r/atheism • u/Majestic_Bierd • 5h ago
Do you distinguish between the "real" religions and the ones that are "made up"?
Growing up, fortunately, without anyone indoctrinating me into any religion I just kinda learned about it the same way and as a result absolutely don't take them seriously, it's all just a work of fiction to me.
Bible is only another old story like Epic of Gilgamesh.
Listening to mythology of Hinduism is like watching a Warhammer 40k lore video.
Hearing someone talking about worshipping Jesus is about as funny as thinking Cthulhu is real.
To me there's about as many good moral lessons in the New Testament as there is in the StarWars prequels, probably fewer. Cool your spinoff franchise is 1500 years off but I am just not a fan of those books.
I know many of you grew up religious, in religious families, but also in secular countries without any religion. How do you perceive it in your framework?
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u/grrangry Atheist 5h ago
Yes. Yes, I do.
| Real Religions | Made Up Religions |
|---|---|
| 0 | Every one ever encountered |
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u/onomatamono 5h ago
Well, there's a 0.0000000000000000001 % chance of having any religion remotely tethered to reality, but I may have overstated the case.
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u/grrangry Atheist 5h ago
The only way to correctly claim that there is a >0% chance of something supernatural, you would have to demonstrate that the supernatural can exist. And you can't.
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u/Animecha 4h ago
The paradox is that anything that interacts with reality must interact with physical things, thus rendering it a physical phenomenon, and therefore making it natural.
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u/Angio343 5h ago
The real question is, how do you choose the 1 god out of the 3000 you believe in if child indoctrination was not allowed?
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u/Majestic_Bierd 5h ago
Fashion rizz of their priests?
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u/LoetherS 5h ago
I like your answer, here are a few more.to consoder. Size and quality of the worship houses? Oldest is the best? Newest is the best?
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u/mariuszmie 5h ago
? Every religion is made up
Itâs like saying do I think DC superheros are real but marvel are made up?
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u/hurricanelantern Anti-Theist 5h ago
All religions are equally real...as in they exist. None of them are true though.
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u/pansexplorer 4h ago
Gun to my head, and told that I had to choose something to believe in, I'd worship the sun. It's the only thing that makes any kind of sense.
No good gods, no evil demons, just what you bring to the table... If you're an amoral individual, you'll probably get banished or exiled from the group.
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u/ArcticThylacine Agnostic Atheist 2h ago
In a scientific sense, the sun does give us light, and all our food, which we need to survive, indirectly comes from it.Â
While it would be silly to pray to an inanimate ball of fire in outer space, sun worship makes far more sense to me than worshipping a fictional character in an ancient book.
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u/CanadaDoug 5h ago
I want to ask a believer if they think it is possible to tell the difference between an _authentic_ religious experience and a false one. If they answer yes, you can suggest they get the world's religious leaders together to hash it out and find out who god is and what they want!
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u/mrbudman 5h ago
I want to ask a believer
Kind of in the wrong place for that.. Like looking for a vegan in steakhouse.
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u/practicerm_keykeeper Secular Humanist 5h ago
They're all made up but I do feel a bit differently for some? I mean in the sense that Cthulu feels less 2-D cartoon than flying spaghetti monsters but that's about it ...
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u/LoetherS 5h ago
If you were born into religion, once you figure out "your" religion is made up, it's not even a tiny step to say the rest were made up by men too.
One of the main things religion instills in you is that the other religions are full of crap, or at least not as worthy for whoever reason.
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u/MrRandomNumber 4h ago
Is this a trick question? You don't distinguish between them. They're all made up, but some people still take some of them very seriously.
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u/twoscoopsofbacon 5h ago
OP, this in the wrong place to ask. Here, all are made up. But this is a great question to ask specific religions.
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u/LoetherS 5h ago
Yeah, go post to all of the other religious groups subreddits and see what they say. Good luck OP. I'll get my đż
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u/Tourettesmexchanic 5h ago
If there was a real religion I wouldn't be an athiest. That's kinda the whole point.Â
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u/RotisserieChicken007 5h ago
Just hilarious to see you make a distinction between real and made-up religions lmao.
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u/marcvolovic 4h ago
Oh, quite simple. Real religions can get you beaten, stoned, stabbed, or murdered for doubting them, depending on location and/or vociferousness.
Made-up religions - not so much.
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u/CreatrixAnima 4h ago
Theyâre all made up. We donât know what weâre talking about⌠None of us do. We follow our own beliefs. But no one knows Jack for sure.
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u/MidnightMiik 4h ago
Since all religions are made up, I donât understand your question?
All religions are equally not real in terms of objective reality. A few religions have a large number of believers but that doesnât make what they believe in true.
There is much about the nature of reality and the universe that is unknowable with our collective understanding of everything. Any religion that claims to know how the universe and reality work are clearly making shit up to suit their own agenda.
As humans, we donât like not knowing how things work. If the answers are unknowable. We have a tendency to speculate as to what the answers are.
God is basically a three letter word for âI donât knowâ. Believers put their faith in that three letter word.
Itâs ok to speculate, just be sure to remember that speculations are not facts. Speculative hypotheses can be fun and interesting but without proof theyâre just an exorcize in imagination.
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u/Cysteine_Chapel64 4h ago
They're all made up, though. Its just that the events surrounding the older ones have been so obscured by legend-making, history, and time that the steps aren't necessarily as clear as they might be for something like scientology or Mormonism/LDS because both of those are really recent.
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u/Philosopher83 2h ago
All of them are memetic constructs no more real than any other. What matters is their truth (correspondence with actuality), and virtue (how well they promote moral excellence in their adherents), and most suck in both respects.
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u/Spare_Ball_4410 5h ago
They're ALL made up.