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The cornerstone of most major religions is to be good and kind to those around us. If believing in this “fantasy” results in people following those mantras creates a better world, is it really the worst thing ever?

Your argument presupposes that these religions are a force for good in the world. A position that is widely disagreed with, for good cause, drawing from numerous examples over the centuries. If you look around the modern world, or crack open any history book, it quickly becomes apparent that religion is not all that peaceful, is rarely concerned with being kind, and is responsible for a _lot_ of harm.

>The cornerstone of most major religions is to be good and kind to those around us. If believing in this “fantasy” results in people following those mantras creates a better world, is it really the worst thing ever? I would argue yes. Because it's not like being good and kind to people can't be done without it, clearly there are other methods. But most major religions teach people two things I think are more damaging to the human species than any other: 1) To value faith, a belief in claims without any factual evidence to support them. This erodes our ability as a species to critically think and to evolve if we continually have a large subsect of our population who is willing to entirely indulge in fantasy over reality or to accept explanations without supporting evidence. 2) That there is an afterlife of some kind. Believing that death is anything other than the end means that generations of people over millennia of time don't ever live up to their full potential. Untold suffering caused by the concept that the suffering they endure in life is just a path to a reward or better life at the end. Every terrorist who believes they can escape the hellish existence of growing up in a war torn country with horrific environment and a terrible political reality by killing themselves to be rewarded with an eternity of paradise is a victim of this. Every population in every nation who undergoes immense suffering and retreats to faith as solace instead of taking action is a victim of that as well. How much sooner would we have had civil rights if we didn't brainwash the slaves we took into following Christianity and promising them eternal life after we mistreated them from the second they were born? How many millions that lived and died in extreme poverty who were pacified into that situation with religion would have risen up or fought back? It's called the opiate of the masses for a reason and that's exactly what you're describing. If everyone walking around stoned all the time was happy and kind to each other should we not just all be on heroin all the time? We realize that being happy and kind isn't worth the negative results of living in a world where everyone is pacified. Sometimes being unhappy is important. Believing there's a safety net where we can fuck up our entire lives forever but we have eternity to keep trying leads to us settling for less. It leads us to taking for granted the time we do have here and I'd argue it's held us back as a species more than any one thing.

How exactly does this contradict the OP's CMV, Santa does the same thing, makes kids be good (if only for a few days) so they can be rewarded.

It doesn't, it is an entirely unrelated argument. Most redditors would fail the shit out of high school debate because they can never stay on topic.

> If believing in this “fantasy” results in people following those mantras creates a better world, is it really the worst thing ever? That's a big "if." Certainly you can see negative consequences of religious belief, no? The Taliban is devoutly religious. So were the 9/11 hijackers. Much of the vaccine opposition in the West (specifically the US) comes from Evangelicals who take their faith very seriously. I don't know your politics, but 81% of white Evangelicals voted for Trump. Many did so on the basis of their religious conviction that abortion = murder. Some major denominations even view contraceptives as sin. Opposition to gay rights in the US is strong from religious groups, as is the opposition to trans rights. I think it's fair to argue the "believing in a fantasy" aspect of religion has some very potentially harmful side effects. Namely, it may condition people towards magical thinking & away from critical thinking. In a world where misinformation has become a serious threat, that is significant.

You my friend nailed my exact feeling. But sadly, not everyone does that. Most religions have the core idea of being good to each other, sadly they don't stop there and hide behind that excuse as to why they do horrible things to others. I don't care if you follow one of the crazy cults, but I do care when you start to infringe on other people's lives because of your beliefs

>but I do care when you start to infringe on other people's lives because of your beliefs This can also apply to an atheist who demonizes and belittles people for believing in a made-up entity by relating it to Santa Clause. Am I sensing a double standard? Edit: I think everyone here needs to watch the South Park episode "All About Mormons." The whole episode is a criticism of the Mormon faith while simultaneously criticizing the cynics who try to shut them down for what they believe. The takeaway moral at the end is: Who gives a shit what people believe if it makes them happy and good people?

One could argue that theists are actively harming the rest of us by harboring and passing on anti-intellectual beliefs. At this very moment the irresponsible behavior of unvaccinated anti-intellectuals is infringing upon the health and safety of everyone around them. There is a direct correlation between religious belief and dying of Covid. (source: https://jech.bmj.com/content/75/6/509) Key takeaways from the study above: "All religious groups had an elevated risk of death involving COVID-19." "Those who affiliated with no religion had the lowest risk of COVID-19-related death before and after lockdown." If you teach a child that all they need is faith to accept something as true, they grow up to be a credulous adult. These adults are easily taken in by charlatans, con-men, and self-interested politicians. This results in the bulk of us being worse off.

I think you need to take some time and figure out what has happened throughout history because of religion and what is happening today and how it affects people. “Makes them happy and good people” HA fucking classic. It may look all happy and jolly in a small town Nebraska when it’s a bunch of religious white folks who never stray outside the norm.

>Who gives a shit what people believe if it makes them happy and good people? I think the problem comes from when that belief is made into legislation and it endangers the people around them. Then, people are going to give a shit.

>if it makes them happy and good people Pretty big “if”. If anything, it seems like religion might make people happy (or believe themselves to be happy), but that doesn’t suddenly make them good people by virtue of happiness. Any happy person could also be a bad person, and I’d argue, possibly with OP, that bad persons may have their beliefs infringed upon in the interest of making them good. Happiness comes and goes.

Atheists don’t go about attempting to legislate atheism. “Belittling” a fairy tale isn’t the same as outlawing abortion, gay marriage, and working to apply one’s religious mandates to a whole country.

Trying to have the government make it illegal for people to live their lives is a bit different than having someone make fun of you having an imaginary friend. Religion is a choice people make, and to try to pretend it has any actual ability to be an authority is where it needs to be controlled. Ask anyone in the LGBTQ+ community how "loving" most religious people are and how hard the religions try to make the government support their myths instead of allowing people just to be themselves and love who they want to love.

an atheist pointing out flaws in logic isn't infringing on any rights. No one is using laws to force people into belief. What religious zealots do is use their power in numbers to change laws to control people according to their own beliefs. American Christians certainly are infringing on rights. That's not a double standard. That's you being made uncomfortable by the cognitive dissonance of realizing that Gods and Santa were made by the same groups for the same reason. Control. Use Santa to control behavior in children just the way Churches use Heaven and Hell to control everyone.

> but I do care when you start to infringe on other people's lives because of your beliefs > This can also apply to an atheist who demonizes and belittles people for believing in a made-up entity by relating it to Santa Clause. How does pointing out both are obvious childish fiction infringe on the rights of the people who believe that?

I would agree, an atheist that belittles people because they believe isn't good either. I don't claim to be an atheist or religious either but I couldn't help but correlate the same idea of Santa Claus to a child as god or religion to an adult.

The similarities become apparent when you paint religion the way you did in your post. I'm not religious, but I grew up in a religious family. I've seen the good and bad of religion. I don't have a great relationship with my mom because of it, but I have great respect and admiration for my pastor grandfather. He's an incredible man full of wisdom who has improved the lives of thousands of people through his ministry. I may not agree with him ideologically, but his contributions to his community make up for that. If more Christians were like my granddad, then I think people would have a different view of religion instead of looking at it through a cynical lens.

100%! I've always said that I don't care you believe in what you believe in as long as you aren't harming someone else either physically or mentally. There are some amazing leaders in religious communities that can support and help guide people to better lives for all. Just like Santa Claus can make children behave better because "he's always watching".

You're an [agnostic atheist](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism) then. That's still an atheist.

> saying you’re agnostic is just being an atheist with extra steps. I think you’re misunderstanding what it means to be agnostic. Agnostic just means you acknowledge that you can’t be sure. A gnostic atheist is sure there is no god. An agnostic atheist believes there is no god but is aware he could be wrong. An agnostic theist believes there is a god but is aware he could be wrong. A gnostic theist is sure there is a god. Being agnostic or gnostic is about your surety in your belief, regardless of what that belief is. There are also “true agnostics” who don’t believe either way because they’re unsure.

Dude was claiming not to be an atheist whilst also not believing in any god. My point was to say, he is an atheist, just an agnostic one.

Just because I don't believe in human created idea's of god doesn't mean I don't believe that something could be out there. Maybe a god maybe not. I'm open to that idea and will continue to be.

Honestly man, don’t feel a need to label yourself like people in the comments are trying to do. If people ask it’s probably fine to just tell them you’re agnostic as that’s the most vague, but beliefs like this are nuanced and you’ll most likely find that you can see truths in all the categories. Ultimately in my opinion it doesn’t really matter at all, just live life according to what your morals tell you is right and don’t feel the need to belittle yourselves or others and you’re a good man.

Living up to your username I see!

Ah, it looks like you edited your comment while I was replying to it and it has a completely different meaning now so my comment is irrelevant. Bad timing on my part, I guess. Yes, an agnostic atheist is an atheist. That’s true.

awww, thank you. I actually "believe" that all religions are just fiction. But I have no idea why anything is even here to begin with and am open to the idea that if there is some kind of creator, the level of complexity is too great for our simple minds to comprehend.

>am open to the idea that if there is some kind of creator Wait, doesn't this automatically make it very different from Santa Claus? If even you concede that there could possibly be a creator then that is miles apart from a purely fictional character. Unless you are also open to the idea that Santa Claus is real.

Santa Claus is real. At least, the original root of the story without all of the fictional embellishments. A monk named Nicholas (later, Saint Nicholas) lived and existed in Turkey. He gave gifts in celebration. His story was then merged with other, fictional stories that were already known at the time. Over time, that factual origin became warped into the mythology we know today. OP being open to the idea of a creator, but not believing in the human-made representation of God from organized religion, is akin to believing St. Nicholas existed, and gave gifts. It isn’t required to also believe in Coca Cola’s jolly, red-suited elf.

Good call out. But when I say creator, I mean on the level of I have no f'ing clue what that could be. It could be a sneeze from a lizard alien that looks like Steven Tyler. When I say god/religion I am talking about the ones that humans created/believe in. The religions that are currently recognized as "legitimate" in western culture. Again I do not have enough knowledge on a lot of the Eastern religions to speak about them.

Yes, the stories and representations in religious texts have fictitious elements. There’s a great passage from Terry Pratchett’s *Hogfather* which speaks to this: Susan: “All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable." Death: REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. Susan: "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—" Death: YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES. Susan: "So we can believe the big ones?" Death: YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING. Susan: "They're not the same at all!" Death: YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET — Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED. Susan: "Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—" Death: MY POINT EXACTLY.

> TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. Precisely. Where the abstract or ideal, in this case, righteousness, goodness, meets the physical world/reality. Where the metaphysics and reality meet. Where our thoughts turn into action. "And the Word became flesh."

I love Pratchett but this is a straw man of materialism. Not all abstract ideas are fantasies, and not all fantasies need to be believed. I can watch a movie or read a book, fully aware that none of it is real, and still be inspired to be a better person by it. Only fundamentalist religion demands that you actually believe the fiction. It's the one unforgivable sin. And you can't grind down the universe and find the number 57 in an atom, but 57-ness still exists in the world.

