As a note, the Israelites would in later generations go on to kill a shitload of people. It’s one of those things where it seems like the Bible only really considers it murder if God doesn’t sanction it. It’s honestly one of the many sticking points that makes Abrahamic religions a hard sell for modern individuals. That said, if you look at it from a historical perspective, it really comes across more like a religious version of the Code of Hammurabi. It’s less “don’t kill” as a philosophical or religious position and more about sanctions against killing in a practical legal sense. A functioning society has laws that formally govern behavior and the Israelites were essentially an ecclesiarchy, with Moses being both head of state and high priest. The same laws that governed social life were always going to intersect with laws that governed spiritual life.

Yes, that will happen when the “problem” lives solely between your ears.

You are more than welcome to block any and all content from that instance. You can do this by going under your user settings and clicking on the “Blocks” tab and searching for lemmy.ml in the Block Instance section. That’s the thing about Federated content. You have the power to selectively engage with the content of your choosing. You don’t get to quarantine others because there is no centralized authority that gets to say “your instance gets stuck in an internet ghetto where it isn’t allowed to interact with other users.” You have to quarantine yourself by excluding content. If that doesn’t work for you, then maybe it’s less that you dislike their authoritarian ideology and more that it isn’t the same flavor as your own.

It’s the Vampire Castle phenomenon of online leftist spaces. One dev and instance admin of Lemmy has problematic personal beliefs, so now we aren’t allowed to be on Lemmy anymore because it’s failed an ideological purity test that OP decided for the rest of us. In other news, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, is a hardcore Ayn Rand style freemarket libertarian, so I guess we should all ditch wikipedia and each buy a 400 pound Encyclopedia Britannica set. Because that’ll show him to believe things I think are terrible.

So your assertions here are the following:

• religion functions by 1) lying to people about the fundamental nature of reality in order to 2) manipulate them into doing bad things and that central to this is the idea that doing point 1 actively enables or facilitates point 2.
• religion constitutes a “static model of reality” to which people are emotionally attached, which is fundamentally dangerous.
• religion does not “determine” good or bad.
• Religious violence is a thing that exists.
• You’re queer and religion bothers you.

So, point by point:

• many religions make complex assertions about the metaphysical nature of the universe, often including the existence of supernatural phenomena, individuals, locations, etc. I’m not going to try to argue for the existence of any mystical element of any particular faith, but I will challenge the innately reductive analysis of religion you’ve provided. Most religions, particularly the very old ones, incorporate historical, philosophical, artistic, communal, and ethical traditions. You seem to center your understanding of religious faith around the metaphysical or supernatural components and have asserted that these components warp the underlying perception of reality of its participants for the express purpose of making people behave in such a way as to “do awful shit” and act against your “conscience and general interest.” In making a causal assertion of this kind, however, you really need to be able to support that assertion with something that proves a causal link between what you describe as a belief in “blatantly magical bullshit” and a specific pattern of behavior. Why is it the belief in the supernatural and not, for example, hierarchical organizations of power, something that has existed as a component of organized religion for millennia, but also in virtually all political and dominant social institutions for just as long? Perhaps people are more inclined towards mob mentality or to fall behind powerful and charismatic leaders, regardless of the institution from which they’re working. For example, the Soviet Union under Stalin was a brutally repressive society that actively criminalized both organized religion and LGBT persons. The absence of religion did not magically produce a society devoid of people unwilling to brutally oppress their fellow countrymen.
• you seem to be working with terms that don’t really carry a lot of significance or meaning for anyone other than yourself. What, exactly, do you think constitutes a “static model of reality?” And what, exactly, is problematic about that? Because in my mind, most people operate with a fairly static understanding of reality. Not to say it’s the same understanding of reality. Ideologies are as complex and different as the people that internalize them, and they inform our personal understanding of the world we inhabit. For most people, altering these beliefs about the world is non-trivial. As a staunch leftist, someone would have a hard time selling me on the merits of laissez-faire capitalism as an effective mechanism of distributing wealth in a society. My understanding of the fundamental nature of economics, human nature, and reality itself precludes this. Am I working from an overly static and inflexible model of reality?
• religion is deeply concerned with the nature of good and evil. Admittedly, these are things you might not actually believe in. Perhaps you’re a moral relativist. Perhaps not. If you are, I don’t have much to say to you about this. You believe good and evil are culturally determined moral concepts and nothing else, from a personal perspective, beyond socially conditioned behavior.
• religious violence, or “Holy Wars” as you’ve put it, are virtually all fought for the same purpose as any other war: the primitive acquisition of wealth and the expansion of a nation or nations hegemony. If you think what’s going on in Palestine is not driven by Israel’s desire for Palestinian land, then I have a bridge to sell you.
• your experiences are both tragic and common. I’ve personally been physically and emotionally abused by members of specific religious organizations, for reasons and in ways I don’t feel comfortable sharing with strangers on the internet, and by people who were sociopaths that used religion as a cudgel to bully and control others. But I’ve also been comforted and treated kindly by other people for whom their religious faith was an important part of their lives - people who were sick and in pain their entire lives, but who found serenity and comfort through their beliefs and shared that with people around them who were also suffering. History is full of people who used religion as an excuse to do terrible things, but history also has a tendency to amplify monsters and forget the decent people whose faith may have driven them to have a more positive impact on the world.

