Atheism

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Fair enough, I was hoping there was a hole or an angle to criticize that assessment from.

But, if there isn't, and you agree that it's basically just mental masturbation, don't people have higher priorities than just pleasuring themselves in that manner? Doesn't there come a point at which pleasing one's self is a distraction from other things that matter more, or at which one's addiction to self-pleasuring becomes more of a net negative than a net positive?

Because it sure seems like that's the core problem with religion, even ignoring how often it can be twisted towards explicitly evil ends, that it ends up consuming huge amounts of time and other resources (effort, thought, money, energy, etc) that could instead be invested into making society and life better.

And the irony is, most religious people seem to understand this when it's a foreign religion they don't understand, or a cult, or a child with an imaginary friend, but the more familiar is it, the less tolerant of criticism they become.

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Last edited by Mountain Goat on 02 May 2025, 5:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If religion has any truth to it or in particular in this example, Christianity, then I wouldn't necessarily call it mental masturbation.

But I can see why an atheist might think of religion or Christianity as that, hence my non-response.

I suppose whether religion is worth it for some people depends on what they get out of it, doesn't it? And such a measure is highly subjective.

One person might spend 10 or 15% of their time on anything religious related, including their thoughts, but might receive a whole host of placebo like psychological health benefits.

For some people, who are able to believe, the trade off might be worth it.

It could also be argued that religion, especially in the modern day, can make life better (historically and when we lived in less secure times, of course violence and such could arise from religion or be associated with it), but in the modern day, for some people at least, Christianity and other religions can be believed in or practised to enhance ones psychological or spiritual make up. I don't see why that is a bad thing for society, personally.

I'm not sure I've met a fellow atheist who's more open to the notion of a monotheistic god (God, as you phrase it) vs. polytheistic gods.

Why would an atheist be more open to monotheism than polytheism, or your preferred god over someone else's god or gods?

It's a complicated business innit

I think this circles back to the observation of religion as an opiate, and why people in power like to rule over people who believe.

If you have a religious population you can distract them from serious concerns with their religion. It's not really any different from how various Russian empires used vodka as a means of social manipulation. Keep everyone distracted and they're never a threat to your power and corruption.

So basically, religion is a bad thing because it keeps people from confronting other bad things that they can and should confront. It's a source of defeatism and fatalism in a manner alcohol could only imagine being.

It's also why I don't single out Christianity, because I don't believe Christianity is unique or special as far as religions go. It's just the one most relevant to my society.