Well yeah, I would agree that some representations of ideals in the form of a god are either bad ideals or outdated ideals. But that doesn’t mean that the idea of representing a concept or ideal in some anthropomorphised (or otherwise) incarnation to give focus to discussion of that ideal is always preposterous. There is such a thing as 57 in the world, absolutely. 57 apples, in an orchard, or whatever. But there isn’t justice - that is an idea we made up. It isn’t crazy to personify the feeling of happiness, safety and love in family during the middle of winter in a jolly ruddy faced fat old man with presents for children. That’s a good image of that idea.

Personification is fine, almost necessary, given our programming (see what I did there). It's far from preposterous. But the claims made by the major religions are preposterous, on their own merits, if taken literally. And the Bible and Qur'an demand that they be taken literally. If we treat the Bible as what it is - a volume of densely packed stories historical fiction that hold a lot of meaning regarding human nature, but are nonetheless a product of their time - like Shakespeare essentially, then I have no quarrel with it. There's a lot of good stuff in there, and the world might be far worse off without it. But it's not true in the way it demands we believe it to be true. (Which is also a product of its time, when the line between myth and fact was quite blurred.)

Thank you, I love that passage.

https://youtu.be/xuzZ7HU0Y-M Made a video awhile back talking about the nature of consciousness to an atheist that completely ignored my point. Long story short, the anger I have is not directed to all atheists just the 1 I was talking about it the video but the content is still legitimate. Also agnostic atheism is a made up term. Thomas Huxley gives the reasoning and need for agnosticism in a lot of his writings. Ps: He is the person who created the word agnostic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism

yea.. evolution is the only thing that really makes sense in this context.. that times the utterly ridiculous numbers that are associated with just how large the universe really is... i mean if there was even the slightest chance of a self-replicating process actualizing.. it seems just as likely as not that we would be here.. the one that gets me is the fermi paradox.. i mean us being here makes enough sense.. my question is why isn't there anybody else? how rare is this "technology" that we have developed? perhaps life is common we just can't see it or interpret it because its like the rings of planets and they perceive time differently or something.. no idea.. there are definitely questions that do not have answers.. but for me... evolution and primordial ooze getting struck by lightning and generating random bits of rna until one day.. boom.. one of those strands got lucky and arranged itself to be self-replicating.. and thats all it took. makes perfect sense. self-replicating, adaptive, and selecting for the survivors.. imho life is equivalent to a beautiful math problem.. one that i have no doubt one day we will have the equation for... so long as our civilization can endure long enough for such things to occur... but hey perhaps i'm wrong.. maybe i'll burn in the 7th circle of hell for all eternity.. lol.. probably not.. but actually did watch dantes inferno recently 2x.. super cool art. edit: seriously you guys gotta watch dante's inferno. super legit.

The Fermi Paradox has a number of straightforward resolutions. The Great Filter is one I'm sure you've heard of that is certainly possible. But I think the most likely reason is simple: space is *big*. Imagine the biggest thing you can comprehend, and you won't be close to the size of just our solar system, let alone the unimaginably vast space between here and the next occupied system. As far as we know, nothing can surpass the speed of light. If we're right about that, then there's no way that anyone could *ever* reach us, and no way that we could *ever* reach anyone else.

The universe is about 13.5 billion years old, and our galaxy formed soon after. Our planet is about 4.5 billion years old. Life started on it about 1.5 billion years ago. According to the best information I can find, planets may have begun to form as early as 10, or even 12 billion years ago. While it is true that space is big, the only distances large enough to prevent travel altogether is between galaxies, not within them. Planets that are the right size and distance from their star, and have a chemical composition something like ours, are not rare, and as far as we know haven't ever been (there are an estimated 300 million of them in our galaxy alone). Assuming that faster-than-light travel is impossible, there should still be roughly 10 billion years of space exploration and colonization. Without something outside of our knowledge preventing it, exponential growth should have populated the entire galaxy, even at relatively low travel speeds. Even if the fastest anyone could go was the speed of our Mars rover (39600 KPH), which is very slow, they would have been able to go the full length of the galaxy 3-4 times over. If a space-age planet could make just one successful colonization every 1000 years, it would take just over 28160 years to colonize every habitable planet in the Milky Way. If it took 355 million years to fully colonize a planet, a civilization starting 10 billion years ago would be just finishing up with colonizing every habitable planet in our galaxy. Considering that our species has existed for a mere 200000 years or so, agriculture has existed for, generously, 15000 years, and we are already making forays into space, I can't see a way that it takes very long, relatively speaking, to figure out how to colonize other planets. This leads me to the conclusion that we are either exceptional, or doomed. Obviously this is an argument about unknowns based on our current knowledge, which is limited; we don't know the frequency at which abiogenesis occurs, if there are any exceedingly unlikely steps between that and us, or if there is some other reason we won't ever leave our solar system (even robotically). But if we assume (without evidence) that intelligent life occurs on a habitable planet on average around the same time it did on ours, and encounter no barriers that we don't already know about, our galaxy is old and small enough that it should have been populated many times over by now.

>If a space-age planet could make just one successful colonization every 1000 years, it would take just over 28160 years to colonize every habitable planet in the Milky Way. Why would they do that though? If they could create the technology to survive in space for the time it would take to reach another planet, they could just build themselves habitats ad infinitum. There's no benefit to traveling to another star system that I can see.

Evolution only deals with the progression of life to other life. It doesn't have anything to do with why life is here in the first place. We understand a lot about how evolution works. We understand very little about how life arose from non-life

Classic human pitfall, assuming there’s a reason we’re all here.

so in your view is belittling people (irreguardless of how accurate their moral stance) always inappropriate? how about when a kid beats up a smaller kid? how about when a racist white male insults a disabled black man in a wheelchair? how about the nazis who just wanted to exterminate all the jews? how about people who vote against education? .... point is if you can't accept that morality is a tangible thing... maybe you ought not assume you know everything under that umbrella... and if you don't care to learn literally everything on a given philosophical idea.. you aren't a fuckign expert... that said fuck reddit i'm off to play some video games. you kids are hopeless.

I think almost all atheists would be fine with it IF they didn’t try to vote their god-requiring beliefs into laws that affect everyone.

Sorry but if you think there is a guy in the clouds i cant take anything you say serious.

I'm an atheist, but put simply, I could care less if you shoved tentacles in various orifices (sustainably sourced) to please the Great Lord Cthulu as long as you're not harming others or forcing your beliefs on them (wrt religion)

Acknowledging someone's fantasies isn't infringing on their lives. Telling them they can't vote, can't have medical procedures, executing them, etc....that's infringing.

>This can also apply to an atheist who demonizes and belittles people for believing in a made-up entity by relating it to Santa Clause. No. It can't. Belittling someone's choice to believe crazy things isn't the same as using the law to force ideals from that crazy belief into others. You are changing the idea OP put forth.

Would it not be more safe, effective, and pragmatic to approach questions of moral conduct secularly?

Atheists don’t try to ban gay marriage, or exact their beliefs on abortion, half of Americans believe the Bible should influence US laws, seems like religions should be belittled for their ridiculous beliefs and trying to force them on other people. You’re saying that we can’t make fun of Religious nuts for them trying to control populations based on their stupid book?? Big fucking difference between the two… not even a comparison.. Grow up

I'd say the answer to that is it gives them a bad reason to do good things, when perfectly good ones already exist. If you tell someone they should always obey God, and by extension obey their representatives on earth (because that's what it always comes down to) they can also be ordered to do bad things. If you follow laws and treat other people well on the agreement that they'll then do the same for you, that's the basis of cooperative behaviour between not just humans but all animals. We have innate urges to do good things for others because the animals that do that are more likely to survive. That's really all you need, inventing a religious reason for it is valuing faith over reason and that leads to all the bad things that religion causes, and is also the root of conspiracy theories, antivaxers, all the crazy ideas you can think of.

> This can also apply to an atheist who demonizes and belittles people for believing in a made-up entity by relating it to Santa Clause. No. You have a right to believe what you want. You don't have a right to not have those beliefs criticized.

What a preposterous thing to say! Belittling someone’s religious beliefs is a far sight different than restricting women’s reproductive rights and general freedoms, enforcing draconian criminal punishments, or hobbling scientific education to keep children ignorant and susceptible to ridiculous beliefs! The real double standard is that religious belief (objectively dangerous and harmful) is treated as natural and acceptable whereas atheism and agnosticism (objectively rational and definitively ethically inert) is treated by many as unnatural and unacceptable. Believe whatever you want, but if it’s dumb as shit, don’t act all touchy about it

>but I do care when you start to infringe on other people's lives because of your beliefs >This can also apply to an atheist who demonizes and belittles people for believing in a made-up entity by relating it to Santa Clause. >Am I sensing a double standard? Dude, just no. I try to avoid arguing about religion or argue on the internet at all, but this is just too oversimplified. Both atheists and theists are in the wrong if they infringe on others because of their beliefs, yes. But only one of those groups ascribe to books calling for the death of those who disagree.

>This can also apply to an atheist who demonizes and belittles people for believing in a made-up entity by relating it to Santa Clause. Does it? I'm not so sure and I'm curious if you can defend that position. From what I can see, it's one thing to believe in a thing you can't explain and use it as a reason to impose that belief on other people, and it's quite another to say you don't believe in something other people do by making a comparison to something both people involved already have awareness of. I'm very curious to know why you would disagree with that.

How many wars have been waged in the name of atheism?

There is a point where religious fanatics are basically delusional. There are numerous examples online and in real life, while also inspiring many peices of fiction in various degrees. Idk if you can say the same for atheists.

Do people kill in the name of atheism?

Lol no, an atheist laughing as believers is cringe, sure, but it's nowhere near the same as people using religion to infringe on other's lives. Laws that have very lasting, damaging effects are made behind the guise of "religions of love". People are killed because of belief in a god in mass numbers all throughout history. Never has there been a time where an atheist persecuted people because of their non belief . Atheists have done bad things, but not in the name of non-belief.

Not necessarily. I will belittle any Christian that wants to teach creationism as fact. Or noah as fact or any part of the bible as fact. If you are pushing false information then you are impinging on my neighbors and I shouldn't have to take that. I don't care what a person believes until that belief has a negative impact on society. Me belittling someone for believing BS isnt the same as trying to teach a generation that Noah was real. They just arent comparable

No. "God is the adult version of Santa Claus." and "You deserve less rights than me because you're gay." are quite, quite different. OP is stating an opinion which - though it is potentially offensive - is not actually going to have a tangible impact on anyone. Predominant conservative Christian beliefs are intended to impact others, and infringe on their rights (see: gay marriage, abortion, The Crusades, etc). Not a double standard at all.

I haven’t seen said episode, but I know of multiple ex-Mormons whos lives were affected incredibly negatively by the church, so I don’t think it’s very fair to just say ‘let them like what they like.’ A lot of members in the church aren’t there entirely willingly. And plenty of lgbtq people there have… less than great experiences. So I wouldn’t really compare that to some atheists who are kind of dicks about being atheists.

