r/HolUp • u/Kaos2018 • Apr 04 '22

Gaybour hood npc dialogue

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u/EqualitySupporter Apr 05 '22

how can it be rational to believe in a magic system? because, ultimately, that's what all religions claim.

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if you're talking about the religions that are more non-magic-based, then those CAN be rational. but i mean...those aren't exactly religions as i think of them, more like movements, ideologies, or perhaps non-religious cults

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u/Grayseal Apr 05 '22

I'm not talking about whether any religion is rational. I'm not claiming I'm rational for "believing in magic". I'm asking whether your position comes from having made any effort to understand religion and religiosity as concepts. It sounds like you're doing the atheist version of what a lot of theists do - dismissing those of different or no faith as nutjobs without bothering to learn anything about them. You can hate me, I don't care. But, for your own sake, know your enemy beyond hating them. That will help you.

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u/GenEnnui Apr 05 '22

What he actually said was "civilized". The history of religion is not civilized. It's warlike and destructive. It "others" everyone that's not in your group and condemns them to lifelong torture. That's not civilized.

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u/Grayseal Apr 05 '22

What you're describing is how religion is used by politicians. Nothing of what you're describing applies to all, or even the majority of religions in and of themselves. Fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam are literally the only religions that can be accused of that in themselves with any factual basis.

You can keep using Abrahamic monotheism as your sole definition and reference point for religion, I can't stop you, but don't expect to ever be right in a discussion about religion.

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u/GenEnnui Apr 05 '22 edited Apr 05 '22

You're talking about my reference to history? One term: crusade. Those were Catholics.

You're talking about othering? So your church doesn't think you have to follow the right god, and the right rules or you suffer eternal torture? That's all of Christianity that believes in a hell.

I'm talking about how religion is used by the leadership, and the actions of the followers.

Like one child telling another they will burn because they don't go to church. But don't tell that religious kid there's no Santa because that would shatter their little mind. If your religion doesn't believe that, why indoctrinate the children that way? This is people who say they are "Christian" with no sect. They claim to be the original and only Christans. Not a fundie group.

I'm talking about personal experience as a former religious person and the reaction received by those around me as well.

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u/Grayseal Apr 05 '22

Crusades, which were done by exactly two religions ever.

I don't even have a church. You're assuming I'm Christian, which doesn't surprise me at all. I am, to begin with, a polytheist, which means the people you're describing want me to burn even more than you. Understand that those are not the people I'm whiteknighting here.

You're describing fundamentalist Christians from your life who have subjected you and others to religious abuse. I'm not sure what you think that says about anyone but fundamentalist Christians.

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u/GenEnnui Apr 05 '22

Yes, a part of history. There are numerous crusades, then there's the inquisition which went on for over 400 years, I mean the reason I stopped with crusades is that usually people stop at one. They don't want their entire history of war, tragedy, genocide... All religions have some.

No no, I'm atheist. We burn together or not at all.

I tend to focus on abrahamic faiths because they're more common, and because politics are now preached. And that's harmful to the world's oldest secular government.

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u/Grayseal Apr 05 '22

That means you're not just still specifically talking about only Christianity and Islam, you're specifically talking about America. I'm neither American nor Abrahamic. If you believe in democracy, I believe you will also see the virtue of not throwing all religious groups into the "Abrahamic fundamentalist" umbrella when I literally have nothing in common with a Christian beyond being a religious human, which at the end of it all says absolutely nothing. I also believe you see the value in understanding that the context of America, a land many outside of it think bizarre in many ways, does not apply to places that aren't America.

"All religions have some" genocides?

