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Re:In defense of flat earthers (2020) by woodruffw on Monday January 17, 2022 @09:49PM (#29974418)
All things being equal, religion (broadly speaking) has a logical justification: for the vast majority of human history, we were unable to explain just about anything about our condition. Recent history is, as Tevye says, tradition[1].

The fact that we celebrate Christmas in 202X by buying crap on Amazon instead of torturing the infidels suggests that we do indeed get tired before we get dangerous, at least on the long arc of history.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRdfX7ut8gw

Re:In defense of flat earthers (2020) by tasty_freeze on Monday January 17, 2022 @10:14PM (#29974604)
If that was all there was to it, then it wouldn't be a concern. The problem is that people really do believe it and promote it, even though we know a lot better about the world than when these books were written centuries ago.

In Texas, the school board was populated by young earth creationists. Because of the size of the market, they could dictate that textbooks be rewritten, such as adding creationism along side evolution in science classrooms [1]. Religiously-motivated thinking is behind many important laws and denying things like climate change [2]

And in some countries, a particular religious belief is all-controlling and holds political and judicial power as well. Non-believers, homosexuals, and apostates get killed. Women are possessions.

I know the grandparent comment is getting down-voted because it is very broad. It is easy to reflexively downvote the edgy atheist. Of course Christianity (or choose another religion) has good aspects to it. But it isn't just atheists scoffing at what they feel are absurd beliefs: Christians of one flavor laugh at the absurd beliefs of other flavors, believing their own group is the one that got everything right. Biblical literalists get laughed at by other Christians for thinking the world is 6000 years old. Non-Catholics laugh at Catholics for thinking a consecrated Eucharist is not just a symbol of the body of Christ but becomes the actual body of Christ [3]. Mormons consider themselves Christians but many Christians do not think they are. And so on.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2012/06/20/155440679/revisionaries-tells...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKd6UJPghUs

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation

Re:In defense of flat earthers (2020) by woodruffw on Monday January 17, 2022 @10:26PM (#29974673)
I agree with all of this. I'm also not religious; my sole point was to discharge the lazy claim that religions don't have some logical foundation. It's not a very good one in 2021, but ignoring it serves no particular (non-rhetorical) purpose.
Re:In defense of flat earthers (2020) by intrasight on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @12:01AM (#29975324)
Certainly I was being facetious in my comment. I could make a very long list of good things that have come from Christianity and other religions.

Interesting fact that I learned recently. Christianity is the reason we don't marry our cousins, and it is believed that the genetic benefits increased human intelligence by a considerable margin.

Re:In defense of flat earthers (2020) by cookie_monsta on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @12:44AM (#29975568)
>Christianity is the reason we don't marry our cousins

Hmmm... maybe, loosely, in the way that it's the reason we don't murder people either, but there are plenty of non-Christian societies with incest taboo. I would guess most.

Re:In defense of flat earthers (2020) by intrasight on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @09:44AM (#29979864)