this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
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I didn't realize neckbeard atheists oppressed so many people compared to religion, thanks to the author for opening my eyes
?
The last panel is ambiguous about whether the woman is having an emotional breakdown and lying on the ground in tears, or if she was killed by her son and was crying as she died. Both would work as someone being "convinced" their religion is wrong, as being dead would "convince" you about god.
I think it's the former, but i see the latter.
Honestly I initially interpreted the comic as a joke about the dichotomy of how the son would feel good about it but it's a lot of emotional processing for the mother.
The last panel isn't ambiguous. She's emotionally shattered because her fantasy was destroyed.
There's a difference between religion and faith. Faith is belief in a higher power. Religion is an institution that exploits faith to opress people. This neckbeard atheist didn't thwart religion, he just destroyed his mom's faith. I have my doubts that his mom was doing a lot of oppressing.
neither of those definitions are correct...
They are sufficient for the topic at hand.
No, incorrect definitions are never sufficient. That is just making up stuff
It is not. Those are, roughly, what those words mean. I could use more precise ones, but this isn't a serious philosophical discussion with serious people so the effort would be wasted.
Substitute whichever words you prefer, there's a difference between an individual's personal belief in a higher power, and the institution which exploits that belief to oppress. Half-baked semantic objections do not make you clever. Engage with the content of the argument.
Sorry you were downvoted for pointing out hypocrisy.
I get it. Never grew much hair on my neck but I went through an edgy Internet atheist phase. I saw myself as a champion of science and rationality, leading poor deluded people to the light.
I got better, but it took time.
Genocide is worse than murder but murder is still bad
Where did murder come into this?
Around the time religion started.
It didn't. I'm using an analogy to show that criticising atheists like this does not mean I support religion. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Gotcha
Them religious zealots with their evolutionary biology and eugenics!
Is one of these murderous religious people in the room with us right now?
Way to completely miss the point of the comic. Tearing down someone out of a vain desire to be "right" helps no one. Fight people who use any belief to justify being shitty to others. Go read some Vonnegut and learn to leave people who get goodness out of shit alone.
Edit: The comment originally was about religious people being murderous. My first edit was to add an additional thought. This dude's edited now to change the core of his argument from "murder" to "opression".
If you are an adult and that is your reaction to understanding that god isnt real then you need serious psychological help.
To be fair, a lot of people need serious psychological help and get God instead.
Religion is often used as cognitive dissonance to avoid dealing with trauma.
This might be a popular opinion here on Lemmy but this is definitely NOT really rooted in reality.
Conceptually going from belief in a something you earnestly want to believe in to being proven it’s wrong will shatter who you are.
This is not much different than learning your partner is cheating on you or that your parents aren’t actually you parents and they hid it from you, or something like that.
Yes believing in religion may be absurd but c’mon this take is pretty off
Or finding out Santa isn't real!
"If you have a deeply emotional reaction to your entire worldview being shattered in your middle age and having everything that once brought you a sense of comfort, however manufactured, suddenly ripped away from you, then you need psychological help."
At least your brain-dead snark somehow still brought you to the correct conclusion, unintentional as it may have been.
Ofcourse if you think that peoples practical view of the world is strongly dependent on religion, then that would be your reaction to my comment. I just dont believe that this is true. At least in my experience with people old and young, no matter the ethnicity or religious background, barely anyone is so deeply religious anymore that their understanding of reality depends on belief in god.
This comic just doesnt make any sense in large parts of the world where people live either completely secular or only vaguely influenced by religion.
Yeah, I agree with your statement. Not in a degrading way though. I know people whose lives have been so difficult, agonizing and full of abuse. Religion is what got them through those times and gave them hope. I am an atheist too, a very radical one at that, but I can imagine these people would have similar reactions if their only source of spiritual comfort was aggressively denied.
So they do need serious psychological help, but not because they are stupid to react that way, if that was what you meant.
That was very insightful. Thank you, gay_sex.
Hey look, it's the guy in the comic.
Seriously, if you are an adult and lack the empathy to see that it can be a traumatic experience to completely dismantle one's sense of identity and community, then you need serious psychological help.
No they're just ruling some of the most powerful and genocidal despotic countries in human history.
Yes, fight religion. Fight it with logic, science and facts. Otherwise you'll get people like RFK jr, and a whole bunch of sick and potentially dead children. Or you might end up like the middle east, dead in the name of god.
Sharing your beliefs with family is pretty common. Would you not want your relatives to reflect the way you see the world?
Just because it's going against the generational direction doesn't make it somehow wrong.
Nor is making a relative upset necessarily wrong.
Now, freed from the expectations, worldview, and belief systems of a religion, she is able to choose her own way of living?
I don't really see how this is a negative. Religion gives easy, comforting, often bullshit answers to difficult questions. Who are you supposed to be? What's the right thing to do? How should you treat others? What happens after I die?
In the same way that throwing a child into the ocean is "free to learn how to swim", sure. You can't go to all this work to convince someone you are right, and then as soon as they start listening and agreeing with you, abandon them to despair. If you want to help someone see the world more clearly, you also have to show them how to handle this new world, especially if it's your own family you're trying to help.
I do agree that abandonment is cringe.
On their own journey, I'd be wary of introducing my own biases.
I feel that easily could've been excluded from the comic either for the author's narrative, or simply to keep it a 3 panel. Could also just be alone time to process.
Totally random question chud: how do you feel about support for drug addicts?
Actually yes religious justifications for violence are fairly common, the comic is stupid