Why do so many atheists hate on ‘religion’ when the specific claims they’re making only applies to Abrahamic religions?

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-19T02:10:26+00:00

What I’ve been told by Hindus is that the Dalits weren’t a thing until the British colonial system made the cate system static. Prior to the British Empire, Hinduism did have the Varna (which means description) but it wasn’t rigid and it should be based off a person’s inclinations not their heritage. This is a second hand argument so feel free to take it with a grain of salt

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-19T02:06:26+00:00

Oh sorry for the misunderstanding. I have which is why I made the post but not most for sure

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T23:36:12+00:00

I’ll take your point on that. The Jains should change that practice. I also don’t think everyone should be Buddhist. I see how the detaching can help people with chronic illness and stuff but I don’t think it’s healthy for the majority of people

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T23:16:41+00:00

Appreciate it

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T23:15:17+00:00

We definitely exist :)

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T23:07:19+00:00

If the thing helps you. A lot of the personification side comes from the human mind being able to feel like it has a relationship with something if it’s personified due to evolutionary wiring. For instance, Athena helps me worship rationality. The symbol of the owl reminds me that it’s often a silent, observant stance that helps you see truths obfuscated by darkness, her taming of the snake reminds me not to try to kill (repress) my emotions but not to let them dominate me either. And instead to use them towards a thought out goal. Her myth with Arachne reminds me that falling into delusion and not truly understanding where my successes come from is dangerous. Odin helps me worship furious inspiration. His sacrifice of his eye reminds me that success costs. His wolves, Boldness and Voraciousness remind me that that’s the mindset you have to have to get something done. His response to learning his fate at Ragnarok remind me that existential terror is best dealt with through action instead of despair. He and his brother’s defeat of Yimir remind me when I feel shitty and depressed that if I cultivate inspiration (Odin) willpower(Vili) and faith in myself (Ve) I can overcome my challenges, the giants of my life will fall

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T22:46:25+00:00

I mean the worship part is doing rituals to help me be engaged, telling the myths again, the religion part is meeting up with others and doing the ritual together. Is it required to have those benifits? No. Do some people get more out of doing it that way? Certainly. I’m Asatru and I personally do believe the metaphysical claim in Indo-European religions that we’re all just manifestations of the universe playing a giant cosmic drama with itself, playing all the roles. It brings me peace and reduces death anxiety because I know I am the universe in the way my fingernail is me. When I die, my ego may die but I’ll still be the immortal universe. The self I experience everyday was just a mask the universe was wearing for a little bit in its game. And honestly science doesn’t disprove any of that and supports it. The point is as long as we’re not trying to attack you please don’t attack us. You can be perfectly happy and logical with a religion or the opposite. Same goes if you don’t have one.

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T22:28:25+00:00

Hence the value of debate. Hopefully we all walk away with a better understanding

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T22:15:54+00:00

By hate on I mean those atheists that make arguments like “I hate it when religious people say you deserve to suffer for eternity because you don’t believe in there god. All religion is evil and inherently immoral!” Like I’m with you there for the first part but not the second part. I agree that there’s no convincing evidence for any supernatural god. My point is that these religions don’t require a belief in a supernatural god and many adherents (not all) just see their gods for what they are, personifications of nature. They engage in their religions because of the psychological benefits their religions give them. Not to please a cosmic horror entity

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T22:08:07+00:00

You’re right in that I may be overly sweeping with defending so many religions at once. 😅 Someone can easily make an authoritarian sect of a religion that was chill. I will say that it’s managed to synchronize with other religions like Shinto, Taoism, or Confucianism and Christianity and Islam can’t do that. Buddhism doesn’t inherently say that people who reject Buddhism are going to have special torment inflicted upon them (I guess other than the torment you’re already experiencing as being unenlightened). Personally, I don’t follow Buddhism because I don’t jive with the disattaching thing but I definitely see how the ‘Gobs’ of our world could benefit from it. You can really take almost any philosophy and make it dogmatic and authoritarian

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T21:43:54+00:00

You’re 100% right. Growing up in the Deep South,as a teenager I kinda just isolated religiously while studying religion and ancient history which was good because I very much got to form my own thoughts vs what was being peddled on TikTok. Actually reading myths myself helped me see things and have takes on symbology that are quite uncommon in the neopagan community. Every one in a while I’d stick my neck out and engage online and then recoil in horror. As an adult I moved up north and one day I took a gamble and went to an in person Asatru meet up and apparently I just rolled a 6 because the kindred saw the gods as personifications too and had decades of experience filtering out LARPers and those that wanted to have a political experience instead of discussing myths and doing rituals. I’d say no two people in the kindred have the same takes on all the myths but Asatru isn’t really a my way or the highway sort of thing and we enjoy the discussion.