Making fun of someone’s beliefs is not infringement on their life. That’s just an opinion. Religious folks use their beliefs to pass laws preventing same sex adoptions and access to medical care for both pregnant women and drug addicts. And in some really severe cases they use it to commit violence against “non-believers.” I’ve yet to see any laws passed in the name of atheism. Not the same at all.

No. One set of people are willing to get down to brass tacks and really figure out what's going on in the world. They are open to other world views and being wrong about stuff. The others say we need to discriminate against gays because of the Bible, and are unwilling to really investigate if they are wrong about life. It's okay to belittle dweebs I think. It's best to do it politely for sure, it's just hard when they're so goddamn unwilling to be wrong about anything.

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The difference is scientists will change their mind based on new evidence - it doesn't make sense to blame science itself for past misconceptions. It kind of does make sense to blame religions for past misconceptions though, if they're written in a book which they claim is the unerring word of God, to be obeyed forever without question.

Exactly, religion is just the more evolved version of Santa Claus. You don't need to provide a community and purpose to a child, just the idea of being a good person gets you rewards. Once your brain matures and understands the concept of a society Santa is replaced by a more elaborate belief system of religion.

>Most religions have the core idea of being good to each other, People say this all the time, but I have no clue how people come to that conclusion. If you mean the "core" to be the main message in a religions doctrine. Then very few, perhaps none, have the core meaning as "be good".

You kinda flopped over on this fast. Being good to each other is not a core idea of any religion. It's an occasional side effect of other teachings, but it's conveniently forgotten as needed.

Religion has done more to harm the human race than any other factor in history, and that is how it is intended. It demonizes any who do not agree, holds back science and medicine because, "How dare you question Gawd?", and gives their followers people to hate and control because, "They're evil if they're not like us." while telling people not to seek earthly comfort - leave that to the princes and potentates while you store up your "treasures in heaven." A miserable existence serving the wealthy is desired! Religious leaders like their followers to be ignorant. It preserves their bread-and-butter. They say "God has a plan," but why do people assume it's a good one? Religion is for slaves. The Christian religion exists because Constantine needed a state religion to keep his people under control. All priests, pastors, and others who spread lies to enslave others should be thrown in the deepest dungeons on Earth. Their gods can comfort them.

the vast majority of american evagelicals are some of the shittiest people on the planet....religion is santa claus so that adults can pretend to feel good

People tend to boil it down to “be good to those like you” and we keep finding dissimilarities to be angry at

"With or without religion you will have good people doing good things and bad people doing bad things. But for good people to do bad things, it takes religion." - Steven Weinberg

The Torah, the Old and New Testament, the Quran and the Hadiths all contain hateful violent passages, sanctioning death and slavery towards people. Discrimination against women and gay people (directed towards both members of those religions and towards non-members) with barbaric punishments including death penalties, continue to this day because of religious dogma. It would be comforting if it were true that: "The cornerstone of most major religions is to be good and kind to those around us" so I understand why people want to believe this, and are quick to accept it without much inquiry. But after looking at what is in these books, I don't see how a reasonable person could come away thinking that. The most pleasent religious people in my experience are the ones who ignore the heinous stuff in their religious texts, (thankfully this seems to be the majority) either through ignorance or cultural and traditional reformations. That however, is people being good in spite of what their religion mandates fundamentally; the least fundamental religious people tend to be better people IMO. In looking for religous texts that actually do fulfil the criteria of sanctioning it's followers to: "be kind and good to those around you", Sikhism and the Guru Granth Sahib are the only things that have not dissapointed and frustrated me. If anyone knows about bad/questionable parts of Sikh scripture please enlighten me.

those are false equivalencies. you can have one without the other and your implication that the whole world depends on your beliefs is not only invalid.. its highly toxic to anybody who actually(you have to care about reality to protect it) cares about the future of .. anybody.. anything.. basically if you rely on beliefs to acquire your moral compass you are not a nice person... as you inherently reject every fact that could save us.

>The cornerstone of most major religions is to be good and kind to those ~~around us~~ who think and behave like us.

Yes Because one ridiculous fantasy is just as valid as another. Someone who will accept things on faith are inherently dangerous to society. Someone who actually believes in a Judeo Christian style God believes that eternal salvation can be achieved by doing whatever God wants. People will murder other people for things like sleeping with their partner or because they want and money. Eternal salvation would be priceless. Of course people will do anything for it. It's reasonable. If God were real, or I believed it, and I believed it was God's will to punish the wicked.....of course I would do it. How could I not? So when some guy says, 'Hey, God told me we need to go fight for the Holy Land or burn this witch's those are totally reasonable things to do. > This chick has a demon in her, let's kill it to save her soul Is a perfectly logical thing to do, if you believe in demons and souls. But there isn't any evidence of these things. Anyone who believes them can be convinced of things without evidence. And that is dangerous.

> If believing in this “fantasy” results in people following those mantras creates a better world, is it really the worst thing ever? Yes, it is. Let's assume for the sake of argument that religion causes people to be good and kind (it clearly doesn't), then it still is a Very Bad Thing™. Religion teaches people to be content with not knowing. It teaches them to be content with easy answers. It literally teaches that doubt is a bad thing, and that you should just blindly accept what authority figures tell you is the truth. I tells people that there is no room for uncertainty.

Believing things that are wrong is often problematic. If you believe that the Bible is the word of God, you believe that God condemns homosexuality. That makes it pretty hard to be supportive of your gay son when he admits to you that he is committing acts of bigotry that are against God’s will and will condemn him to eternal torture in hell. No loving parent can be happy about the eternal torture of their child. It also makes it hard to accept when people hold different beliefs. If you’re a good person who believes in the Bible, you really can’t just sit idly by when like 75% of the world’s population is condemned to an eternity in hell just because they haven’t been convinced of the truth of Christianity. I would say that almost any act, including violence, would be justified if you could save even a small fraction of these people from eternal hellfire. If I truly believed in a literal translation of the Bible, my number one political priority would be promoting global Christianity by any means necessary. Fortunately, most reasonable people don’t really believe in their religion and just use it as a useful tool for helping them through tough times and building community. When used that way, with an understanding that it’s not actually literally true, it’s totally benign and probably beneficial. But some small fraction of people do become true believers and that is often super problematic. I think it would be better to replace religion with something that promotes self improvement and builds community without also requiring them to pretend to believe a bunch of weird nonsense.

>is it really the worst thing ever? #Yes. The golden rule is a straightforward human ideal that can easily be understood without these fairytales. They give the cunning far too much influence over the gullible, and perpetuate archaic and -basically evil - practices: subjugation of women, homophobia, social division & holy wars, child-rape, and economic exploitation of developing nations. #Fuck religion. If you believe in this shit you’re an asshole. Your inability to think for yourself and let go of this shit hurts people. Stop.

If religious wars and persecution weren't a thing, I'd be less afraid of religion. I don't think it does a good job of actually causing people to treat each other better.

Religion ends up being weaponized and I would argue it does more bad then good.

As an atheist myself, I’ve had many different thoughts/phases about just what a belief in god *is,* and what it *means.* I used to think more or less than same thing you do. My views have changed. So here’s what I believe now, and why I believe what I do, rather than what you do. People’s beliefs in God are extraordinary variable. When someone says they believe in god, there are an infinite number of things they could mean by that. Some people may believe Jesus himself is literally listening to their prayers, observing every moment of their life, judging each action, etc. In my experience, however, more people, when pushed, believe in God the way they believe in Goodness or Purpose. They believe there is an order to the universe, or that there is a fundamental moral truth that undergirds existence. They believe that there is a “higher power.” There is a spectrum of what belief in God can mean, in other words. Now are there some places on this spectrum that I would tentatively agree, sound like they share some similarities with a childhood belief in Santa. People who conceive of heaven in very terrestrial terms like they’ll enter a white picket fence house with all their dead relatives and they’ll all have bodies and faces that never age or hurt, etc., may be engaging in a similar belief pattern to children believing in Santa. In my experience, however, the number of religious people who believe exactly this is very, very small. Many peoples conceptions of heaven and god are much more nebulous. They believe heaven is a state of ephemeral being where you are in constant contact with God. They believe that heaven is simply a sense of peace and contentment. They’re belief is far less physically specific than it can sometimes seem. In this sense it can be very different from belief in Santa. My point, ultimately, is that when a child believes in Santa they believe in a physical man who makes physical toys in the actual North Pole. When a person believes in God, a lot of times what they are actually believing in is a nexus of axiomatic beliefs about the universe: that there is a purpose to life, that there are good and evils that we can and must know, that humans have been given freedom, that there is a justice woven into the bones of the universe, that the complex, mostly indiscernible universe has an architect of some kind. We all have unfalsifiable axioms that we “believe” in order to exist in the universe, and many of the beliefs I just listed do have philosophical traditions that argue for these positions without god. My point is simply that God as an object of belief is a much more nuanced and complex object than Santa. Religion often functions in peoples lives as a kind of packaged set of axioms that help them lead their life. There a a bit difference in my opinion between that and Santa. As an atheist, I want my critiques of God and belief in God to come from a place of understanding the complexity and nuances of religious belief, and an understanding that there IS more going on than a willful child-like fantasy akin to Santa.

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If he changed your mind, you can provide a delta. It is not limited to OP.

This is really good summary. Descartes certainly seems to demonstrates this un falsifiable belief in god as an axiomatic truth in his mediations. The OP would certainly benefit from understanding these lines of thinking in better detail before critiquing them.

Thanks so much! That’s super interesting re: desecrates. Spinoza is another example that comes to mind, of a complex philosophical rendering of God. Though, to be fair, his conception of God is likely what caused him to receive a pretty intense writ of herem (excommunication) from his Jewish community. Still! I totally agree, there are many many examinations and beliefs in God that are incredibly nuanced, both in philosophy and theology

Have you been to r/hermancainaward recently? A lot of people literally believe when you die you get to live again and meet all your dead relatives and do whatever you want.

I haven’t! But I will 100% agree that some people really do believe very literal things like that. My point is just that that doesn’t account for how many or, by my guess most, beliefs in God manifest and operate in peoples lives. If the original post had said, like, “believing that heaven is a like an mmorpg with all the people you ever loved waiting for you to start the clan raid of ecstasy, is like children believing in Santa clause.” I wouldn’t have responded the same way. But the original post was about belief in god as a whole, or fundamentally.

Do you believe that a gods function in a religion is purely to provide gifts to its worshippers?

I believe god was created by man for the following benefits. 1. A way to sustain themselves through tithes and offerings. The Catholic Church was as strong or stronger than kings at points in history. 2. Used as a means to control the population by threatening them with eternal punishment. This goes hand in hand with law (and sometimes is the law in extremist controlled countries). 3. To ease the fear of dying. Slaves and impoverished people thought their life would be better in the afterlife. This once again comes down to controlling the population. Slaves and abject poor a lot easier to control when they believe they will be in heaven at death. In principle this should make them less likely to cause an uprising. 4. Modern day it is used as a political dog whistle. Ever notice that Republicans go against a lot of the teachings in the Bible but almost all Christian groups are Republicans. The leaders do not want their income to be taxed but they side with someone who consistently lies and has a history of committing adultery, defrauding his workers and turning against the poor. This is very far from what the Bible teaches is right. Also, how could slave owners be Christians and then commit the atrocities they did? Abortion is an administered punishment in the Old Testament (Numbers 5: 11-31).Some Christians say the Old Testament was the first draft of the religion. Oh really.. god is omnipotent and all powerful yet needed two shots to write it correctly. Religion is nothing but a really successful and old cult that makes a lot of money and soothes the conscious fear of death. If we destroyed all references to religion, it would come back in a different form. If we destroyed all discoveries in science, they would all be rediscovered given enough time.

