Around the World, Many People Are Leaving Their Childhood Religions.

Religion is for three kinds of people:
Fools
Liars
Disobedient children with fools or liars as parents
Tolerance of religion is a paradox as every religion is intolerant of other religions.
Yes Buddhism too.
Respect is earned. Trust is earned.
Religion deserves neither.
- Not every religion is intolerant of other religions.
  
  Greetings fellow lemming I’m new here and hope we can have a productive discussion.
  Please allow me to elucidate my perspective on this question: are all religions intolerant?
  I say yes, let me explain.
  Many have told me about “their god” and I take their word for it. I believe everything everyone has told me about “their god”. Powerful, all knowing, usually vindictive, often horny for human girls, etc.
  Resultantly I believe in all of “their gods”.
  And I drew a conclusion about that guy.
  I think “god” is a piece of shit unworthy of praise and we should seek to destroy and erase it. Those who worship it are dangerous and not to be trusted. At best they need psychiatric care, likely many of them should be incarcerated. The link between “piety” and “skeletons in the closet” is strong.
  I hate god and have no respect for god-fearing people and no tolerance for their “beliefs”
  Which supernatural make-believe system (read: religion ) is tolerant of my supernatural make-believe system?
  Please don’t mistake my anger at religions as anger at you.
  Cheers mate

Good

Religion has nothing to do with God, even if you believed God exists, then since God is omnipresent you can have a relationship with God from anywhere. Why would you need to gather with a group of people and have middle men priest who claim to speak on behalf of God. Religions are about power, control, elitism and us vs them tribalism. If there was a god, he'd be disgusted by the barbaric things done by religious people in his name.
- Religion is not necessarily the same as religious institutions. Christianity is quite an outlier with its heavy centralization in the case of Catholicism, but there is many denominations of Christianity that are not adhering to a centralized institution.

It doesn't necessarily mean they become atheists; some switch religions. While in the West religion is in overall decline, in the global south, Christian evangelicals are on the rise. This is especially the case in Brazil where Catholicism is on decline but evangelicals are growing.

If I changed Jesus name to Bob and worshipped Bob in the exact same way id be called insane.

If I were to guess why its probably because religious communities always tend to lean into hateful rhetoric against "others".
People realize the closer you are to religion the further from God you feel as you couldn't believe that judgement of other humans is wise from an all knowing being if it exists.
Then the internet of course gives so many alternate sane opinions for consumption and exposure readily at your fingertips.
- Ex-Roman Catholic here. I was never particularly devout but this is what drove me away from the church once and for all. I have never seen people preach about God’s love with so much hate in their hearts.
  
  "Donald Trump was sent by God to stop abortions"
  Is when I realized, yes, I do actually hate organized religion.

If your religion is somehow linked to the place you were born it's not your religion. You are indoctrinated.

Religon is brain cancer.
It's a control mechanism from some of the earliest human societies, and today it is a dangerous tool that was just left lying around for any con man to take advantage of.
- I can’t find any sources for this now, but a while back I read an article that basically said in the 1500s (roughly) people were starting to turn against the rich holding the bulk of the wealth. So the rich met up with some priests over a tankard of mead and came up with the idea that the church should say the rich deserved their wealth.
  
  Well that might explain christianity but what about other religions like Hindu, buddhism etc.
  The idea of religion is different there and it's more of a way of life rather than believing in a supreme god.
  
  The south were pissed the north judged them for slavery, so they schismed the Baptist church to the southern Baptist church, where the only difference is that slavery was a commandment from God, and black people deserved it becausw of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Ham?wprov=sfla1
  It's weird how many religions tell you to obey priests without question, isn't it?
  
  The Marquis de Condorcet wrote about the evils of Christianity back in the 1790s.
  He wrote about how it was a tool of oppression, not just of the person, but of the mind and spirit.
  And nothing has changed in the last 200 years.
  
  That is weird to me because Jesus repeatedly condemned the rich. He even violently kicked them out of temples by whipping them and flipping tables. Jesus even said the wealthy will never enter into heaven. Jesus was essentially a proto-communist
  
  It’s nothing new either. Kings were given divine rule before capitalism was a thing for centuries before.
  
  Haha, that's certainly a curious interpretation of the crisis of the 16th century. You're referring to this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General_Crisis
  This series basically modernises a classic book on the subject that's about 100 years old on the topic if you want to know more: https://hellonearth.chapotraphouse.com/views/podcast/
- I think religion is capable of doing great things, but yeah, more often than not it seems to be a gateway to fascism and other extreme right dictatorships.
  The red text of Jesus was based. It taught me that God weeps for the sparrows so we also should value and protect nature. Jesus washing the disgusting feet of people who walked around all day in sandals without socks taught me that truly great leaders use their position to serve the weak and vulnerable. Jesus warning that it was impossible for the wealthy to enter heaven and ordering us to take care of the poor just like we would take care of him if he needed it taught me empathy and helped me become a communist.
  So yeah, Christian communism is based, but Christianity under capitalism becomes a tool of fascism.
  