If you want to hate religion because you’re bitter, that’s fine. You can feel about religion any way that you want. But don’t be offended when you bring it up out of nowhere and someone tells you that your comments are irrelevant to the current discussion.

The world doesn’t revolve around your personal bitterness.

A lot of it probably comes from deeply negative personal experiences, combined with a general propensity for people to apply a categorical belief to particular experiences. People who were treated badly by a particular group of Christians, or people who see and hear about certain Christians advocating for some terrible politician or political goal, are applying a generalized belief to how all Christians act, and potentially to all religion in general. It’s much harder to accept that the world is a deeply complicated and messy place and that religion and religious belief is a much more complex element of human civilization, culture, and personal identity than what many people would care to acknowledge.

I already mentioned that shoehorning criticism of religion into conversations that were unrelated came across as bitter and myopic. Your point was, essentially, that a lot of people are bitter towards Christianity, which is implied by my own observation. If you have nothing to add beyond restating what was already said by the person to whom you are replying, then I would suggest saving yourself the time in the future and just clicking the up arrow. Or doing literally nothing. Either of those are fine options.

Sure, and that’s terrible, but from a different perspective, most of these beliefs and behaviors you’ve identified would persist without religious institutions and their proponents formalizing them as policy. Religion can give people a way to justify a lot of the terrible beliefs that they had internalized anyway, because it’s part of the dominant culture. But misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, xenophobia, and moral hypocrisy aren’t caused by religion or religious beliefs, any more so than atheism or agnosticism causes people to be tolerant or accepting of others in spite of their differences. And that’s a foundational premise to many of the criticisms of religion I see on Lemmy. But it’s just objectively wrong. If you want to look at a historical example of the productive power of religion, look no further than the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), which was one of, if not the most significant, political and religious organizations of the Civil Rights movement. It helped to organize people into a fighting force for real progressive change and it did so by way of lines of communication between black congregations across the country. For even more examples of religion as a tool of social progress, I recommend the wikipedia page on Liberation Theology.

You don’t even need to involve churches.

There are plenty of valid complaints about (many) American religious institutions, but the constant shoe-horning in of complaints about religion in unrelated posts that I see on Lemmy comes across as bitter and myopic.

This is a good question. The answer is probably “a few years old” at the least. I went hunting for the UPC code on the back label and found this website, which indicates its last recorded scan was some time in 2021. It’s likely this product is simply no longer manufactured and sold by them. Probably by virtue of a lack of demand or other considerations.

Yeah, I didn’t know that until very recently, and that was because of an anime I was watching.

Or took “no” as an answer from a woman.

