• dumbass@lemy.lol
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    7 months ago

    I have friends who are full on religious while I’m an atheist, they know I’m not a fan of their religion but they also know that I only care if it’s making them happier and helping them, which to be fair has helped them become better people, but they were always the ones that needed some external guidance so I suppose gods a better guide than a meth dealer.

    They don’t try to convert me and I don’t try to convert them and we still have fun, plus I enjoy hearing the weird AF stories from the bible, like the time Jesus got pissed at an out of season fig tree for not having figs when he wanted, so he cursed to for life, hungover entitled shit Jesus has some funny stories.

    • nikita@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      I’d like to think religious people don’t necessarily believe or remember word-for-word what happened to Jesus or Muhammad or whoever but they do learn lessons from the readings that they apply in their lives in a positive way. Or at least their intentions are positive.

      It’s a routine group-based literary text analysis that gives people a reason to be together, not unlike a high school first language class.

      If you wanna get old school sociological about it, you could say it fulfills a social need for cohesion that non practicing people replace by placing increased importance to other routine activities such as sports watching or working.