The home, which was run by an order of Catholic nuns and closed in 1961, was one of many such institutions that housed tens of thousands of orphans and unmarried pregnant women who were forced to give up their children throughout much of the 20th century.
In 2014, historian Catherine Corless tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who died at the home in Tuam between the 1920s and 1961 — but could only find a burial record for one child.
To the “religion is what makes us civil” crowd, fuck off all the way to whatever hell you believe in or just the sun.
Disclaimer: This is not a call for violence.
Understood, I will go and punch a nun.
I have never understood this pseudo-argument. Christian morality is based on the fear of eternal punishment. Do these fools even realize that?! Morality can be explained much more comprehensibly and naturally through evolution and empathy.
My main issue in discussions on religion is that either side generally claims that either “it makes us civil”, as you say, or that “it’s the cause of evil”. In reality it’s neither. Religion has traditionally been (still is, I’m afraid) a powerful form of crowd control that in past times has steered some believers into doing better deeds by the duality of the hell-heaven system, and likewise has twisted others into extremism and using religion as justification for evil acts. Most of the time it’s just a simple way of life that rids you of the need to question the universe and to carve your own path. As a “Muslim” I sometimes, in some ways, envy those that simply view the etiquettes, laws, and traditions that govern their lives as unquestionable truths. There’s no need to search for purpose, you’re already born with it.
Humans are flawed and evil. That is true with or withour religion.
Sorry for rambling.
I think you nailed it here. The successful religions are the ones that are useful as tools for the powerful. It’s not the cause of evil, but it’s something that lets powerful people convince people to do awful things.
On the other hand, for the believers, it’s a source of community and comfort. They’re given simple rules to follow and promised that their suffering is not in vain. It gives them simple answers to complex questions.
It also allows people to get over feeling bad. A bad thing is “part of god’s plans”. A bad thing you did is not really your fault because a trickster god made you do it, or the devil made you do it, so you don’t need to do any self-reflection. Or, a bad thing happened to you or someone you love, that’s just a bad god, or a devil, or a complex part of a god’s plan, so you don’t need to worry about it. This is all really useful for leaders, because they’re inevitably closer to the gods than the people they control, and they get to use excuses like “you’re suffering because the gods are unhappy with you” or “it’s your lot in life, because you were born to that caste” or “this was all because of this wicked group of other people who believe in a different god, so we should kill them and take their land”.
Humans are flawed and sometimes evil, but religion is a very useful tool to manipulate those people.
Recently in England there was a Turkish man burning the koran… a Muslim guy came out and lunged at him several times with a knife he just happened to have on him shouting “you will not burn my holy book” or some such, the book burner was charged by the police (the bible can be burnt in England but for some reason the koran cannot). Kier Starmer didn’t want to progress an investigation into child abuse because of how it will expose the Muslim men abusing working class young white girls because their religion states girls who don’t cover their hair are sluts.
I’m pretty sure it’s more like: religions define what we find civil as a society. Personal spiritual beliefs define what people find acceptable and unacceptable. Religion align spiritual beliefs among social groups.
Numbers 31:18
But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
You can keep the “religion defines what we find civil as a society.” Miss me with all of the shit.
Id say religion tends to be more of a reflection of what a society finds as civil. Look at other religions around the world, or historical religions and there are some things that would be entirely unacceptable in my local society at least.
I find them more to be a reflection of a small group. Then it is pushed on others to force them to assimilate. Christianity, Hindism, Islam, Judaism, and every other group has “do what we say or else.”