  There's really nothing special about Jesus, if you accept that the voices he heard in his head were not really "the all-powerful creator" speaking to him.
  What I mean is that Jesus did not say anything more remarkable or ground-breaking than say Socrates, Marx or .. I don't know Iain M Banks or any other story teller. Way less remarkable in fact.
  There's this persistent idea that Jesus was some wonderful caring hippy, and before Jesus everyone was just a callous exploitive bastard. But there's nothing new about the share-and-share-alike philosophy Jesus espoused. It's basic game theory and has been present in society since before our species even evolved. Even chimps grasp those ideas.
  Jesus was just a poor Jewish common person who thought he was the messiah. Just like his compatriots of the time, he believed the Jews to be the "chosen people", and his message was only directed at his compatriots. He had no more grasp of humanity as a whole than any other common person of his time. As the messiah, he believed - as did his followers - that he was going to usher in the end of the world.
  It's complete nonsense, and if you truely understand what a scam the modern church is, you would stop promoting him as some kind of revolutionary.

If counting Christianity then it will be a lot higher. I'm baptised and stuff like that, but that was just tradition. I never believed in a god.

Monotheism was a mistake! The last save point was hermeticism, it's going to take us ages to get to the enlightenment again. 😮‍💨
- Excuse me, is hermeticism not a monotheistic philosophy?
  
  Nope, technically it's henotheistic. Hermeticism doesn't deny the existence of others gods, but does believe in one supreme God.
  https://arnemancy.com/articles/hermeticism/monotheism-in-hermetism/

So long as they’re not moving on to a new one, good. Religion is a plague on human society. We don’t need it holding us back.
- “~~Money~~ Religion is the root of all evil.”
  
  I think a lot of the evil done in the name of Religion really boils down to money, land, and power. Religion is just a convenient vehicle to get those things.
- Jedi religion rose dramatically from 1900 to today.
  
  Ugh. They're probably worse than a lot of them.
  Abducting extremely young children into their cult. Teaching them to suppress their emotions, telling them to cut all families ties.
  Someone ought to order their temples shut down to bring peace and stability to the ~~galaxy~~ world.
- Be careful that anti-theism may e as harmful as any fundamentalist religion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3D4tMVaO7k
  What I think is not that we should "abolish" religion (granted that I know you did not propose that. I'm just extrapolating from "religion is a plague")
  I think we should move to exploring different religions without holding any of them as superior to the other, or at least not judging before reading a it more on your own accord and desire.
  Someone pointed about issues on buddhism, which are true issues.
  But eastern religions take from buddhism, taoism and confucionism religions and it is not uncommon to take a few different takes from each one of these as one goes in their own studies.
  Same way, I think the rise of pagan religions would be useful to have the idea of being exposed to different concepts of religious ideas
  Or similarly, different philosophical ideas, like reading from plato, but also from hume, but also from descartes, but also from....
  As long as one doesn't stay stagnant on the same philosophical pool, there is no harm browsing (with sufficient care) other ideas.
- Depends on the religion. But as a whole, what we thing of "religions", are definitely a net negative with our knowledge of the world. We no longer need to rely on superstition to survive.
  Some religions are more a way of life rather than a structured creator being system with strict rules and exclusionary politics. Religions like Christianity/Judaism/Islam are quite different from Shinto or Buddhism for instance.
  
  There's still some toxicity around Buddhism at least. Living in SEA I now know several people who are really turned off by the practices and beliefs of their family's religion, Buddhism, from the way all troubles are explained away as karma to neurodiversity and Learning Differences being hidden because that would mean that person did something bad in their past life.
  I used to think Buddhism specifically was the "good" religion that's more like philosophy, but spending more time with people who grew up deep in Buddhism has made me see there's really more to the community and it's beliefs and practices than I thought.
  
  Just because they aren't theist doesn't mean they don't have horrible backwards teachings. Most people are good without religion. Religion creates situations where otherwise good people do evil, because they're told it is actually good.

Kirsten Lesage, Kelsey Jo Starr, and William Miner titled this erroneously. The title should be:
#Children are learning cults are bad, and their parents tried to indoctrinate them against their will

Christianity is basically just a pedophile ring at this point
- That's a bit unfair to the people who are in just for the homophobia
  
  Or trans phobia
- And they need your money!

