@AskTheDevil Agreed. Humans will be humans. I would never impose my belief, or lack thereof on anyone else. I will comment though, that plenty bad can happen with science, for similar reasons.

@gemswinc I don't have _any_ problem with people not believing in nonsense they can't see or confirm. I like when people are like that.

I don't have a problem with someone not believing in gods, spirits, any of that. Such people, you'd think, would be less of a pain!

It's the ones who have to _crow_ about it, piously impious.

@gemswinc There is a difference between simply _not believing_ in god, and forming a _belief system about not having a god_ that you use as a justification to place yourself above others.

@AskTheDevil Yes!

@AskTheDevil @gemswinc

I'm with @MLClark on this. It's not the religious stories themselves that are the problem (we're only storytelling humans, after all), it's the terrible choices we make with them...

https://mlclark.substack.com/p/a-reprieve-from-todays-gods-into

@LiseL @AskTheDevil @gemswinc @MLClark

The problem has never been isms, its what humans justify with isms that seems to be the problem.

There's an old saying of "those who can make you believe an absurdity, can convince you to commit an atrocity"

This does not seem exclusive to Religious faith. I think about the shocking violence done to individual in the USSR, or the racial hatred perpetrated independence of faith that has happened all over the world.

@LiseL @AskTheDevil @gemswinc @MLClark

One of these days the lights are going to go out for the last time, and they will either draw up on a new and farther horizon, or they wont.

And it will be what it will be, and I say this as a person with very deep faith and conviction.

I could tell you stories. Things that I remember of a past life, even my death there.

Is that real or a quirk of my mentality? Well I think its real. That and 2 dollars will get you a bag of chips.

@NiveusLepus @LiseL @AskTheDevil @MLClark Where I stand, there is no personal god, but as for spirits/ghosts, I too have had experiences

@gemswinc @LiseL @AskTheDevil @MLClark

I go with Shakespeare. There are more things in the heavens and the earth Horatio, than can be dreamt of in your philosophy.

We are finite beings trying to define and understand an infinite eternity. What I am most certain of is that we don't even have a partial understanding of what truly is.

From my perspective there's probably an uncountable number of Gods, God like beings, other places... and more than I can ever conceive of.

@NiveusLepus @gemswinc @LiseL @MLClark I personally think that the gods just live in people's heads, but I don't need other people to believe the same in order for me to believe they are people worthy of courtesy, love and respect.

@AskTheDevil @gemswinc @LiseL @MLClark Very well said my dear Devil

@NiveusLepus Yes! @LiseL @AskTheDevil @MLClark

@NiveusLepus @AskTheDevil @gemswinc @MLClark

Agreed. Isms, religious and secular, need to be creative and constantly open to reinterpretation, reexamination. If not, there's going to be trouble.

@LiseL @AskTheDevil @MLClark I doubt we will ever "eliminate" religion, certainly not by force or edict. If it is in gods plan 😉 I hope our species will evolve in more positive directions.

@LiseL @gemswinc @MLClark "When a solid three-quarters of human beings have some form of faith, atheists who want to “eliminate” religion before we get on to other tasks are asking for our species to be something entirely different than it is, before they’ll roll up their sleeves and get to work as well."

Thank you!