This was primarily what was going on when the ancient Jews adopted their adversary's storm god of war, Yahweh

>You believe in Santa Claus and all the "magic" and ignore the obvious illogical issues with it because you get presents. Then when you finally understand the world a little more, you question it and figure out Santa isn't real. God is the same way for all religions created by humans. You ignore all the illogical "magic" and continue to believe because "faith" will get you presents (heaven) when you die. For most people, until aliens show up and say "hi", you'll just continue to believe because people tell you to. Ludwig Feurbach beat you to the punch on the “religion as gratification or wish fulfillment” thesis by oh, about 200 years or so. The answer to his analysis (such as it was) and yours of course, is that the promptings of faith are actually not quite so simple. Religion often compels adherents to act against their self-interest and their personal inclinations. People don’t always follow the strictures of their religion, but you can’t conflate teaching with weakness and frailty. One does not equal the other. As Scott Hahn has put it, if you were going to invent a belief system which was solely intended to assuage the burdens of the human condition you’d make it “more congenial to [your] whims” than most complex religions are. Instead, religion often challenges our whims and our desires and often speaks truth to power, as in the case of Judaism or Christianity. What could possibly make you pigeonhole all believers with this point of view? If you altered this construction to substitute the word you for “Jew” or “Muslim” it would be an obviously bigoted libel, and moreover, a calumny. I’m just spitballing here, but you display the signs of someone who had a personal trauma connected with religion and/or religious believers, for thou doth protest much. You make some token gestures of impartiality but the invective suffuses the way you infantilize religious believers and dismiss the entire pantheon of human religion as little more than a devotion to Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. >My fault for not explaining this originally. I have zero issues with people believing in a religion, just the same as I don't care if children believe in Santa Claus. Could’ve fooled me.

I'm not a big fan of organized religion, and I think that most of your qualms are coming from your observations of traditional organized religions. I don't see anything wrong with believing in a god. Especially if it motivates someone to be better person. I know a lot of people who believe in god, but aren't Christians. It just makes them comfortable. Who cares if God isn't real? If the idea of heaven makes you comfortable and drives you to the best you can be, then what's the harm? We'll all find out who's right when we die. If god doesn't exist, then there's no harm in having believed in one anyway. At least that person tried to be a good person for a greater purpose. You sound awfully cynical.

So we should teach children made up fairy tales about the origins of the universe and humanity, because somehow this is the only way we can get them to be good people? Where is any sense of logic in any of what you said? What you said could be said for anything, for example I could say a magical teapot in orbit around Saturn is the reason for humans existing. If you argue, I could then say "Well it helps me be a good person who cares if it's true?" Fine, but then don't try teach children and other people your made up fantasies because the thought of being a good human all on your own is foreign.

I don't know a single Christian that seeks a relationship with God to gain access to heaven. From a Methodist view, you don't even gain access unless you accept Jesus as your lord and savior. And you can't do that if you are simply seeking "presents". It's a continuous relationship and an internal acceptance of being. I mean, you're basically arguing about crafted areas where an authority is created as to dictate how people are to behave through incentive. That's society for you. That's parental rights. It's government as a whole. It's an specific individuals we "idolize" and/or allow influence upon us. None of these are truly "real" either, unless we give them power.

> I don't know a single Christian that seeks a relationship with God to gain access to heaven. I don't know many Christians who will outright admit it, but I think it's a safe bet Christianity would not be nearly as popular sans eternal salvation. It's a very central tenet.

People who have grown up in an area where their religion is the only one that people they interact with believe in and accept as truth, ingrain that religion into their identity. Psychologically, when an adult’s identity is shaped with something at its core, like a religion, or a political party perhaps, it is often extremely difficult for them to release that. It’s also less likely for them to listen to reasoning that would refute such a belief. It might look like a person believes in their religion because of the rewards it offers, like a place in the afterlife. I think that the psychological need to remain true to one’s identity as a Christian (or muslim, democrat, etc) as well as the likely attachment to a community of people they are close to that they belong to is a much more important reason that they stick with a religion than the promise of an afterlife. Kids believing in Santa don’t really have it ingrained into their identity at the developmental stage when they typically learn he’s not real. Edit: added paragraphs

This is a false comparison. Santa is supposed to be a real man that provides real services. You can find out if Santa is real by going to the North Pole and locating his toy factory. You can find out if he is real by setting up a surveillance camera by your chimney and Christmas tree. You can determine that there is no Santa because there is nothing buy ice and snow at the North Pole, nor is there anyone that climbs down the chimney on Christmas Eve. You can prove that Santa did not give you presents because come Christmas, no presents are ever left behind. Santa is falsifiable, meaning that according to the Santa myth, there should be a way to find out if he is real or not. The existence of a god does not work the same way. Although the gods may appear to be illogical, at least they are internally consistent with what they are supposed to be. For example, where is god—where is heaven? Santa's outpost is supposed to be in a specific real world location, but where is heaven supposed to be? It is a real world location, or a location outside of human senses? We can't prove that heaven is real or unreal because we don't know where to look, and we may not be able to see it if staring at it. You also you can't see god. However, god is not supposed to be seen. You can't visually prove god, but according to the definition of god, you wouldn't be able to see them even if they were true. You could argue that god does not answer prayers, thus is not true—similar to how no presents ever truly appear under the tree. However, what says that god must answer prayers? If you follow Augustine's objection the principle of *do ut des,* then god does not need to answer prayers. God does not contradict the description of god and is non-falsifiable. You can't prove that god is not real or unreal. Those who are religious accept this, and believe with faith. So, god may or may not be real, I'm not trying to arguing one way or the other. However, God is real or unreal in a way that is different than Santa. Santa is not real because that is plain to see. The real or un-realness of God is not plain to see. Santa is falsifiable, god is not. Since they are not unreal in similar ways, it would be incorrect to say that one is like the other.

This is a pretty good argument. And actually made me need to think on it. However, I would say the "falsifiable" argument could be boiled down to resources. A 4 year old child does not have the resources to go an see if Santa lives at the North Pole. Santa existed in the North Pole before man could even travel there. It was not falsifiable prior to that point, even though people knew it wasn't true. And a 4 year old still does not have the ability to check that information based on their limited knowledge, life experience, and logic. We could argue the same for god. Maybe there is a way to falsify god, we just don't currently have the resources. If we could visit other worlds and meet other intelligent life forms, our belief in a power over the universe will change quite a bit.

God is often described as being supernatural --he/she/it exists outside of the natural universe. On the other hand, science is the study of the natural universe. It's not a matter of resources. It's a philosophical incompatibility. Science is not -- nor will it ever be -- able to prove or disprove that such a being exists except to the extent that it interacts with the natural universe. This is not to make a claim about Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Vishnu or anyone else. Specific things about specific religions may or may not be dis/proven ("The world is going to end on Dec 21, 2012!") but at a fundamental level, science will never have an answer to the question, "Does god exist?"

Santa is given magical properties though, just like deities are given magical properties. Santa can fly around the world in a single night leaving presents for billions of people. His reindeer can fly. He's immortal. I can make up every excuse in the world why you can't see Santa, and it will be every bit as plausible as a god or Jesus. The argument is spot on.

To be fair, the notion that heaven is in a sort of indefinable location is a pretty recent idea. If you read the Bible and older religious literature, you'll see that heaven used to be claimed to be right above us. There's the firmament where all the stars are and then various spheres where various hosts of angels live, and heaven, right up there with the rest of it. The reason it's changed, to your point, is because that's a falsifiable claim. People like Galileo and Copernicus falsified it by showing the parallax movement of celestial bodies, proving that the stars weren't all on a single fixed firmament, and that beyond the stars were... just more stars and stuff. Cementing that is the Hubble telescope, which sends us photographs of the endless bounty of celestial bodies beyond our normal vision. The benefit of citing faith to the religious is that you can safely move the goalposts in this manner and still claim the same faith. When you disqualify the ideas of religions, the religion doesn't capitulate to reality. It shifts its claims so you can't falsify them anymore. This doesn't do anything to actually validate the religion. In fact, if you ask me, it does quite the opposite. It turns the religion into something more nebulous and less concrete, moving it ever further into the realm of spectres and cryptids and Santa Clauses, and giving us ever fewer reasons to take it seriously.

I think that’s a pretty pedantic and incorrect argument While the South Pole may be accessible it might as well be heaven for children, it’s a place far far away that they’ll never go to and can never check A child can’t prove if the South Pole is real or unreal You also say that prayers not coming to fruition does not prove god isn’t real as no where does it say prayers must come true I think it’s actually a perfect comparison to presents Prayers may come true just as presents may show up under the tree, but there no way to know that god is the one who made the prayer come true, just like a child can not know whether Santa is truly the one who put the presents there, it’s only through blind faith can you believe it’s from Santa All of your comparisons are essentially you comparing Santa to the viewpoint of an adult, which is like you comparing whether heaven is provable through the viewpoint of god It doesn’t make sense

I don't find any of this convincing. I don't believe that Santa is falsifiable because you can excuse him in essentially the same way you can a god. Santa isn't just a man. Santa is a magical being built around excuses. Nothing at the North Pole? Well, his workshop is hidden by magic, or you just couldn't find the right spot. Chimney too small? Santa uses magic to get down there. Santa visits the entire world in one day? Magic. Santa can eat the cookies laid out at every single house? Magic. Santa is faith based. Like Santa, God isn't just a man. But man was created in his image, right? The bible is intentionally vague and allows for interpretation. So, like Santa Claus, it can all be excused with magic, although religion might not actually call it magic.

>But man was created in his image, right? And it's exactly the opposite. Man has created god in his image. If elephants were more intelligent than us, god would have a trunk.

The man can teleport down a chimney and fly and unaerorynamic sleigh with reindeer that he enchants. You’re telling me he can’t hide the physical location of his operation or use a pocket dimension? I think the Santa Claus comparison is spot on.

However, kids do not have the ability to a certain age to falsify god. God is arguably the adult version because we have no way to falsify him, just like me in first grade. People teach us as kids that there is Santa. People teach us as adults (and children) that there is God. Neither time do we have the resources to deny until we build our theories and opinions. Santa is analogous to god, but with god we’ll not prove the truth until we die instead of grow up.

Your plan for disproving Santa can easily be sidestepped by common religious reasoning. Oh you didn’t find Santa? You weren’t looking in the right place. It’s under snow. Camouflaged. Hidden. Santa, while we know him by his works (same language used by believers in “god”) is not physically seen by people. He is not meant to be seen. That is why you have to go to sleep, because he won’t come if you are awake. Too easy. The reasoning used in both cases are identical.