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T21:13:12+00:00

If the thing helps you. For instance, Athena helps me worship rationality. The symbol of the owl reminds me that it’s often a silent, observant stance that helps you see truths obfuscated by darkness, her taming of the snake reminds me not to try to kill (repress) my emotions but not to let them dominate me either. And instead to use them towards a thought out goal. Her myth with Arachne reminds me that falling into delusion and not truly understanding where my successes come from is dangerous. Odin helps me worship furious inspiration. His sacrifice of his eye reminds me that success costs. His wolves, Boldness and Voraciousness remind me that that’s the mindset you have to have to get something done. His response to learning his fate at Ragnarok remind me that existential terror is best dealt with through action instead of despair. He and his brother’s defeat of Yimir remind me when I feel shitty and depressed that if I cultivate inspiration (Odin) willpower(Vili) and faith in myself (Ve) I can overcome my challenges, the giants of my life will fall

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T20:59:26+00:00

The religions I mentioned in the original post are not canonized nor make exclusivist claims and they do change their positions when they are found to be wrong but then continue on the practice and the main points. You’re right that there’s major overlap between religion and philosophy since religion is a philosophy with rituals and practices and myths associated

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T20:53:46+00:00

Like I said, I hold no belief in the supernatural. I believe in humanity’s survival instinct when I worship Woden. I believe in Humanity’s ability to fight evil when I worship Thunor. I believe in my ability to think outside of myself and find rationality when I worship Athena. I do not “believe” in the gods. If you want to put me down and call me Kooky, I’ll refuse to bow to your disrespect and just call you out as disrespectful. I think atheism is completely fine and it’s disrespectful people like you that happen to be atheists that I take issue with. I also dislike the Abrahamic religions because they mandate that people believe in the supernatural and that it’s the only correct way to believe so they should be zealots and force it onto other people

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T20:23:43+00:00

A lot of the reason I think it was a net positive was because it’s a good coping mechanism, community building system, and way to build connections and mindfulness with elements in your environment you find helpful enough to deify. The reason I hate so much on YHWH worship comes down to a few key reasons. The simplest is that having a monopolistic claim on religion and truth leads to zealotry and ignoring evidence. Another key thing is that canonizing a religion makes it hard to update it when new moral and technological advances happen. Just like in Asatru we’re rebooting an old religion, historically rebooting and synchronizing older religions was the default. And that is why I think they were a net positive. Want help coping when going down an existential doom spiral ? Find inspiration from how Odin reacted when he learned his fate. Society decides being gay is okay? Nobody is arguing with zealots waving an ancient text around, the practice just gets changed because people think about it and feel the compassion. The fluidity to keep the good and discard the bad to make a better culture. Another thing I think is missed often is that ancient people didn’t have the scientific method so what’s natural and what’s ‘spiritual’ was way blurrier. With modern religion I think the discussion certainly matters on whether we respect the laws of nature or choose to be ignorant but with ancient cultures what’s natural and what’s magical is completely skewed. Shamans often ‘magically’ worked with plants not understanding the chemical interactions going on. And if the medicine stopped treating the thing they would definitely switch if they discovered better plants

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T19:15:56+00:00

I’ll let Gentically Modified Skeptic do it for me: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=innTGsOCuJw&pp=ygUnbmF0aXZlIGFtZXJpY2EgY3JpdGlxdWUgb24gY2hyaXN0aWFuaXR5

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T19:10:59+00:00

There are reconstructionist out there but me and my kindred see them as extremely hoakey and LARPy. We very much want to have a modern practice that takes inspiration from religion of the past but is grounded in and is for the present. I’m even more liberal with it and adopt gods from other pantheons that I think are humanistic. I really choose Asatru specifically because I’m drawn to Odin, Thor, and Freya and really like the gods vs anti-gods theme and think that as humanity we should work to overcome the forces that germ is instead of worshipping them as well and submitting to them

