• LostWanderer@fedia.io
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    17 hours ago

    ROFL It would be interesting if the Satanic Church also decided to use the voucher program too, that would be the cherry on top. Sometimes protesting a dumb law is using it as intended.

  • balsoft@lemmy.ml
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    18 hours ago

    Can’t wait for the Satanic Temple Primary School to apply for vouchers too

  • BanMe@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    Very amusing but they’ll just change the law to specify Christians and that will be that.

    • Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca
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      15 hours ago

      A judge interested in enforcing the constitution would rule that as unconstitutional and strike down the law. Separation of state and church. Government can’t pass legislation that favors one religion over another. All it would take is a lawsuit.

  • Nyxias@fedia.io
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    1 day ago

    This is all about a stupid religion war.

    Religion is bad, people. They make you believe in things that don’t exist, they dictate your actions and worse, if you get an ounce of power, they make you a megalomaniac.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Religion is based on delusions without evidence, and the beliefs and practices are harmful to both individuals and society.
    Ergo there is little difference between being religious to other forms of metal diseases.

    Edit:
    -mental diseases 🤣

    • notsure@fedia.io
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      1 day ago

      …for about 4000 years humans have been on the cusp of something greater, yet some religious fucks keep holding us back because we have to build pyramids…

      • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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        16 hours ago

        Historically not the best take. Early civilizations like Egypt relied on religion to create a social hierarchy. The Pharoah was believed to be divine and that is why they had the right to rule.

        Even earlier in Mesopotamia those first city states operated on the same general idea. Religion seems to be an important part in forming early social hierarchy. You even see this in Aztec and Inca cultures.

        So yeah to have complex organized societies it seems a few pyramids were necessary.

        That being said now in the modern period religion isn’t necessary, but it does seem to have been very important in the past to building complex society as we know it.

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          11 hours ago

          Society ≠ hierarchy.

          In fact, hierarchical authoritarianism (both religious, political, and mixtures) IS the proverbial pyramids.

          If not for the pyramids and the exploitation they represent, the Egyptians could have been a much more egalitarian and thus successful society.

          So yeah to have complex organized societies it seems a few pyramids were necessary

          Nope! Complexity and organization does NOT necessitate strict and often arbitrary hierarchy.

          That being said now in the modern period religion isn’t necessary

          🧑‍🚀🔫🧑‍🚀

          but it does seem to have been very important in the past to building complex society

          Nope. They just hadn’t invented better systems of government yet. In fact, every time social progress has been achieved, it’s been in SPITE if religion, never because of it.

          as we know it.

          Yeah, very much the warts of it all.

          • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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            10 hours ago

            We have hierarchy, always have. Even chimpanzees have a social hierarchy.

            Every human society has had a hierarchy of some sort. What changes is the distribution of resources. Historically as societies become more complex social stratification increases and resources become less evenly distributed. Defining complex society is a bit well complex but I can go into the anthropological paradigms currently being used in the field if you want.

            Unfortunately you have taken a conversation focused on an anthropological/archaeological break down of human society’s relation to organized religion and tried to match it to your political philosophy. I regret to inform you it does not.

            Now that being said what was does not necessitate what must be. I think we have to ask ourselves why as a species every time we developed a complex society we included stratification, religion, and an uneven distribution of resources if we ever want to move past those things. Is the answer truly as simple as “we just hadn’t invented better systems of government yet”? Or is there something about our inherent being that causes us to repeat this pattern independently across multiple unrelated societies?

            I don’t have the answers to these, no one does. And they are the subject of much academic debate.

            Now moving into the realm of personal opinion. I do agree that we have progressed and can form a much better form of governance. I do however believe that religion was an important factor in the creation of ancient socities and to the eventual progression to us. I do agree though that religion has caused a lot of harm and is not necessary for modern society. But in the times past where we were just beginning to write and raise crops there is an undeniable repeating pattern of religion and its relation to societal structure.

            So to sum it up politically and as it applies to modern times I’m with you. But as an archaeologist I have to disagree with your interpretation of the past.

      • RustyShackleford@lemmy.zip
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        1 day ago

        The religious outnumber, mainly due to cults know how to nab the average human. Mainly, talk loudly, act aggressive, play on common fears, and act like you have all the answers. It helps if you mention receiving them from a disembodied voice only you can hear, who speaks of doom and says you’re the prophet/savior.

        • Kühlschrank@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          I don’t think people understand the amount of coercion inherent in any religion, even the more mundane ones, unless they were in it and got out. I grew up in a liberal brand of Lutheranism I like to refer to as beer-drinking Christianity because it’s so harmless seeming. And yet looking back it was rife with the kinds of things experts would absolutely label brainwashing tactics. Of course under the guise of fun activities like church camps and such but that makes it all the more dangerous.

      • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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        1 day ago

        Man it sucks so hard that humans have been held back by religious fucks such as checks notes Isaac Newton.

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          11 hours ago

          Isaac Newton’s religion was as relevant to his scientific achievements as Hitler’s vegetarianism was to his atrocities.

          In other words: correlation doesn’t equal causation.

          • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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            8 hours ago

            Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, that’s not my point. My point is that the statement “religious fucks have held us back for millennia” is nonsensical because before the last three hundred years or so everyone was a “religious fuck.”

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        If you are delusional to a degree that it is preventing you to function in your daily life, that is absolutely mental disease. Per definition.

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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            45 minutes ago

            Activities that are harmful to yourself and your surroundings are a form of not functioning.
            Being poor and voting Trump is a form of self harm.
            Disowning family and friends for being LGBT is a form of not functioning.
            Believing prosperity gospel and donating to a church is a form of self harm, and failure to address problems properly.
            Believing death is not that important because there’s a way better afterlife is outright insane, and a huge potential cause for self harm.
            Except seeing how religious people who claim to believe that, are whining when they are about to die, proves they don’t really believe it.
            It is very obvious that a belief system based on delusions is harmful when followed. The “Thoughts and prayers” idea is an obvious example, it allows people to do nothing about a problem with a good conscience.
            And as we can see in American society, the delusional mindset is absolutely extremely harmful to American society.

            The cog wheel may be turning, but it is broken so it does damage to itself and the cogwheels it is connected to with every turn it takes.

            The only reason strongly religious people may appear to be functioning, is that for some reason that form of insanity is accepted by the majority, and because of that, so are the harmful effects of it.

            • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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              40 minutes ago

              Sigh please change, Lemmy. BTW if you’re looking for something to stretch, rubber bands are a better option than word definitions.

      • RedGreenBlue@lemmy.zip
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        23 hours ago

        A behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning; however, it excludes normal responses such as the grief from loss of a loved one and also excludes deviant behavior for political, religious, or societal reasons not arising from a dysfunction in the individual.

      • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        Authoritarianism is when workers themselves control the means of production, share the equity of their labor amongst themselves instead of an unproductive parasite stealing it, and the state withers away?

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        You are absolutely right, USA is extremely authoritarian in many ways, towards children including their own, in all sorts of institutions. It is very much based on the might makes right mentality. The economic thinking is of course different with free market. But the authoritarian mindset is much like Stalinism.

      • balsoft@lemmy.ml
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        18 hours ago

        Communism is the antithesis of religion. The former is based on materialism, the latter is idealism incarnate. Soviet republics turned churches into cinemas and warehouses and other cool shit, while capitalist countries were betting more and more on religious propaganda to calm the masses.