view the rest of the comments
Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
Anytime I mention something vaguely positive about religion. I'm a former religious studies scholar who studied comparative religions. I have two degrees in the subject. I don't think I'm saying anything controversial: the main thing I usually write is that you cannot usually say that a religion is a monolith - they are pretty complex phenomenon with many variations within them. You can say that Salafis are the totality of Islam. You can't say that evangelicals are the totality of Christianity. You can't say 969 in Burma is the totality of Buddhism. You can't say Hindutva is Hinduism. You can't say that the Settlers on the West Bank are the totality of Judaism. Religions without any variation or complexity usually die after a generation or two. I don't just have these arguments online, I am used to have them with students and with friends. But nuance has few safe harbors on the internet....
I've simply said that while I don't consider myself particularly religious, I enjoy my church because of the wonderful friendships, the genuinely welcoming environment to all, and the sense of community it brings me, and all the boring atheists come out of the woodwork to herp at me. Like what do you care that I enjoy something? I'm not inviting you.