming to speak for God.

pstuart  1 day ago

> analyze it from a purely sociological point of view - it behaves identically to any other religion or faith

What is the analysis? What is the behavior? I'm genuinely curious. Help me see what I am apparently blind to seeing.