You only see two types of people who believe in religon:
1- Bad people who abuse it for evil to benefit in life: Such political indoctrination and control, pedo cults, Israel zionists, ISIS Islamsits ..etc.
2- Oppressed and poor people who use it as a coping and hope mechanim for the afterlife: This applies globally across all religons and continents from South America to East Asia.
- Mixing bigotry against religious people with classism and a sprinkle of racism does not make it rational. There is plenty of religious people who are neither oppressed or poor, nor do they use their religion for oppression of other people.
  
  I didn't downvote neither upvote your comment because I kind of agree with you.
  IMO, I feel those people are on auto-pilot faith which they inherted from their parents, but also because it has a positive presence in their lives. However, unlike people who endure jail or injustice, or oppression or poverty who need faith to survive life. just my personal view point

Whats funny is when they leave their childhood one and go to another. The new one seems better because they don't know enough about it.
- Some do, some don't. Most ex-mormons like myself don't end up going to another religion. We already have a community of like-minded people on the outside.

Not enough people leaving the very worst religion of all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion
- I would argue that the antireligious sentiments of "the left" and some liberals is a part of their civil religion.

my mom: "I just want a community to hang out with on Sundays and sing comforting hymns with. I don't know why instead, everyone has to be weird about it."
- If that's all churches did nobody would be celebrating their demise
- I'm a proud atheist. And I get where she is coming from. Community is lacking and that's sad.
  
  it's a vicious cycle under capitalism. community breakdown pushes people into dependency on products and subscriptions, which means they have to work more hours to afford them, which means they then need more products and subscriptions because they have less free time, but then they'll need to work more hours to afford it, repeat ad absurdum until social collapse
- She should try joining a D&D group instead.
  
  lol she'd make a great cleric
  cleric character who is fed up with corruption and bigotry in their church and goes on a divine quest to establish the Church of We Just Want To Hang Out and Sing Hymns Without Anyone Making It Weird

Not surprising.
From personal experience, you find out pretty quickly that most of your peers are hypocrites that are rewarded, rather then punished.

Yeah, probably not enough of the to create real change though.
- It will, especially when they become a majority

Most people have already left, they just don't realise. If you don't go to church or mosque (probably not Buddhism or Hinduism) you already essentially betrayed the values you once were told to hold, but people are scared to admit because of metaphysical punishments in the afterlife
If not that, then public repercussions prevent them from admitting, and what once held the place of religion in communities is quickly being replaced with ideology instead, it provides community, tenets to follow, laws to abide by, and gives purpose for those who lack it
This started way in the past, and Russia would have likely also been more atheist than orthodox if the USSR didn't turn priests into martyrs by forcing a non religious status quo onto everyone and becoming a dictatorial tyrant with so called dictatorship of the "proletariat" which usually only turns into a dictatorship where only bureaucrats and party members exist in.
- Honor killings still occur in many religious countries or in migrant families from those countries so yeah people are afraid to admit that they don’t believe.

Just like they leave behind their other imaginary friends

I lately have started making my own ideas of systems for my kids. My name is just a bit spooky when handling religious topics.

Not me. I was born a snake handler and I’ll die a snake handler.

I did, then returned but... Not to the hateful, exclusionary version taught by parentals.

The thing I notice is there’s not really a good substitute for talking about the big questions yet.
I mean, I’m not missing any religion, but practically there was an hour or so a week dedicated specifically to thinking and talking about life from a non-materialistic perspective, and I think a lot of people now just - never do.
- Isn't that what we do on lemmy?
  
  Not really! I mean like - why does life exist? Is there any relevance in the idea of reincarnation? Does time exist outside of us? What is "good works"?
  Someone hold forth on a personal story that exemplifies something good.
  You'd think we have enough stoners to get something like that going, but not really. And the esoterica side of Lemmy is very tiny and not well-attended.
  tbh I think tumblr's got more of a corner on that kind of work/vibe.
  Not that Lemmy can't or won't become that but at the moment it's more like alternate reality reddit which atm is just fine for most people.

I believed in Santa longer than I believed in God. I don't know how that happened.
- Youngest of 5 i never even had a chance to believe in Santa.
  I have always believed that religious and non religious people have both dismissed the existence of different forms of life, though. Not supernatural or extraterrestrial but more non-carbon based.
- Santa was more believable.

Ha ha "pew research"
- 🙃

https://lemmy.world/c/upliftingnews
- I hope it isn't like the similarly named subreddit where the moderator was against calling Elon's salute for what it was.
  I'll be honest and a bit jaded, These "uplifting" comunities do feel a bit like the "this is fine" meme (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/this-is-fine)
  Not that I am against uplifting news. I'm just cautious because I've seen a fair share of nazi dogwhistle associated with this idea.

"childhood religion" comes off as an oxymoron.
- Childhood - indoctrinated religion
- It seems like more a redundancy than an oxymoron.