• glorkon@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    That’s one of the main problems with religious people, though. They view any critique, satire, mocking or ridicule of their belief as a personal attack.

    I never understood that. Like, at all.

    If your belief in an idea is so strong, shouldn’t you also be very confident in the power of said idea to withstand any such attacks? Why are the religious so damn insecure? (Spoiler: Probably because they know they can’t prove any of their claims…)

    To me, this is the most poignant difference between science and religion. Religions are shielded against criticism, religious people will react violently against any attacks on their faith.

    Science invites criticism, it wants to be questioned, because that’s the only way to improve and gain new knowledge. As a scientist, you score points if you successfully and scientifically disprove existing science. Heck, you even gain points if you disprove yourself.

    To any sane person, this should obviously be vastly more intellectually honest - so the existence and popularity of religion in itself is proof to me that humans tend to be lying pieces of shit.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      On two occasions I’ve seen people flinch when they asked my religion and I replied atheist. Flinch, like I raised my hand to them.

      As to your point on empiricism, religious people are skeptical of science because they think it’s another religion, one in competition with theirs. Like you, I can hardly get my head around that thinking.

      I had a solid science teacher in elementary school who began each year teaching the scientific method and the difference between fact and opinion. Every year I’d think, “Yeah. We fucking know.” Judging by what I saw childhood classmates say on FB, the lesson didn’t stick for some.

        • shalafi@lemmy.world
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          14 hours ago

          Had 3 teachers that I can call the best, but Mrs. King changed my life in deep ways. She taught me how to setup an experiment, how to be exacting, how to asses my results, all that. She taught us the difference in an educated guess (an hypothesis), and a wild-ass guess. So much of that teaching applies to every day life. Look at people and politics. They can’t understand how science can make mistakes and still be valid. They view science as just another religion. They can’t discern fact from opinion. They think an hypothesis they don’t like is merely a wild-ass guess.

          Thought she was old at the time, but she was really a young hippie chick that took teaching science seriously. I also learned that teachers can, gasp, get married!

    • bramkaandorp@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      The in-universe reason is that the devil is making people think that the criticism is valid.

      Tempting is what they call it, and it allows them to dismiss anyone who appears to be making a good point as consorting with the devil.

    • bufalo1973@piefed.social
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      1 day ago

      “My god is all powerful… but he needs me to kill the infidels”

      Then maybe “your god” is not so powerful.