So I thought about this in the shower amd it makes sense to me, like praying and stuff never worked for most people I know, so a direkt link to god gotta be unlikely. That made me conclude that religion is probably fake, no matter if there’s a god or not. Also people speaking to the same god being given a different set of rules sounds stupid, so at least most religions must be fake.
First part:
Second part:
But I am not prepared to take the latter on faith alone - b/c free will is a bitch. Allowing a Lord of the Flies type of situation means… well… this.
Do you ever wonder how life must have been in The Matrix? Like, I’ve heard that the Bay of Pigs scenario brought us within like a hairsbreadth of WWIII, and it was only narrowly averted by what amounts to a probabilistic confluence of factors, but if you modeled it multiple times you could end up with VERY different outcomes - like after the fighting settled USA on top, or Russia on top, but the vastly most likely ofc would be nobody on top but everyone (1st-world participants anyway) obliterated, etc. So would The Architect there allow those permutations, or did he guide them towards a desired end? And if so, why bother, if he got what he wanted regardless? Or perhaps he didn’t really care one way or the other, so long as sufficient people were alive to steal their energy from, but b/c of the latter he would work to prevent such a worst-case (to the machines’ purposes) outcome. But if the Russians were capable of threading that needle, and taking over the USA without obliterating too many human lives, then was there an incarnation of The Matrix where Neo (or you know, The One by whatever name) was born to a Russian province, a conquered USA? Fun thoughts…
But anyway, regardless of all the religiosity add-ons (people that try to use Him for their own selfish agendas), Jesus was just a most excellent dude!
As for whether He is (a) “God” or not, people ofc disagree. I think yes, but I also join with others of many faiths who regardless or even outright because of their religion - including atheism - try to be the change that we want to see in the world, without getting hung up on our philosophical differences. Ironically the main camp in opposition to that are fascists, which at this point heavily features evangelical so-called “Christians” in the USA (who are also so-called “Patriots”, so-called Pro-“Life”, so-called “defenders” rather than destroyers of democracy - they really aren’t big on telling the Truth, even/especially to themselves!).
This is the part where shit gets tough, b/c words no longer have meaning, if we (the tolerant) allow (tolerate) people (esp. the intolerant) to call themselves whatever they wish. Ofc nobody for one second would confuse Trump himself as an authentic “Christian” - they just use him for their own ends - but what then is a “Christian”? Is it someone who, like Jesus, is most excellent to one another by showing LOVE (kindness, patience, gentleness, compassion, etc.), or is it rather someone who Karens people, literally killing them… or worse (diddling kids, slavery, wage theft that is… is that even any different?!?)
Ironically, Jesus is only ever recorded to HATE one group of people: the intolerant religious butthurt crowd who say one thing, do the precise opposite, but expect you to go along b/c if you don’t they will literally, flat-out, straight-up kill you. As they did Him.
So yeah, I would hope that even atheists could join in on hating the “Christian”/“Patriot”/Pro-“Life” crowd, as Jesus Himself demonstrated that He did. To them I would say the message: don’t let the fascists confuse you with “words” - just b/c they call themselves something doesn’t make it true. What then is a “Christian”? Who da fuq even cares at this point, it may be a lost cause, but The (OG) Dude I thought was pretty cool:-), again imho.
I wish all (or even most) Christians were like you. We’d all get along better in the world. I can’t reconcile the state of the world with an all-powerful deity, but we are each free to see the world as we choose.
And I wish most non-Christians were more like you. Regardless of our “beliefs”, there is work to be done, to make life better for people - not “kill them all and let God sort them out later”, but right here, right now. I have found it exceedingly easy to get along with most people irl - it’s called “not being a dick”.
Tbf, “religion” itself is an extremely debilitating mental illness (inducing cognitive dissonance) when wielded by authoritarians for ulterior motives, obviously including diddling kids but even more so (at a higher scale I mean), allowing those in power to parasitize off of the backs of those who actually work in society. Ironically that can be cured by reading more of (rather than less) the texts lifted up as “holy scripture”… which is why access to that is curated and heavily obscured as people rush forward to tell you “what it really means is…” (e.g. give me money, and more importantly OBEY).
In short, greedy people have made society the way that it is now, for their own purposes, and therefore there is heavy resistance to trying to do things any other way - people are literally killed who try to buck the system (e.g. Jesus to name just one:-D). Also, religious authoritarianism is only one (particularly effective) way to implement that greed, but it is not the only way e.g. dictatorships.
As far as an all-powerful diety, I have no problem envisioning that (once you get past the fact that most religous “authorities” lie - for their own agenda - e.g. is God “good” like Santa Claus, peeping on little children to make sure they eat their veggies and get in all of their nappies; or is He rather good like Azathoth/Cthulhu, in allowing us to do our own thing even if that literally ends our planet and all life on it, whoopsie daisy!:-P), but ofc it makes just as much sense to envision the opposite too:-). We don’t need to be dicks about whether chocolate or vanilla is better - so long as we agree that murder is bad etc.
“Even” atheists? Especially atheists. As an atheist, I disagree with all Christians, but the only ones I hate are the ones who’ve discarded Jesus’s teachings. I respect real Christians.
Some atheists seem to not want to full-on “hate” fascism, I guess thinking it demeans them or some such. As such their more neutral stance makes them “collaborators” (or worse), whether they realize that or not. And thereby allows such to spread, by virtue of not being opposed hard enough.
Evil needs to be fought against - and I’m not talking some alien lifeform with red skin, a forked tail, and carrying a pitchfork, but inside of our very selves.
But I guess I didn’t express my last point very well:-D.