this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
1354 points (97.6% liked)

News

23266 readers
4636 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy the beauty of the morning. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church,” he recalled.

Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades.

“Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches. “I can’t buy into that,” he said.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] MonkRome@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There is no such thing as a good religious person

I've known extremely religious people that were very kind to everyone around them, only focused on doing good in the world, and never pushed their beliefs on anyone else. "Good" and "evil" are very reductive and simplistic terms. Good people can have beliefs that are not good for society and they are not completely defined by that. If we go to that absolute then there isn't a good person that exists. Pretty much everyone harbors beliefs, irrespective of religion, that when examined may be detrimental to society, they just don't know their own blind spots.

[–] cogman@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Well said. Though I will say that we need to stop giving religions passes for bigotry.

Churches in the US get huge tax breaks, can set up explicitly racist schools, or they can operate worse than the worst MLM. Some of the followers are somewhat to blame, but really it's the organizations as a whole that need to be revisited.

Why should my tax dollars subsidize a church building where the pastor tells their congregation that people like me are an evil that should be purged from society? Why should they subsidize a pastor that has a private jet? Or a church that actively protects child abusers and/or wife beaters?

And frankly, it's only certain religions that receive these sort of benefits. Any sort of native religion or niche religion won't get half the benefits we give to multimillion dollar religions.

[–] thelastknowngod@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've known extremely religious people that were very kind to everyone around them, only focused on doing good in the world

Being religious is not a requirement for doing good in the world. If the religion did not exist these extremely religious people you know could continue to do good in the world while not simultaneously supporting organizations that enable corruption, abuse, dishonesty, violence, oppression, etc, etc..

If anyone is still believing in these hokey stories or exploitative organizations they are either willfully ignorant to the world around them, gullible rubes who are victims of a centuries old scam, or actively benefitting from that exploitation.

I stand by my statements. Religion is a virus. It's a net negative in the world that stands in the way of all human progress.

[–] MonkRome@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I was responding to you saying "there's no such thing as a good religious person". I don't really disagree with the rest of your perspective, yet your arguing as if you assume I do. I think it's reductive and crass to judge someone on a single data point. That was my primary point.