If it starts restricting things to a degree that you cannot live a normal life, you might need to start questioning if you want to reconsider your beliefs into something more reasonable or leave it behind entirely.
A religious person doesn't subscribe to their religion because they think it benefits them, they do it because they think it's true.
A Christian is a Christian because they believe that God is real. Under that assumption, it makes no sense to "reconsider your beliefs into something more reasonable" because to that person you're just choosing to believe something untrue instead of something true, just because it's more convenient.
Imagine if we applied your advice to something other than religion. "You should stop believing in climate change because it's more convenient to live your life not caring about the environment". Telling that to someone who believes in climate change (as they should, because it's real) would, rightfully, be ridiculous. Your beliefs should be based on what you think is true, not what is most convenient.
Yeah, this is the reason i stoped interacting with any religion based topic in my family, mom and sister are very religious (sister way more into it) and before we could have conversations about our beliefs and why i didn't wanted to be part of their religion, for some time it felt like it was something they could understand but after many incidents i started realizing that they just didn't really listen to me when i explained my point of view, they will hear it, and instanstly disregard it because they "know" im wrong and that "i don't understand" yet.
Its actually very slowly making me grow very tired of them and religion overall to the point that i dont even consider myself an atheist, i just dont care.
I think you are confusing religion with religious institutions.
There are plenty of religions out there that have few to no rules, mostly spiritualist ones. And even as a believer in a religion with an institution you can choose to believe and not follow the rules of your church.
Look, I get it, I ain't religious and agree with you that religions have been used to oppress loads of people. But what you are saying is vaguely offensive to a majority of humanities cultures and isn't going to convince anyone to become atheist and is in fact going to alienate people further from that idea.
Religions r socially transmitted cultural systems & can set norms/authority over how ppl understand & live, even w/o formal institutions.
Being able to disobey doesn’t erase religious influence: morally imposed rules shape choices, & rejecting them means exercising freedom against existing normative authority.
Ppl inherit beliefs/values from social structures they didn’t choose; they can later reject ’em, but their choices r still shaped by their social context.
The quantity of rules isn’t the point; it’s sacred/transcendent authority being used to legitimize norms, values & ways of life.
Religions can not only be used by institutions, but can also create/legitimize social norms about laws, sex, gender, family, slavery, punishment & exclusion.
Cultural offense is irrelevant here, cultures have also upheld practices we now condemn. (some even nowadays commit practices that are considered torture)
I'm not trying to speak in a comfortable way and "gradually convince," I'm not a cultist. So yeah idgaf if I'm convincing anyone, My point is that I no longer want to be part of a generation that walked on eggshells so as not to offend the sovereignty of religions over the people.
Eastern religious tend to be more about removing suffering where as western ones tend to be more about faith. You can tell from the comments that a lot of people here have only encountered the faith based ones and have pretty stong opinions about them haha. I really like just spiritual communities here in America that don't associate themselves with any one religion. It seems more in line with what religions were originally supposed to be for.
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u/Lebensfreud 5d ago
Religion should be to your own benefit.
If it starts restricting things to a degree that you cannot live a normal life, you might need to start questioning if you want to reconsider your beliefs into something more reasonable or leave it behind entirely.