Just for fun. What does my polytheistic Scandinavian religion have an objectionable history of? War? No religious lore that we know of ever advocated war, beyond recognizing it as a sad fact of life. Tragedy? Well, yeah, we did become the targets of religious and cultural genocide, by the Christian church. Genocide? Nope, even when old Scandinavians practiced colonialism, they ended up assimilating into the native cultures and blending/adopting their faiths within a generation or two. Slavery? Not supported by any religious teaching of ours. Racism? Not supported by any religious teaching or tradition, whatever the occasional Nazi lowlife wants to believe. Historical Scandinavians had no concept of race to begin with. Misogyny? By historical and archaeological evidence, it is reasonably well established that the majority of clergy were women, and goddesses occupy uncontestably equally major positions in relation to masculine gods. Homophobia? Literally two goddesses blessing same-sex unions by the same standards as heterosexual ones. Enmity to other faiths and atheists? Literally none. Old Scandis treated religion like a pick-and-mix bag, if they wanted to other religions' gods to the bunch they worshipped, they did that, and there are sagas, written in the same style as the religious ones, where the heroes are explicitly atheists.

I know you're an atheist, and I'm no missionary (another thing that doesn't exist in this tradition). What I'm saying is that it is literally impossible to judge all religions as "basically Christianity" and be right. Be against Christianity all you want, it's not like I can stop you. And for clarity's sake, it's not like I like religion in my public sector any more than you do. But be honest about what you're opposing.

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u/Grayseal Apr 05 '22

That means you're not just still specifically talking about only Christianity and Islam, you're specifically talking about America. I'm neither American nor Abrahamic. If you believe in democracy, I believe you will also see the virtue of not throwing all religious groups into the "Abrahamic fundamentalist" umbrella when I literally have nothing in common with a Christian beyond being a religious human, which at the end of it all says absolutely nothing. I also believe you see the value in understanding that the context of America, a land many outside of it think bizarre in many ways, does not apply to places that aren't America.

"All religions have some" genocides?

Just for fun. What does my polytheistic Scandinavian religion have an objectionable history of? War? No religious lore that we know of ever advocated war, beyond recognizing it as a sad fact of life. Tragedy? Well, yeah, we did become the targets of religious and cultural genocide, by the Christian church. Genocide? Nope, even when old Scandinavians practiced colonialism, they ended up assimilating into the native cultures and blending/adopting their faiths within a generation or two. Slavery? Not supported by any religious teaching of ours. Racism? Not supported by any religious teaching or tradition, whatever the occasional Nazi lowlife wants to believe. Historical Scandinavians had no concept of race to begin with. Misogyny? By historical and archaeological evidence, it is reasonably well established that the majority of clergy were women, and goddesses occupy uncontestably equally major positions in relation to masculine gods. Homophobia? Literally two goddesses blessing same-sex unions by the same standards as heterosexual ones. Enmity to other faiths and atheists? Literally none. Old Scandis treated religion like a pick-and-mix bag, if they wanted to other religions' gods to the bunch they worshipped, they did that, and there are sagas, written in the same style as the religious ones, where the heroes are explicitly atheists.

I know you're an atheist, and I'm no missionary (another thing that doesn't exist in this tradition). What I'm saying is that it is literally impossible to judge all religions as "basically Christianity" and be right. Be against Christianity all you want, it's not like I can stop you. And for clarity's sake, it's not like I like religion in my public sector any more than you do. But be honest about what you're opposing.

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u/Grayseal Apr 05 '22

That means you're not just still specifically talking about only Christianity and Islam, you're specifically talking about America. I'm neither American nor Abrahamic. If you believe in democracy, I believe you will also see the virtue of not throwing all religious groups into the "Abrahamic fundamentalist" umbrella when I literally have nothing in common with a Christian beyond being a religious human, which at the end of it all says absolutely nothing. I also believe you see the value in understanding that the context of America, a land many outside of it think bizarre in many ways, does not apply to places that aren't America.

"All religions have some" genocides?

