Aren't most people born into religion?

THAT'S the most interesting part! I love examining this, yeah it's using cultural stories and kind of grey psychology to cause specific behaviors.

Ironically this is also where I think faith can be somewhat redeemed. If you start looking past the dogma to the specific intentions, yes a lot if it is shitty and it's all manipulative but also on some level it's trying to get people to act in pro-social ways. Specifically ones who normally could not be fucked to act pro-socially without some kind of supernatural threat aimed at them.

I got into Hebrew discourse lately because they're kind of cognizant of that and so their religion is a constant conversation with their history. They're constantly reinterpreting what it means to be Jewish in this moment of time and have a perspective that has to stand on the idea that there's a highly likely chance that it's all made up.

Only if you pick one that isn't true.

We'll see who gets the last laugh when I'm looking down on the rest of you from the righteous kingdom of Jibbers Crabst, the magic space lobster!

Ultimately I think the subtext of it is, “I’m really scared of the uncertainty of existence and want a circular explanation to ease my anxiety about death”. The rest springs from that fundamental fear because someone claiming to have that answer can sell it for any price including blind loyalty.

le enlightened “euphoric” redditor has arrived

What's mainly depressing is that so many people think that every religion is exactly like Christianity, but with a different object of worship and a slightly different flavor of supernatural belief. They don't know anything about philosophy, they haven't examined their own beliefs, they just parrot whatever pop science they've heard last and think that somehow gives answers to metaphysical questions.

Read some philosophy, people. Examine your own beliefs a bit. I've just recently seen a bunch of Lemmings who I'm sure consider themselves very rational and scientific freak out at the idea of not having free will, and by extension, there not being absolute good and evil. They can't even argue about it, they just immediately fall into ad hominem attacks and strawmanning. Bring in the fact that whatever virtue one thinks they have is just the result of genetic lottery, and suddenly the idea of some kind of an untarnished soul becomes awfully tempting. Dare to suggest that nobody is inherently evil and boy do people get mad because their favorite pasttime of judging others has been called into question. Yet these same people often consider themselves above religious folk because they actually think that their worldview is purely science based and not at all colored by what they just want to be true.

Oh, not to even mention questioning if matter is the fundamental aspect of reality (as opposed to consciousness). Many people with 0 understanding of philosophy will start arguing about this and then get mad because they can't prove that there's matter outside consciousness. They'll do the science equivalent of saying "God is real because the Bible says so, and the Bible is the word of God so it must be true". Matter is fundamental because my scientific framework that is built on the idea that matter is fundamental says so (it actually doesn't, because again, so embarrassingly many people don't even realize that science has never answered a single metaphysical question).

Unless you have spent several years with philosophy and actually scrutinized your own beliefs honestly, you are likely living in just as much fantasy as most religious people. In some cases, more so.

And because I've hit my quota for entertaining poor arguments for now: if you want to argue, unless you can provide scientific proof for the existence of free will, absolute good and evil or matter being fundamental, I may not reply.

This is a reddit atheist ass post I swear

Username checks out.

Same with Marxism. Or owning a Tesla car decade ago. All these were cults for gullible people