@liamdiprose I just don't there there's any "Him" or "Her" or a"It". There's no need for agency or personification. Humanity and the world we live in with all its creatures and mysteries is plenty. Where I feel nameless awe, others ascribe it to "God". I think that's an invalid leap.

@liamdiprose I'm not sure. I certainly reject the idea that the "big" religions of the world hold any useful answers. They, at best, muddy the waters. At worst, they're the cause for many (most) of our woes. They're a massive distraction from what's real and useful in this time of existential threat, where we urgently need to respond to what we (using religion as a justification for much of it) have created: an entirely unsustainable existence.

@liamdiprose the problem I see with what you've said is that you're implicitly ascribing the 'polarisation, lack of trust, and inability to understand one another' to the decline in religious adherence. I'd say it's the *long term effect of religious adherence and ever increasing balkanisation based on centuries of fighting over pointless eschatological nuances that all made up anyway. I think we can only make forward progress by recognising the grand pointlessness of religion in general.

@liamdiprose er, no. Most people believe those 3 things (3/10ths of the Commandments) are valid regardless of their religion, or lack there of. I consider myself an exemplar of those virtues, and I couldn't be less pious. In the past (what we now refer to as the Dark Ages), people didn't all believe the same thing. They just said they did so that they didn't get stuck in an iron maiden, or burnt at the stake, or stoned, or merely shunned and ostracised. Belief is a slippery thing.

@liamdiprose they're an attribute of most religions and most secular societies, too. I think ascribing them to religion (or calling them that) is putting the cart before the horse... But ok, we can agree they're common ground :)

@liamdiprose sure, sounds good... so long as it's not masquerading as a religion and has no faith component. I'm keen to see evidence and well formed (testable) hypothesis on what 'better" might look like. Then I'd be all over that.

@liamdiprose well, the Bible says a lot of stuff, much of contradicted elsewhere (and who knows what the books that were edited out contain?). I wouldn't look to it for any real wisdom. Sure it might be food for thought, just like any other written word, but it's the work of people, not divine inspiration. There are far more interesting and useful philosophies out there. The only things I have tentative faith in are things that can be verified, e.g. faith in individuals to do 'the right thing'.

@liamdiprose seems to me that the antidote to fear is knowledge, not faith. I think that much of the Bible is designed to champion comforting lies over (often) difficult truths. An ignorant, docile flock is easier to shepherd than an inquisitive and clever one. But such a flock doesn't improve its lot or that of its fellows.

@liamdiprose there're some major downsides to 'blissful ignorance' which seems to be the modus operandi of religious adherence in many parts of the world. For example, it's led us to the place we are today where 'bad news' (like the inevitability of catastrophic climate change) is unacceptable in the US these days. See "Don't Look Up'.

@liamdiprose As I see it, religion not only 'opens the door to lying to yourself', it actually elevates lying to yourself (faith over evidence) to be the highest virtue. When, as I've said previously, it should be seen to be a deep character flaw.

@liamdiprose a personal philosophy is not a religion. Religion is, by my definition, a shared (vaguely) coherent fiction. It might include some elements or templates for a personal philosophy, but all of those I've seen are riddled with irreconcilable contradictions. I'd just like to leave the world a better place than I found it. There's no need for an afterlife and there's no need for a 'prime creator'. There's no meaning of life other than what each of us, individually, chooses it to be.

@liamdiprose I always found fairy tales and mythologies far more compelling than the Bible. I've also read thousands of books in the SciFi genre that are vastly more interesting and better written (more poetic and lyrical!) and containing far more wisdom than the Bible. I actually find it staggering that anyone gives the Bible any time whatsoever. I'd prefer to watch paint dry.

@liamdiprose as many smart, thoughtful people have said, the best way to create an atheist (those who have *no* belief in god, not a belief there is no god, which is entirely different, i.e. antitheism), is to force someone to read the Bible, Torah, or Quran. What's abundantly clear is that few 'true believers' have read more than a few snippets of the book they claim to live by.

@liamdiprose I didn't read them as fact, but I also recognised that they held no special lyrical or sentimental appeal to me (as they seem to for many people). I found it colourless. The archetypes they portray seem fairly universal, and I get the impression in most cases there are other renditions that pre-date those in the Bible.

@liamdiprose again, I see the signal-to-noise ratio in the Bible being far too low to be worth bothering with. There are many far better statements of ethic and social mores. The fixation with the Bible has always baffled me. I consider it to be catastrophically overrated as a source for anything other than mixed messages, obsolete recommendations and desperately boring lists and soap opera-esque escapades of people about whose lineages and transgressions I couldn't possibly care less.

@liamdiprose I tend to think that religion is organised for the purpose of controlling large numbers of people. Really insightful, dedicated thinkers tend to eschew religions, although historically, they were forced by religious theocracies & general religious prejudice to claim affiliation to the prevalent religion of the day where ever they were. I personally have no inherent respect for religion, nor do I think it particularly useful or necessary for 'social direction' or cultural coherence.

@liamdiprose to clarify - I think religion is used by small numbers of people to control large numbers. In some cases, their exploitation of the masses is unintentional, but I think generally, those who "control" a religion (e.g. L Ron Hubbard) are doing it for their own power/gain.

@feditips @pfefferle to be fair, I haven't spent much time looking into it, but I have enabled the ActivityPub plugin on https://oerfoundation.org - perhaps one of you can tell me if it's working :) (and how to check it)... or I'll have a closer look at the plugin docs when I get a minute 😅

@feditips Just upgraded our organisation's WP site with the ActivityPub plugin... not sure how to tell if it's working :)

@liamdiprose I'm afraid I have zero admiration or sentimental attachment to the Bible. I consider it to be largely noise, its internal contradictions plus the calculated edits (removing many/most of its narratives) by past despots for their own benefits rendering it entirely untrustworthy. I think it's not worth reading except as an anachronistic curiosity. It's *definitely* nothing to base a society on.