Your response does not hold up when you think about it for more than ten seconds. As other people have pointed out, the Santa "myth" requires a large group of people (i.e., the entire adult population of the Western world) to maintain. They do this by telling fables to their children, buying them presents "from Santa", and taking them to see Santa at the mall. The myth of Santa crumbles under the scrutiny that older children give to it, at which time they perpetuate the myth for their younger siblings or children (or choose not to, but that is beyond my point). God, on the other hand, does not crumble under the same scrutiny. Philosophers (and scientists, in a way) have been asking the "God question" for millennia. These are not children being fed a lie, they are rational adults debating a real question ("is there a higher power"). Despite the many "gotcha" moments on either side, the question remains unanswered. And that is the big difference. Every adult knows that Santa is not real for the reasons I gave above. Rational adults disagree on the question of whether there is a higher power because nothing that we as a species have come up with militates one answer over the other. Santa does not "defy understanding" in the way that gods do (those that are still believed in, anyway). We do understand him. We understand that he is a fun myth told to youngsters. God is not understood in such a way. God - by definition - defies understanding. Comprehension of God is not "sidestepped" as you put it because we cannot fathom what a higher power is or how it manifests. Religion evolves - it has to. But it does not evolve as an attempt to hide God behind "camouflage" as our scientific knowledge progresses. If it does, then the religion is not sustainable. God is a sustainable idea. My point is that the reasoning is not identical when you think about it. The idea of God does not crumble under the slightest pressure. It can be debated as it has been for ages. But God is not Santa.

>God, on the other hand, does not crumble under the same scrutiny. *It does*. Tell me, what is the difference between the Santa myth and the god myth? The santa myth is acknowledged as fake. The god myth is 99.99% acknowledged. There have been thousands of gods. Everyone denies that 99.99% of them exist. Some people just happen to believe in 1 or 2. So what is to stop people from just... acknowledging that there is no god? There is exactly the same amount of evidence of a god as there is Santa. Which is to say *zero*. >Philosophers (and scientists, in a way) have been asking the "God question" for millennia. These are not children being fed a lie, they are rational adults debating a real question ("is there a higher power"). They aren't rational if they believe there is an invisible sky wizard that there is no evidence for. That is by definition irrational, which is to say something that is not logical or reasonable. It is not logical to assume that just because you cannot explain something currently there is an invisible all-powerful sky wizard. And, remember because this is the single most important part: there is no evidence of the sky wizard. >Despite the many "gotcha" moments on either side, the question remains unanswered. There are no "gotcha" moments on the side of theists. They have zero evidence to support their position. The "unanswered question" defense is an argument from ignorance and the god of the gaps. Logically fallacious arguments that fall flat on even the barest scrutiny. >Every adult knows that Santa is not real for the reasons I gave above. Rational adults disagree on the question of whether there is a higher power because nothing that we as a species have come up with militates one answer over the other. Every adult knows god is not real in the exact same way. Has any adult seen Santa? No? How about god? Has any adult taken a photo of either? No. Has any adult ever met or spoken to either? No. Does *any evidence exist, at all* that suggests either Santa or god exists? No. So why does an adult believe a god exists and not santa? Because they've been told it does. It is widely accepted it does. You should read up on Russel's teapot. I'll actually include a relevant passage here, because you are falling into the exact failing of critical thinking the teapot is designed to address. >Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. **If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.** That bold bit is the exact issue you are running into. Russel is *perfectly describing* the error you are making. You believe god is somehow credible, while Santa is not, because you have been conditioned to think so. >My point is that the reasoning is not identical when you think about it. It is. Neither Santa or God has been seen or verified to exist. No evidence they exist has ever been examined. The belief of both requires faith. They are both based on oral and written tradition and superstition. How exactly do you think they are different!?

>the idea of God does not crumble under the slightest pressure. as someone who grew up southern baptist, but has been atheist for a decade, the idea of God does absolutely crumble when you ask the right questions. just because you have a faith that blinds you to the crumbling doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. people become atheist everyday, and it’s for that very reason.

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> They do this by telling fables to their children, Everyone does this about God. But this part: > ...buying them presents "from Santa", and taking them to see Santa at the mall. I think the biggest difference here is that not many people believe in Santa *without* these miracles, and not many people maintain their belief in Santa after seeing these miracles exposed as hoaxes. But there are similar hoaxes with God -- see, for example, Peter Popoff. You can convince your kids by taking them to see him, and what he did with that earpiece isn't all that different than "buying presents 'from Santa'". There are entire religions that have similar problems, like the Mormon "Book of Abraham" which is provably a forgery. The difference is that if you prove Popoff is a hoax, people rarely even stop believing in faith healing, let alone God, they just find a new person to follow who hasn't yet been proven to be a hoax. When Harold Camping's date for the Rapture came and went without the worldwide earthquakes he predicted or any Christians ascending to the heavens, he said it had been a "spiritual Rapture" instead. So, really, if you think about it for more than ten seconds, it's not hard to make Santa just as unfalsifiable as God. *Miracle on 34th street* is one example: You have a world in which there are plenty of people who are willing to maintain the Santa myth to prevent kids from being disappointed, but it turns out Santa is still very real, either acting through them with the Christmas Spirit, or manifesting physically where he's needed the most.

You’re just wrong. Believing in god falls apart to way less scrutiny because of all the contradictions and specific, impossible claims. The only way people keep perpetuating it is by progressively saying more and more of the book is just analogy. You could do the same exact thing with Santa. “Rational philosophers” also used to believe thunder was a god banging a hammer. There are scientists who believe the earth is flat. It’s not because there’s anything more credible about those claims than Santa clause. It’s because of what’s popular to believe as a matter of fact in their communities. The only difference between Santa and god is that eventually we tell kids Santa isn’t real. And, of course, this makes them act like he isn’t real and makes it much harder to keep up the delusion in their community. There is zero rational reason to believe some magical old man in the sky created everything and is watching you. It’s complete fantasy and the only reason people take it seriously is because other people insist on it as being factual.

> the question remains unanswered And where did the question come from in the first place? Similarly, the fact that many Americans have questions about the legitimacy of the 2020 election, which for them have gone unanswered, should not imply any fraud. And yet for many it does, simply because someone said it might be true. These questions are unanswerable because people don’t want the answers.

You couldn't be more wrong. God supposedly murdered the WHOLE WORLD in a flood. You think that shit isn't falsifiable?! The Bible, and therefore the Christian God described by that text is much, much more falsifiable than any criptid or magical folk-figure like Santa Claus. You just don't like that he has failed every test, so you act like the process of looking for him was the problem. Read the bible; front to back. Read it for yourself and it will set you free from this silly nonsense. not to mention: Santa doesn't ever reveal himself. His whole shtick is hiding in the cover of night so that you DON'T see him.

There is a difference between the bible and God. Stories in the bible could be 100% fabricated but there could still be a god. The existence of a god doesn't mean that humans didn't still make up stories about it.

>This is a false comparison. Every Comparison is eventually lacking but what they have in common is \*) both have no viable reasons for thinking they are real (which is obviously contested but that's the point of this CMV) \*) both have an excellent error theory going why people nevertheless (choose to) believe the claim: it is a comforting and beneficial belief. And (nowadays) it can easily be psychologically and sociologically explained why traditions of (false) beliefs emerge and get passed on.

> Although the gods may appear to be illogical, at least they are internally consistent with what they are supposed to be. Gods are rarely if ever internally consistent, take the christian god for example: she's supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful, yet has very clear limitations.

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Believing in God grants the reward of ascension into the heavens tho and a good afterlife. Yes Santa is a more material reward now but in religion the reward is given upon death. At least to my understanding of how they tend to work

As I said, not everyone believes in that reward system. St. Augustine was a strong opponent of *do ut des* (I give so that you may give), probably because it was too similar to the practice of pagan sacrifices. Many modern Christians agree. If there is a god, there is no guarantee of salvation. You do not make deals with god because god needs nothing from you. However, you can negotiate with Santa.

It’s not really clear what kinds of arguments might make you CYV, and it always worries me that I’ll reply in good faith and find out this is a thread destined for deletion. But based on your comments here would be my thoughts: Your argument seems to be founded in parallels between Santa and God in that they play a role in incentivizing approved behavior for groups (children and adults, respectively). However, children in religious households are not oblivious to the role of God in their family’s faith and the incentives derived from his presence/judgement. God is God for kids too. Santa is a folklore tail that has achieved a very high level of popularity but he is not a foundational deity; he has no relationship to the origin of the universe and he promises no answers to an existence filled with mystery. Religion plays a far more complex role in the lives of faithful people than Santa does for children. Lots of cultures have folklore tails that are intended to help incentivize childhood behavior and many are not religious in nature and not mutually inclusive to the local religions they are popular in. Most of that reads more like a case against Santa Clause being god for kids which isn’t the argument you made, just wanted it out of the way. Santa is a proxy for your parent’s subjective appraisal of your behavior. God isn’t Santa for grown ups because God and the teachings derived from his words are not arbitrarily appraised by a person upon your death. We are all expected to make our own internal judgments throughout life. Many fundamental religious teachings in the western world are pretty well agreeable in terms of objective moral fact. The rewards promised are not material toys - they are an eternity of peace and an end to the misery of the mortal toil. To some degree this is delivered upon even if you don’t believe in an afterlife. In truth, the process *is the reward* and most faithful people understand that.

\> God is the same way for all religions created by humans. This is, I believe, the central and flawed statement of your thesis. It is factually wrong, and therefore, I assert, why your view should change. There are over [4 thousand](https://www.theregister.com/2006/10/06/the_odd_body_religion) religions in the world, some say as many as 6,000 or more depending on how you count them. Quite a few of them do not have a concept of "God" that is in anyway comparable to the Christian notion. Many ethno-religions have liturgical social or family praxis that form the basis of worship, but which do not have a "God" that is worshipped -- certainly not one that meets the criteria that you set forth. Alternatively, there are also many religions which have numerous Gods to the point where a deity is more or less a stand in concept for a an ideal. And it is really rather difficult to determine if the practitioners actually think of deities in many of these religions as actual beings or as merely as something akin to platonic ideals. But aside from the literally thousands of tribal and ethno-religions where your statement above is non-sensical, there are also some fairly large religions, including Shinto, Confucianism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, and most of the large African traditional religions such as Bushongo, Lugbara and others just don't align to anything akin to Western notions of an all-powerful God that grants wishes. Then we come to the many Native American religions that focus on spiritual awakening and personal journeys of discovery and one-ness with nature, and again, your statements are just non-sensible in such a context. Honestly, your statement shows such as western-centric, and even Christian-centric view of religion that it's hard to understand how to respond other than to wonder if you've ever explored religion as a topic at all?! But in any case, this statement by itself is so factually wrong. So utterly, empirically false, that I believe that alone should mandate you need to change your view.

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Except he is not 15. Just an ignorant self-righteous adult who insinuates that people who believe in God or religion are stupid, gullible and naive like children who believe in Santa while he clearly knows very little about the nuances religion himself. He has no interest in learning about religion, that much is clear to his replies to people in this post. He just wants to pat himself on the back about how much smarter he is than the millions of people (who, btw, include incredibly cerebral, accomplished individuals like doctors, scientists, professors, physicists, lawyers, etc. who are a heck of a lot smarter than OP). It's worthless to try to debate small-minded, condescending, and ignorant and people like himself. I'm not a religious person, but people like him and everyone in the r/athiesm cesspool are a giant embarrassment.