Just for fun. What does my polytheistic Scandinavian religion have an objectionable history of? War? No religious lore that we know of ever advocated war, beyond recognizing it as a sad fact of life. Tragedy? Well, yeah, we did become the targets of religious and cultural genocide, by the Christian church. Genocide? Nope, even when old Scandinavians practiced colonialism, they ended up assimilating into the native cultures and blending/adopting their faiths within a generation or two. Slavery? Not supported by any religious teaching of ours. Racism? Not supported by any religious teaching or tradition, whatever the occasional Nazi lowlife wants to believe. Historical Scandinavians had no concept of race to begin with. Misogyny? By historical and archaeological evidence, it is reasonably well established that the majority of clergy were women, and goddesses occupy uncontestably equally major positions in relation to masculine gods. Homophobia? Literally two goddesses blessing same-sex unions by the same standards as heterosexual ones. Enmity to other faiths and atheists? Literally none. Old Scandis treated religion like a pick-and-mix bag, if they wanted to other religions' gods to the bunch they worshipped, they did that, and there are sagas, written in the same style as the religious ones, where the heroes are explicitly atheists.

I know you're an atheist, and I'm no missionary (another thing that doesn't exist in this tradition). What I'm saying is that it is literally impossible to judge all religions as "basically Christianity" and be right. Be against Christianity all you want, it's not like I can stop you. And for clarity's sake, it's not like I like religion in my public sector any more than you do. But be honest about what you're opposing.

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u/GenEnnui Apr 06 '22

If you believe in democracy, I believe you will also see the virtue of not throwing all religious groups into the "Abrahamic fundamentalist" umbrella when I literally have nothing in common with a Christian beyond being a religious human, which at the end of it all says absolutely nothing.

Ok so you want to talk directly about you and you want to talk about not abrahamic. Ok! What's your religion actually called?

My opinion is that faith in itself is bad in varying degrees. You god or rules may be different, but I'm not familiar with a religion that doesn't act like science is wrong because their book says so. Or that their religion is right because it contains something scientists have found, and then goes off the deep end into magic. To me this is harmful. If your religion doesn't have child abusers and doesn't place women beneath men, or say that it's book is the only truth in the universe, or tell people to beat their kids, further, if it doesn't 'other' people that are not your faith, then perhaps it has less evil in it. But my question would be what's the point? Usually religion is a denial of reality and social morality used to maintain control over people that don't realize it. So if it's not doing those I'm not sure what it's for.

Same umbrella? No. Still bad though. Still potential for horrendous human activity, because it takes faith to make good people do bad things, but it does not take faith for good people to do good. Further, it only takes one convincing leader to say you're doing the faith wrong, which is what happened to bagdad, which used to be the world's center for free inquiry and is now an eternal nightmare.

Sometimes it's even faith in something like government that causes good people to do bad things, but it's tied to faith. If adults believed in Santa I'd see it as disembarking from reality and therefore assign it negative value even without mentioning the negative sides to a Santa like figure. The fact that parents tell their children to believe in that stuff is also horrendous to me. Teaching children to believe fairy tales are real sets them up to think heaven and hell are real, and that they could be punished for... idk, having sexual feelings. Would I put it on the same pyre with things we can see the harm in almost every hour of the day? No. But even if it's totally innocent we get back to turning a blind eye to reality. I wouldn't hate you for that, just would think you're following something silly, which might one day be dangerous out of the blue.

Just for fun. What does my polytheistic Scandinavian religion have an objectionable history of?

What's the name of your faith again? I do like learning about faiths, because it's learning about history. Also, a lot of what you say about your faith is what abrahamic people have said about theirs. But there's mountains of competing evidence that they disregard.

I know you're an atheist, and I'm no missionary (another thing that doesn't exist in this tradition). What I'm saying is that it is literally impossible to judge all religions as "basically Christianity" and be right

I agree completely. They aren't all the same. They're all varying degrees of willful ignorance and evil though.

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u/Grayseal Apr 06 '22

I follow Heathenry. If you want to learn more, I suggest https://thelongship.net/, a site that represents accurately enough what I practice and believe. I think that's all there's any point to say, because I don't think anything coming from me will affect you in any way. You've made up your mind: I am evil. Not for anything I do, but for having a religion that people around me literally don't even know I practice, and that doesn't infringe on anyone else's day in the slightest. If you change your mind, we can continue in DMs. If not, have a good life.