So, recently I was talking to a friend and somehow we got to talking about religion and stuff. When I complained that religion is often put on a huge pedestal and that it’s really just a glorified opinion and should be subject to the same criticism as any other opinion, they told me that that was a really hot take.
According to them, belief and religion is more than just an opinion since it’s such a big part of people’s lives. I countered that opinions are also big parts of people’s lives and personalities. I mean, a huge chunk of your personality is based on your opinions, right?
We agreed to disagree but I kept thinking about it. I don’t get why religion shouldn’t just be treated like any other opinion just because people tend to cling to it. I get that it people are emotionally invested but that’s not just the case with religion but other opinions too. I would appreciate your thoughts to help me understand better, is it really a hot take?
The average religion is a huge tangled mess of opinions, beliefs, customs, traditions, and practices. If you think it is adequately summed up as being “an opinion” then you know less than nothing about religion. Which, since you are an atheist, is fine. Nobody says you need to understand religion. Just be careful not to underestimate by too much how much you don’t know about it.
While I’ll concede that I barely understand how people can actually be believers, I wouldn’t say that I’m uneducated on the topic.
To be fair — especially after reading the comments — I realize saying the entirety of religion can be called an opinion isn’t that great. In hindsight I should have changed it to a massive set of opinion, maybe
The idea that opinion and the most solid faith of religious certainty are the same kind of thing is not necessarily unreasonable, although it’s unusually blunt as systems for classifying different kinds of belief go.
But not all religion is about faith, or about believing the right things. The one I’m guessing you’re probably most familiar with puts an unusual degree of emphasis on it, but even so there is a lot more to it.
Come to think of it, treating all beliefs within a religion — all the most obscure statements of its holy books and the most maniacal speeches of its ordained preachers — as if they’re equivalent to the central principles of the faith, is also the sort of thing the craziest of the religious zealots do. There are always plenty of opinions in a religion for which it can be useful for adherents and atheists alike to recognize a difference in their character compared to that of the core tenets.
Agreed. I would still stick with my original point but I’d rephrase it. Religion is a huge set of opinions that a person built their view of the world off of. These opinions, just like anything else, should be allowed to be critized. Everything should be.
Is that phrased better?