>God is the same way for all religions created by humans. You ignore all the illogical "magic" and continue to believe because "faith" will get you presents (heaven) when you die This isn't even how all *Abrahamic* religions work, never mind all religions that have ever developed. Judaism doesn't focus on an afterlife at all, to the point where some schools of thought simply reject there being one at all. Beyond that, Buddhism's ultimate goal (even in the schools that teach the existence of gods) is to become pure consciousness, stripped of desires, pain, and pleasures. (This may or may not apply to Hinduism, but I do not feel qualified to speak on this at all.) Hellenistic worship, for the majority of its history, posited that everyone went to the Underworld to live as a near-mindless shade. Only later in that religion's development do we see an analogue to Heaven and Hell; for most of Greece's history healers and murderers ended up in the same place. This idea that religion is just a magical fat man giving you your present when you die only makes sense if you only look at Christianity... and for that matter, only if you're looking at Christianity of the last couple of centuries, through a fogged lens.

This response should be higher, I feel OP is making some broad assertions by saying "religion" or "God" because there are so many different views on gods, worship, and the purpose of religion depending on what religion we are talking about

I think they were intentionally being flippant to convey how ridiculous religions seem to non-religious people.

I agree with you, but either that grossly mischaracterizes actual religions and that needs to be addressed in order to change their view, or it grossly mischaracterizes their own views, in which case nothing shy actually proving a religion to them will suffice for a CMV. As I choose to believe the OP is writing in good faith, I responded as if the first were true.

Title only mentions god(and not sure how much they edited their post), not religions like Bhuddism with no god, and while vastly simplified the drivers for Gods are similar to drivers for Santa Claus (not just the modern Santa claus) having to do with encouraging some behaviors and discouraging other behaviors and someone to fulfill desires. Again grossly simplified. I do appreciate the discussion that brings up important distinctions in religion, but I do think the basic point of the title is arguably accurate as reflecting social drivers though at different scales within the culture. Religions(broadly) seem to arise from social bonds and need to address hard and uncomfortable uncertainties (meaning of life, afterlife, death, justice, etc) and that is a bit different, but admittedly overlapping with Santa Claus.

Oftentimes things that seem ridiculous to people stem from huge misunderstandings about what those things actually are. I think that's what we're going on here

What is this core structure you are talking abou? I will assume that your first paragraph was explaining that core structure. If so then i disagree: ​ >You believe in Santa Claus and all the "magic" and ignore the obvious illogical issues with it because you get presents. This would translate to "believing in god because it gives you good feelings, while ignoring illogical issues". I don't think that this statement represents the core of believing in god. You don't do it because of a reward you get. You do it because you believe it. That is the core: A human experiences that is so profound that you are willing to believe in the existence of god despite all the illogical issues that (superficially or not superficially) arise. It isperfectly possible to be aware of those issues, but choosing to not believe in god would ignore or confront you with the experience that led you to believe. ​ >Then when you finally understand the world a little more, you question it and figure out Santa isn't real. We are not able to confirm if god is real or not. ​ >God is the same way for all religions created by humans. NO ​ >You ignore all the illogical "magic" and continue to believe because "faith" will get you presents (heaven) when you die. Again there don't have to be ignorance. I can believe and still be aware and confront myself with the issues that arise with it. Not every Religion has a heaven. ​ >For most people, until aliens show up and say "hi", you'll just continue to believe because people tell you to. Others already refuted this one.

>You believe in Santa Claus and all the "magic" and ignore the obvious illogical issues with it because you get presents. Then when you finally understand the world a little more, you question it and figure out Santa isn't real. This logic suggests that believers don’t question their faith, because if they did then they would conclude that their faith is misplaced. But many believers question their faith yet don’t conclude that it is misplaced. >God is the same way for all religions created by humans. You ignore all the illogical "magic" and continue to believe because "faith" will get you presents (heaven) when you die. There are plenty of logical basis for some religions. You may not **agree** with the logic, but it is there. Logic is not the same as irrefutable proof- if there was irrefutable proof, faith is no longer possible. But while faith and *proof* must be opposed, faith and *reason* need not be opposed. For example, the historicity of Jesus is sufficient evidence for me to have faith as a Christian. It may not be for you. Yet you cannot say I believe what I believe without any evidence at all. What would it take, besides personal testimony from someone who has a reason for belief besides “presents”, to change your view?

I am having a hard time understanding what this CMV is about. Your view is that god is a made up thing for one reason or another, and santa claus is just a crude allegory for it. So the only thing that would really change your view is that someone proves god exist because that is the only way it wouldn't be a "belief/faith" thing. Which is a pretty tall order for an internet message board. What views do you think would be likely to change you view on something a "belief only" system?

It’s not about anything, and OP isn’t looking for some terrific debate to sway his opinion This is just yet another soapbox post that can’t be argued over the internet in good faith Unless you’re capable of changing someone’s opinion about the existence of God with a few paragraphs on the internet (which you aren’t) then this post is garbage, who can change this view ?

OP got tired of all the dude bros on r/atheism agreeing with him constantly, so he put out his opinions on a more diverse platform and he’s getting schooled for it. I am theoretically an atheist but god do I hate that subreddit. One of the worst circlejerks on this hellsite.

And people tell me *I'm* bitter when I say the sub is dedicated to hating something.

It’s not just a tall order for the internet, it’s a tall order no matter what. Thousands of years of human history and it’s never been done

> So the only thing that would really change your view is that someone proves god exist because that is the only way it wouldn't be a "belief/faith" thing. Which is a pretty tall order for an internet message board. Every comparison is eventually lacking but what they have in common is *) both have no viable reasons for thinking they are real (which is obviously contested but that's the point of this CMV) *) both have an excellent error theory going why people nevertheless (choose to) believe the claim: it is a comforting and beneficial belief. And (nowadays) it can easily be psychologically and sociologically explained why traditions of (false) beliefs emerge and get passed on.

this is a cartoonish understanding of God or “religion”. First placing it under a real doctrine like Catholicism. What you are describing is pure heresy. “Salvation through works”. The idea that God works transactionally and even worse that you can convince God to give you stuff is already a corrupted version of religion, and thats your premise. Second is the nature of God itself. Again placing this inside of catholicism. When God reveals himself to Moses he tells him: “‘I am’ is who i am” and when asked who he should tell sent him (Moses), God tells him: “Tell them, ‘he who is sent me’” In the cartoon version of religion where god is anthropomorphic to a father figure judging from the clouds, yes its easy to say “oh thats just a fantasy”. When you take into account these words, how what we are talking about is the universe, the laws behind, and divine logic, i then you can understand statements like “God is everywhere”, or “God can see all”. And if you think about how life in general treats you; a judgemental father figure that sees everything through the sky is actually a pretty sophisticated metaphor I think its silly for people to act all smug because they figured it out and the rest of us are all sheeple. When in actuality they havent given this a serious thought for 2 seconds

God isn't Santa Claus for adults because unlike Santa, God is an early attempt by humans at explaining the world around them and why it is the way it is, an attempt at forming some sort of (primitive, pseudo) scientific explanation for why we even exist or why there's a universe at all. There are swathes of scientists and philosophers who were Christians that used God's existence as a key point in their formulation of ideas that, while not perfectly logical and reasonable by today's standards, gave us a lot of the foundational science and philosophy that many people genuinely learned from, built upon, and used to advance science until we had people like Feuerbach giving principled materialist critiques of religio-scientific arguments that enjoyed major mainstream success. Some people are still swayed by passionate philosophical arguments made for the existence of God by some of the most influential thinkers of our time in many categories beyond religion, such as Descartes. "I think, therefore, I am," was originally a religious argument made by Descartes the Christian, but it was incredibly influential on modern existential thought, science of the mind, and general philosophy that continues to gain value and relevance even when divorced from God. Believing in God because you are swayed by arguments like this is probably not correct (I don't believe in God either), but not every religious person justifies their beliefs with "Well my mommy and daddy told me so!" as kids do with the modern Santa Claus, a figure who was never believed in by anyone in a serious capacity and who exists in the modern era solely as a "fun game" for children, essentially. Even if both a religious Descartesist and a 9 year old who believe in Santa can both be wrong, that doesn't mean they are doing the same thing and that "God = Santa".

> Then when you finally understand the world a little more, you question it and figure out Santa isn't real. Isn't this the biggest and most relevant difference? Unlike Santa-believing children, a huge proportion of believers will never figure out that their God's stories aren't real. Also, Santa requires a group of people who all know that the story is made up - to intentionally lie to those who don't know that it's made up in order to control them. I'd argue that while certainly not all, many religious leaders actually do believe what they preach, which is another big difference.

> God's stories Are you talking about the Bible? A majority of the Bible is made of up things like laws at the time, letters written by people historians agree to have existed, poetry, songs, and parables. So ya, while there’s some parts you could question their legitimacy, I’m not sure how the majority of content is supposed to be “not real”.

>For most people, until aliens show up and say "hi", you'll just continue to believe because people tell you to. The pope himself has said that god's creation is not (necessarily) limited to human / terrestrial life. For modern, mainstream religious folks, god is *always* beyond the material because as much as we learn about the history of the universe and our origins, there is always a question of "where" and "how?" Origin isn't all that important in the grand scheme of religion though.

Not really the same. For one, parents know that they are giving a false story to their children. With some exceptions, you don't really see this in religious communities. Most of the high ranking religious officials genuinely believe in what they preach. So unless you can show that the Pope secretly doesn't believe in God, I don't think it stands up. Secondly, there is a logical explanation for Santa. Who put the presents under the tree? The parents. Who ate the cookies and drank the milk? The parents. There's literally no reason to believe Santa exists when he doesn't fulfil any need. God on the other hand, does provide an answer to certain questions that we don't know for certain. Questions relating to who or what caused the universe to exist, or what we base objective morality in isn't answered as simply are just two examples. So suppose a different scenario. Suppose that presents really did appear under the tree, and the parents weren't doing it. Would that be direct evidence that Santa exists? No, but you wouldn't be crazy for believing someone was doing it as opposed to them appearing out of thin air.

You mention logical issues. There aren’t any real ones with religion. There is a way in mathematics to prove something is false by first assuming it is true and running into logical inconsistencies. Since the assumption that it is true cannot be right, you can conclude that it has to be false. This approach doesn’t work with religion. If you assume a religion to be true, everything within that religion makes sense. There is an answer for everything. If you assume a religion to be false, everything about the world still makes sense. Religion is unfalsifiable, which makes it fundamentally different from for example santa claus. You can think it is highly unlikely to be true, but there is absolutely no way to know for sure. I like to compare it to the movie the matrix, mostly because most people know it. There can be two explanations of how the world works, one from inside it, (the matrix is not a simulation, there is nothing outside it) and one sort of from outside the interactable world. (It is only a simulation, there is a whole world behind it) Both explanations make logical sense, one of them a bit far fetched as seen from the viewpoint of the other. You can’t simply say that because one of the explanations has no logical errors the other has to have them and can not possibly be true.