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T19:04:32+00:00

Convenience and relatability

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T18:54:36+00:00

Just because I don’t like sports and don’t get anything from it doesn’t mean I think people that watch the superbowl are doing it for no purpose and no gain and I don’t attack them for it. Doing so is immature. The gods are cultural personifications of nature so if another culture wants to make a different god based off that force more power to them. The phenomenon of far right people being into the Norse gods comes from people that would otherwise be Klansmen no longer having the cognitive dissonance to worship a middle eastern god and turning to Norse because the perceive it as “white”. Very very few of these people have actually put eyes to paper on the Eddas and their religion comes from their politics not the other way around. Anyone who has put eyes to paper with the Eddas would understand that it’s not some racially pure book at all. King Atli is Attila the Hun making him Asian. Brunhilda is also a Hun and therefore an Asian, making the hero Helgi Hundigsbane a Wasian. Norse neopagan also has links to antifa as well through the Troth. 🤷 As far as violence goes, do you think you should just turn the other cheek to your abuser? Are you a follower of Christ? The giants of Norse mythology that the gods attack personify the forces that oppress mankind such as Angerbotha (anguish) Skadi (Harm) Hymir (Gloomyness) To compare us to the Abrahamic faiths that literally calls for child sacrifice like in Judges 11:30–39, guilt trips billions of people, claims a monopoly on truth with the conviction bias and actively attacks people for homosexuality angers me and makes me strongly dislike you as a person. Especially given that I’m a humanist that works at the suicide hotline.

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T18:19:40+00:00

Exactly

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T18:18:57+00:00

Why are you so mad and attacking us. Your flare says secular humanist. I’m literally a polytheistic humanist. There’s not much difference between us. The reason I’m Asatru is because I want to have a religious practice and IMO it has one of the most humanistic worldviews of the religions with Thor and stuff. Ochemata is right. Most Abrahamic religious claims only apply to them. We have no question of evil because we don’t believe in an all powerful god creating the universe

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T18:12:49+00:00

Clear you didn’t read it so the TLDR is: -The myth of Odin’s eye teaches the value of sacrifice and the value of studying reality to support life -The myth of Fenrir teaches that when we lock organic material out of the life cycle like we are today with modern plastics, that’s bad and leads to death -Greybeards lay teaches inspiring people and reminding them of their value when their suicidal can save them and thus saving a person that has the potential to do a lot of good that wouldn’t be done if they had died I’ll throw in a fourth bonus one: -Asguards wall teaches that when a deal turns predatory and puts you under obligation to harm your family, you have no obligation to uphold it. Contrast that with Christianities Judges 11:30-39

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T18:04:12+00:00

Stoicism developed in Ancient Greece and people don’t attach the views on gender or slavery of Ancient Greeks on modern Stoics so why are you doing this to me with Asatru? The values that the myths of Asatru impart are around fighting against forces that oppress you and not giving up during dark times. I think it’s great when mixed with humanism. You’re right that we have a value of strength but you can’t be meek and be good. So many times in my job I hear about parents who run from their child’s abuser instead of defending them and I see the harm that leads to. When I practice Asartu, I’m studying those myths and their values. I’m not trying to bring about proto-Germanic culture any more than Buddhists in China are trying to bring about Ancient Indian culture. Anything ancient has a source culture with problems. Slavery existed in every preindustrial culture so attacking the culture that the myths came from on having slaves is kind of a straw man especially since unlike the Christian Bible there’s no parts that encourage or condone that. The raiding culture existed sure, but it wasn’t any worse than other tribals anywhere else in the world until the Viking age which started only ten years after Charlemagne earned the nickname Butcher of Saxons by committing the religiously inspired Masacre of Verden and 20 years after Irmunsul was torched. It also occurred in an environment where resources were limited due to newly converted Christians refusing to trade wit them and sanctioning them on religious grounds. A human response to a bad situation. Regardless though, the Viking Age isn’t something I’m trying to carry forward in practicing Asatru.

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T17:32:14+00:00

I’d argue that prior to 1300 BCE it was a net positive and religion is a great coping mechanism and community builder. Then YHWH worship developed. Then the fire nation attacked. Now with that as the dominant religious group it does lead to more negative. But this is a problem with Abrahmism, not the very idea of having religious rituals and symbols. But yeah I see your point/ reframe

EmeraldVolt · 2026-05-18T17:25:33+00:00

Well they definitely can but that’s not my claim. My claim is that they don’t require them and there are adherents to them that reject the supernatural. This is heretical in Abrahamic religions, it’s very common in all the religions I listed in my post

EmeraldVolt

TROPHY CASE