imagine if people discovered that if you built a shrine in Elon Musk’s name, and sung songs about how perfect he is, and devoted your entire life to stroking his ego, that he would sometimes do favors for you if you asked him with enough deference and respect

but the favors aren’t the point. the point is worshiping him because of how perfect and good he is. he’s just so amazing that everyone needs to devote their lives to telling him that as often as possible. it’s also to avoid his wrath, because he doesn’t appreciate when people stop praising him or praise him incorrectly. he’s a jealous god but he’s a good god, because sometimes he does good things if you beg him for it

sure he has a fuckton of wealth and power that he could be sharing freely with everyone, but he probably has some inscrutably wise reason to hoard it all for himself and only hand out tiny little favors instead. he is perfect and good after all

that’s how I feel about the concept of worshiping any god, in fantasy or reality

@kasdeya My personal version of Pascal's Wager is that any god worth believing in isn't going to fuck over a good person simply for not worshiping them. So I'm gonna focus on trying to be a decent person, rather than worry about some god. (Especially with the world the way it is, doesn't exactly inspire belief.)

@Shivaekul I really like that tbh

I always found Pascal’s Wager kinda funny because there are infinite possible things that a god could reward or punish. they could hate people who eat peanut butter and only reward people who bathe in kiwi juice on Mondays

but definitely any god worth worshiping would be doing their absolute best 24/7 to make life as good for as many people as possible, and it’s hard to believe that with the world as it is, like you said

@kasdeya

@kasdeya (🤍 Nova) I want to ask a question, but I am a bit intimidated even though I intend to engage in constructive discussion.

(reposted because I messed up my signature)

@wyatt oohh I love the entire vibe of this character, let alone what she has to say lol

@kasdeya think religion at this point is a collection of social/mental technologies tied up in a larger tradition of religion, its more about what the shape of having community like that or a trick for getting around mourning/loss/mortality paralysing you rather than the logical fallacy of worshipping some hypothetical omnipotent being, its also honestly why i find reddit atheism and the whole people endlessly seeking out “plotholes” in media a bit… sad, at that point theyve either subconciously or conciously dismissed the reality that theres more to the critiqued subject than “cold hard logic” that people weigh and that said logic isnt the ultimate hammer to smite all other sentiments at the end of the day(and maybe thats a good thing actually but thats a rant for another day)

point is what youre saying does make sense but i don’t think people who seriously believe in god and have had decades to really stew on it would be swayed by your criticism or even consider it to have much weight because its not about it making sense in a disconnected logic way but rather it being a narrative manipulation technology in their mind they interweave into their life and i think we’d be better off understanding and deconstructing the lessons therein and remove them from submission to some fictional entity but maybe thats just me

@kasdeya monmusu quest/monster girl quest. if you can tolerate the sex stuff/skip through it, or you actually dig it, and are ok with playing as an effeminate seeming boy (just headcanon as egg or whatever), it's got an amazing story and vibe

@kasdeya not even mentioning how kids are told if they don't worship musk, they'll be doomed forever. literal toddlers, too young to understand personal property or responsibility getting dragged to church and being told "you have to do this thing you really don't enjoy for 1 hour because if you don't, elon (who is really "good" and "fair" and "always" "cares" for you) will punish you eternally with the worst things you can imagine"

@desea I’m definitely not trying to sway theists with that post - in fact I really hope there aren’t any Christians who encounter it because it’s probably just going to push them further into their religion and make them feel persecuted at the same time

I really just posted this to vent and also try to explain my perspective. it was originally going to just be about why I don’t like god-worshipping in fantasy and why I find the whole thing confusing and frustrating. but I realized that it applied to reality too and it would be weird to not make that clear

but you’re right that a lot of genuinely good technology (that’s a good way to think about it) is tied up in religions and I think it’s worthwhile to try to deconstruct how they work and what positive things we can take from them

@Chishiki611 aww, I can understand why. my original post was very angry and venty, because I have very strong feelings about this stuff. but I try to always direct my anger at things and ideas and never at people/sophonts, and I basically never get angry at ideas/things presented in replies since that feels pretty mean

I’d be interested to hear your question, but I may not be able to reply since believe it or not I can actually be very shy and certain things can be too difficult for me to reply to. but also it’s totally fine if you don’t want to ask, either