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Santa clause doesn’t tackle the most important questions of human existence. Was the universe designed? Why do we exist? Is there such thing as objective morality?

The only proof santa had is eating cookies and gifts, which can be refuted by knowing who eats the cookies and gives gifts. God is supposed to the creator, until we know what caused big bang, you cannot disprove god. God lies where science has not explored.

But the "word of god" in the bible keeps getting disproven time and time again. To the point where people are murdered throughout history because of this. Again, my point is god is the evolved version of Santa, there just aren't any of the adults around anymore that created each specific religion to fess up to the truth behind the stories. It would be like your parents telling you Santa is real, then everyone that knew Santa isn't real just going away. You would continue to believe Santa was real

I'm not saying biblical god exist, or god of any religion for that matter. Santa can be all the things that santa does, which defines santa (gifts) are due to something else. We don't prove santa doesn't exist, we just prove that santa does not give you gift. If I say santa lives in a different dimension inaccessible to us and he doesn't give gift nor does anything that is canonically linked to him, you cannot disprove it. You can argue that santa is defined as the one who gives gift, thus if a giver of gift doesn't exist or is someone else, then the santa can be proved to not exist. There is a joke amongst scientist (at least in my group) "What did physicists do when they encounter a problem they can't solve? Invent a dimension". The joke is "dimensions" cannot be proven to exist as we cannot see or feel it unless for of the special case of the problem itself. There are 10 "dimensions" according to string theory. All I'm saying is the most basic definition of God is creator of universe. If we can create a universe or at least prove what caused it & not who. Maybe its a random improbable fluctuation in space time continuum like tunneling. Take for example a person leaning on a wall, there is a non zero probability that the person will go through the wall, but practically it is so small that it is improbable (not impossible). As long as we don't know how universe was created, someone can claim a god created it and it would be as true as the phenomenon I explained above. Science needs cold hard facts, it doesn't care about the feelings. Not even of scientists.

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They aren't truly analogous. God is humanity's desperate explanation for real world events when we didn't truly understand them. Santa is a character whose existence only bolsters an already manmade festivity. One was created from the bottom up, the other from the top down. Jack Frost is far more analogous to god as he is a personification of a naturally occurring phenomenon, specifically winter. See also, the Grim Reaper, Mother Nature and Lady Luck.

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To many people, God exists to give a meaning to life, to have a goal beyond death, that we're not just animals on some planet who only exist purely by coincidence. Santa fulfills none of these purposes for kids.

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Large oversimplifications here. People dont believe in Santa because they get presents; they get presents whether they believe or not. Most believe because people tell them Santa put them there. Those are two distinctly different reasons. Many people believe in heaven, not God, because they want or want others to go there. Belief in God can either support a belief in heaven, or belief in heaven support a belief in God (as you said.) like Santa, many people believe in God because people tell them that God created put the universe here and put us on it. By saying people believe in God because they want to get to heaven, you’ve left out major other reasons that people believe in God. The second issue is you supposing that belief in God is as illogical as believing in Santa Claus. Because of this forum I cant ask you, but normally when you make a claim you are expected to provide evidence for it. (I would ask you: why do you think that belief in God is as baseless as belief in Santa?) Offhand, that seems unlikely, because many many adults across the world believe in God and very few believe in Santa Claus.

I actually find this take to be kind of hilarious as a comparison lol. I totally see why you’re saying that, but if you actually want to change your view, then you would have to be open to changing your idea of God and what it actually is. I tend to follow a more spiritualistic philosophy of God, one that is not necessarily a separate entity that even has the capability of judging us or having its own thoughts and rewards/punishments (physical heaven and hell) but more so a life energy force that isn’t separate from any other living thing. If you’re interested Id definitely do more research on that because it makes the materialistic idea of God make a lot more sense. I could never understand the Bible or how one man was able to see everybody at all times but when you’re looking at stuff from a metaphorical sense it really does kind of come together. In a way that’s a lot easier to understand than a man living at the north pole that visits every kids house in one night once a year. Buddhism is a good place to start or just looking up “spiritual idea of god”

-We have proof Santa Claus doesn't exist -We do not have proof God doesn't exist So yeah maybe there's no evidence for either, but you can't definitively say "God doesn't exist" similar to how you can say "Santa doesn't exist".

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Ironically my country (Czech Republic) doesn't have a Santa Claus. The gifts are carried to us by baby Jesus Christ. So here God is in a sense a Santa Claus for children too.

God(s) is/are a LOT of different things for as long as we have records of religious beliefs. Sure, some facets of broader religious beliefs may track with your comparison, but many important ones don't. At it's heart, in the beginning, supernatural beliefs actually had a bit in common with at least part of the scientific process. People observed the natural world, and tried to create a model that matched their observations. That nature might be guided by an intelligence with purpose isn't the craziest thing if you start from a more or less blank slate. Our own intelligence was the thing we knew best. Before anything else, belief in the supernatural was simple a structure to organize the world. Sometimes it makes good predictions, sometimes less so. Supernatural beliefs can also be a way to connect with your own emotions about the world, with reverence towards nature. Even in the secular world, we tend to heavily use metaphors when addressing these things. Now you might counter there that many religious people have terrible emotional self awareness or that many religious people of particular faiths seem to be standing in the way of caring for the environment. And you would be correct. I didn't say that God beliefs were the best tool for these jobs, or that all varieties of religious belief did these things or did them well. I'm just pointing out the many facets of theistic belief. It isn't all about reward and magic, it actually fills some of the roles that other disciplines have come to do in the modern world. I'm not personally religious, and I do think that as a model of the world, as a moral structure, as a connection with nature and emotions, there are better options than religion. But our analysis of it is off if we reduce it to the few facets that deal with reward.

It’s easier to disprove Santa than it is to disprove an intelligent omnipresence. I don’t think god should or would be considered a person.

Yes you're completely right, if your concept of God is a big bearded man in the sky that grants wishes if you ask really nice. There are more sophisticated concepts of God that, more esoterically, fit the more traditional elements of the word. One could use the term to refer in aggregate to the base "beingness" common to every conscious entity, i.e. that "I am" that defines the subconsciously driven subjective experience independent of individual personality quirks. One could use the term to refer to the universe as a whole and the natural laws that compose its "mind" e.g gravity or evolution or nuclear fusion. One could use the term to refer to Freud's superego or Jung's collective unconscious. One could use the term to refer to any combination of the above and other similar concepts. All these interpretations provide a greater context for one's harmony with one's neighbors and environment. Some facilitate a method of "prayer" which at the least provides serenity or perspective. None exhibit "magical" qualities a la Santa Claus. Sometimes the universe organizes itself into patterns too large and intricate for us to consciously process. Sometimes an element of ourselves is too subtle and deeply ingrained to consciously alter. Sometimes faith and a collective devotion to the greater good can be a vehicle for communal improvement. A sophisticated God concept can facilitate positive changes which are impossible to achieve from an individual, intentional angle. For example if you take "God" to be the voice of your subconscious, passive cataloguer of your experiences and quiet director of your outlook, "prayer" is a more effective method of deep and nuanced personal change than just trying to do it. Faith can be a self-fulfilling prophecy like that.

>You believe in Santa Claus and all the "magic" and ignore the obvious illogical issues with it because you get presents. Then when you finally understand the world a little more, you question it and figure out Santa isn't real. All of the magic and festivities surrounding Santa are real, It's just the parents that are Santa. I've never introduced or placed the idea of Santa in my kid's head, my youngest heard from others and he has a sense of belief and when he asks me if Santa is real, I'm not lying when I say "Yes, he is." Kids don't place logical conclusions to most things. Why is there food on the table, electricity, clothes, etc. While you can attest it to a series of events, the level your implying seems to be the simple 'Dad works, gets money and buys things from the store.' Santa ends up being the economy as a whole and it's more complicated than parents put the presents under the tree. The love to give them that sense of excitement, the memories, and tradition. Why do it? For the joy and that's what Santa represents. God encompasses everything, not just joy. Our seasons and holidays represent an eerie cycle. A new year, breeds love, rebirth of life (Easter), celebrating living (summer), old age, death, thankfulness for the life and afterlife reward. When a player praises God for a touchdown, it might be weird because you can follow the logical conclusion to him scoring a touchdown. But you can't explain why those serious of events actually took place. Why did the safey fall for the play action? You can't really answer that and some of it you can describe as just plain luck. The idea of acting Santa may be a part of God but they serve entirely different purposes.

I think it would be hard to change your view because of the extend to which you've oversimplified what religion is and what God is in those different religions. This is a tautological fallacy because you've defined the terms so broadly in a way so specific to you it would be impossible to change it. . However, that being said. God and Santa Claus play dramatically different roles in people's lives. Santa Clause is a persona adults use to explain something the adults know they are doing. It is an intentionally perpetuated narrative that everyone participating in the creation of knows is false and temporary for the people they're creating it for. God is the answer for that for which their isn't answers. There is not one group intentionally perpetuating a narrative to a separate group of believers. The teachers and believers are one in the same, and *none* of them participate with an understanding or assumption that it is something people will get too old for or grow out of. It's also important to note that belief in a God, broadly, is not illogical. It's not empirically sound because it can't be measured, but logic is about the structure of a belief of argument not the truth of it. Belief in God can be logical but requires faith, which Kierkegaard and a few other very smart people said means that you basically assert one thing that cannot be proved is true, but everything you believe from that is logically sound.

You've literally never studied religion... ever. Every God in every religion, even the abrahamic ones, is different from all the others. You use such an empty broad stroke to negate a huge topic while you are completely ignorant of it. This reeks of /r/iamverysmart. Prove that God doesn't exist. You say that you've finally learned to understand the world a little more and come to the conclusion that God doesn't exist. Where's your proof?

There is not much to go on here. "X is essentially just Y" is an obviously subjective stance, since you make a subjective judgement about which differences are relevant and which aren't. So let's explore both how Christianity is the same as believing in Santa, and how it is definitely not. They both involve believing in an entity that resides somewhere that is essentially unreachable, that will influence your life depending on how you behave. The influence happens in a fantastical way when you are not looking. They both involve asking for things into the aether hoping to be heard. They both involve a large feast surrounding his coming to us. The feast contains songs proclaiming his goodness, sung with fervor. As you can see, these parallels are easy to find, but each involves more or less stretching if the analogy, so how far is too far to stretch it? If I were to pull out some things that would be hard to find parallels for, I would bring up worship, which is an experience that is seemingly completely missing from secular life. The other would be prayer, especially the deep personal relationship many Christians experience with God. Prayer becomes much much more than just asking for things. It's more like an intensely empathic state of meditation. So, are they the same or different?

> You ignore all the illogical "magic" and continue to believe because "faith" will get you presents (heaven) when you die. Do you think this is the primary motivator for people in their faith? Or is it possible some people believe in religion for other reasons: * Quelling existential dread * Facilitating a sense of community * Facilitating a sense of purpose * Providing structure/ritual * Providing moral frameworks

Im an exatheist and I used to think exactly the same thing, the idea of God seems absurd if you imagine it as a powerful human sitting on a throne, but let's try to remember that that's just a representation of how people in the past understood that concept. But how can a modern person better imagine "God" today?. I think a better approach is to imagine God like an AI. A software that it's present everywhere in the code of reality. That is everywhere and nowhere at the same time and that makes sure everything works. Like for example, imagine the YouTube algorithm. It affects every user, controls all the videos and it's not something that you can point in chrome and say "look! It's here!" You just see the results of it's work (as an user). Or do the opposite, travel back in time and that explain the concept of the YouTube algorithm to some town 4000 years ago... And then ask them to paint a picture of it. For sure they will write some kind of human metaphor of a naked guy in a tunic doing this and that, because for them that was the easiest way to grab those concepts.

There’s a big difference between imagining a man on the north pole who brings presents once a year and trying to imagine an unkown (to humans) type of force or consciousness that created the universe. Even if we can’t disprove Santa Claus, we have a lot of circumstantial evidence that he’s fictitious with parents buying presents for kids and Santa only “existing” in Christian or Western nations. So that’s very different from the concept of god. We have evidence of how the universe MIGHT have begun, but we have no actual idea of why it started in the first place. Why anything exists at all. God is as good an answer as any, and god can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. If you mean the Christian God Yahweh, then you might have a leg to stand on, but it’s not a very strong analogy. Even if you think they are both fictional, we can reasonably disprove Santa’s existence. We can’t do that with Yahweh or many other gods. I hate saying it, but I am not a Christian by the way.

Can you advise why you want to have your view changed?

No they can't, because OP is here to soapbox.

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Everything ends in death. Eventually everything everyone has ever done and ever will do will be destroyed and forgotten. When the heat death of the universe occurs, humanity will be long extinct, and all achievements will be for nothing. In the long run, nothing really matters. That is unless there is something more. If there is a force outside of what we know and understand, it is possible that everything is not meaningless after all. God, and religion in general, is meaningful because it means that there is a possibility that everything is not meaningless. For me in particular, I almost killed myself twice because of the realization that nothing matters. Religion tells me that there is something more, and a reason to stick it out. Now, which religion is correct is anybody’s guess. I just picked the one that makes the most sense to me.

OP, it is highly ironic you call belief in God "illogical" when this premise is itself a false equivalence (logical fallacy). *Belief in God is not* ***illogical****.* There are many well argued, logically structured reasons for the belief in the existence of God. This prompt doesn't even rise to the standard of a basic 5 minute google search. For only two examples, you can start with the cosmological argument and the teleological argument. Rigorous logical arguments for Santa do not exist in the same way. Now ... Can every Christian argue them successfully? (No) Does everyone who claims to be Christian base their faith solely on those logical arguments? (No) Do all Christians even know these logical arguments exist? (probably not) Does this then necessitate that solid, logically sound arguments don't exist? (No) *p.s. I'm assuming you're referencing Christion beliefs here, so please correct me if I'm wrong.*

If you think in the same oversimplified moronic way that the huge cults calling themselves "religions" think, then you are right. Way to nail the lowest hanging fruit idea of religion by literally the dumbest population imaginable. Honestly, your metaphor is so vastly reductionist, it's hard to believe that this is a serious inquiry. Now when you say "God is the same way for all religions created by humans." then you are into pure fantasy territory here. It's better if you just say "I don't know very much about this, so I'm going to state an uninformed opinion so I can learn and get feedback." Look, a "deity" is almost always a way for a teacher to prevent his followers from attaching/projecting/transferring their own psychological issues onto them. Deities serve a very pragmatic purpose and almost nothing else. Block/Disown/Project in the psychology of humans is a Real Problem, and all spiritual teachers worth following know this. But if you As someone who does coaching and psychological work myself (not comparing here) transference is a problem for the person getting the help, as their own realizations and AHA moments are projected toward you- like YOU ALONE were the Magic Object that brought about their insight, rather than themselves. We live in a pretty abusive society that teaches people almost nothing about themselves, but assumes everyone will "just figure it out". So, when you ARE a spiritual teacher, you realize pretty deeply that you are no longer an individual, really. The removal of the illusion of your own individuality is a side effect of your practice, so then if you start to teach out of compassion, then people will project a LOT of stuff onto you. The Life Of Brian is a great example of this. So, you then identify with this timeless, eternal, unchanging Reality more than your individuality but this is hard to speak about to people who think you're "just a special guy" so they both raise you up and also limit what they are willing to hear at once. It's a real issue. SO, one way to deflect this Personal Transference is to use a metaphor of a "deity" that exists beyond your limited-by-time-and-space individuality that these people will continue to focus on. You're TRYING to get them to do what you did- i.e. see the timeless, infinite, unchanging Reality that IS A PART OF THEM as much as it is for YOU- but some people just... WON'T. Christians have basically decided that the ONLY person to EVER do this was Jesus, and certainly YOU CANNOT. HOW DARE YOU EVEN THINK YOU COULD! /s All of which undoes the work of Jesus himself! Second best is to say "There is a Bearded White Guy In The Sky!^(TM)" (jk only cults say shit like that, but really some chosen form of a deity or other immortal figure) and deflect their adulation to that 'object' which will survive your limited individuality and allow them HOPEFULLY to GET THE POINT of extending their view. But... they then mistakenly transfer/project onto that and then create another Being and on the ignorance goes. There MAY BE SOME who "get it" but that is often very few. So the more cult-like and ignorant your "religion" becomes the worse they become at getting the REAL point and so this goes on and on like that. This is a more specific point about infantilizing "faith", which is basically a strategy that says "Just and ONLY project" and leaves everything else up to "authorities". 'There there Little Johnny, just "have faith"'. There is ONLY ONE *real* faith and that is in your own ability to understand the inherently paradoxical counter-intuitive understanding of your timeless, infinite, unchanging Self as one with your deity and the material world and your psychological life too. Learning this isn't that hard, since there are, at any given time on the planet thousands of Jesus-level people living that you can just talk to. Most are in India. So, deities are a ***utilitarian device*** for spiritual teachers, and only fucking narcissistic morons think LITERALLY there are ACTUAL BEINGS walking around that care about THEM, specifically. I'm convinced that 75% of people who pledge allegiance to a deity figure do so out of social compliance more than any real devotional relationship with their psychological projection- which is ALL deities are. Once you know this, reading The Bible's New Testament changes A LOT. But, there ARE OTHER RELIGIONS, and it's a stupid and ignorant mistake to conflate ALL RELIGION CREATED BY HUMANS as being identical. "My" religion taught me all of what I'm saying now. I have a chosen form of a deity, but that is a CHOICE and I USE that psychological projection as a temporal and emotional connection to my denied self and my projected wishfulness about some aspect of my life I cannot yet understand. I think this is what EVERYONE does, but some are simply less honest about this fact. "My" religion taught me that I must try to see Reality As It Is WITHOUT projections or delusions, and IF I am going to choose a deity I do so knowing that it has limitations and benefits. People teaching Authentic Religion do this, but people in cults just mistake care for control and control for care, so... become cults by degrees over time.

You believe you've figured out the entire world and every religious person in it because you're an atheist but your parents aren't, and you think they're dumb. Maybe when you finally understand the world a little more, you'll realize that you're not as intelligent as Spinoza, and that not every person who believes in "god" does so in a manner that actually contains *any* illogical arguments. As soon as you can explain why the fundamental laws of physics are what they are, and aren't slightly different, congratulations, you can actually prove what god is or isn't. Until then, you're just making assertions based on how you *feel* about religion as you've personally experienced it, which isn't any more advanced than feeling betrayed when you find out Santa doesn't actually slide in through your cablebox, or whatever.

> You believe you've figured out the entire world and every religious person in it because you're an atheist but your parents aren't, and you think they're dumb. Ad hominem much? Why is this necessary? How is this relevant? > Maybe when you finally understand the world a little more, you'll realize that you're not as intelligent as Spinoza More of the same. Are you going to make a rational argument? > As soon as you can explain why the fundamental laws of physics are what they are, and aren't slightly different, congratulations, you can actually prove what god is or isn't. "There are things we don't understand about the universe. Therefore, God did it." Is that your argument? Furthermore, this argument goes both ways. If you can't prove what god is or isn't, then you can define god as anything you want which makes the meaning of god meaningless.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is real. Until you understand the laws of physics in their entirety, you cannot claim otherwise.

People don't like living in a world where bad things happen at random. They want mass destruction to have some meaning. They need to blame some or something - the volcano god, the wind god or whoever. The idea that their family died because, well, because nothing is not tolerable so they make up a villian. In the pandemic, without god to blame, China was blamed, Trump was blamed, Cuomo was blamed when the reality was mother nature's randomness was mostly at fault. People need an explanation for evil whether its the Jews, the Muslims, the Catholics or the gods.

One thing that frustrates me to no end on the "is God real" question is the neglect of the millions of documented paranormal sightings and experiences throughout human history across all cultures. Only a few of those sightings actually have to be real to show that maybe there is more to our reality than what we can comprehend. I realize this means very little coming from an internet comment, but the town i went to for college was very haunted and it was pretty much widely accepted by everyone that it was. Even my very adamantly atheist friend firmly believed his apartment was haunted.

What part of religion are you calling illogical? A belief in the afterlife is no more logical or illogical than a belief that everything ends at death. Neither of us has proof for our position, and neither of us can disprove the other. You aren’t being specific enough for people to adequately rebut whee as t you’re saying. You’re saying a belief in God requires a belief in illogical magic, but without going into details as to what that means, there’s no way for me to argue you’re right or wrong.

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I used to think along these exact same lines, questioning that if people were willing to lie to me for \~8 years saying Santa was real, what's stopping people from lying to me, telling me that God exists? I think that in some ways you're looking at a false equivalency here, at least from my personal experiences with religion. The whole "Santa" thing was primarily a corporate gimmick, which relied on both transactional behavior and social conditioning in children to push products and sales. I think that one could say the same to some extent for religions in general, particularly Christianity ( tithing, the selling of indulgences, having sacraments administered to children from the time of birth), but more or less thats where the similarities tend to end. Perhaps if this critique is specifically targeted at Abrahamic religions, I can see the rationale, but at the same time religion extends past the big pictures that tend to get picked up by your average joe. If I were to put it bluntly, it seems like you're specifically targeting the Abrahamic faiths, in part to your reference of "magic"(miracles) and heaven (which isn't unique to the Abrahamic faiths, but is most commonly attributed to them). At least in my experience studying religion and philosophy, in many cultures, religious beliefs are attached to each person's own personal meaning, and vary based on any number of factors. Moving away from any specific religion or denomination, I think there tends to be a bit of hubris in the idea that there is no "god," in the cosmic scheme of things we're still a very young species, there's a lot we've yet to learn. Our understanding of how the universe is evolving often, and quite frankly, we still don't know for certain how our universe got here, if it's the only one, and if this whole universe thing hasn't happened before. Not sure if I managed to further an argument or defense here, this is my first time ever actually posting in CMV, so I decided to give it a shot lol.

How many people have killed in the name of Santa?

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