I’m assuming that’s just revenue from The Onion, although the wording on it leaves much to be desired.

Honestly, the internet was at its best when it was the fever dream of stoned, sexually frustrated grad students at Berkley. Infinite potential - it could’ve been anything. Could’ve. But wouldn’t. The real thing, after it became fully saturated in everyday American life, was always going to be some mediocre, watered down corporate cesspool of lowest common denominator, hyper-sanitized garbage. Because that’s what people like. They like safe, familiar, predictable, and uncomplicated. Well, most people.

Beehaw being privately operated isn’t a defence from criticism. Not at all.

Except, it is. In order to be authoritarian you have to have authority over someone else. A parent or guardian can be authoritarian. A government can be authoritarian. An employer can be authoritarian. Beehaw can’t really be authoritarian towards you because it can’t really compel you to do or behave a certain way. It can ban you for violating the rules, but that’s it. But that’s the only thing it can do and you have the choice of just not participating there. It’s no more authoritarian than getting ejected and banned from a store for trying to shoplift. Nor is it any more authoritarian than getting banned from a library if you try setting the books in it on fire. Or do you genuinely believe that you should be able to act however you want anywhere you want without consequence?

I 100% never said anything about “gay people grooming kids on this website"

You wanted to talk about gay people grooming kids, and you wanted to do it on Beehaw. Learn to read. I beg you.

I dated a crazy controlling person that wanted their daughter to be queer.

I believe no part of this happened, including you ever dating anyone.

The fact that I’m RIGHT THERE asking how to remove beehaw from my feed shows how full of shit your claims are about me wanting to force myself on beehaw.

And the fact that you practically beg for a ban, get it, and then complain about Beehaw’s moderators being authoritarian shows how full of shit you are. You wanted to get banned so you could play the victim. You honestly just come across as painfully entitled.

This has been fun for me! Thank you for teaching me a bit about collectivist perspectives.

You’re welcome. I can recommend some books if you want a deeper dive. Books are things made out of pieces of paper that have words written on them, by the way.

where did I even say I want access to beehaw?

If you don’t want access to Beehaw and don’t think you’re entitled to it, then you must be admitting that you think it was totally okay for them to ban you, then.

In reality, no.

This is just pure contradiction. You’re not even trying to make an argument anymore.

I can judge beehaw without demanding access to it, which is exactly what I’ve done.

So you agree that you have no right to any kind of access to that website and that your complaints are purely superficial? Great, that’s progress.

So just to be clear, you don’t believe in civil rights on an individual level? You see civil rights as contingent on government funding, and social norms? I see civil rights an an extension of personal autonomy.

I can guarantee I privately believe in civil rights as an ideal more than you do. That includes the rights of the owners and administrators of a website like Beehaw to dictate admission and participation guidelines for their private website. I believe in freedom of association, and you don’t. We’ve already established that much.

I specifically talking about hypotheticals.

You specifically talk in whataboutisms. They’re hypotheticals that are irrelevant to the discussion because we’re talking about a privately held website, not labor, not healthcare, and not commerce, and we’re talking about instances of behavior being policed, not discrimination on the basis of identity. These are fundamentally different things which you merely perceive, wrongly, to be equivalent. Someone banning you for expressing a horrible opinion is not the same thing as someone refusing to provide you with medical care on the basis of being gay. In spite of what you seem to believe, you are not being persecuted for your beliefs. You have merely experienced the “find out” part of “fucking around.” These are, once again, different things.

In fact, let’s examine what happened: you went on Beehaw and the first comment you made was, essentially, “wow, fuck Beehaw, this place sucks lol, I don’t want to EVER see any content from this instance - this place is a stupid fucking echo chamber” and the second one is “I want to be able to talk about how gay people are grooming kids on this website that very explicitly bills itself as a safe space for LGBT persons and other minority groups” and then a mod did you a favor and banned you before you had the opportunity to embarrass yourself further. Seriously, I really don’t understand why you’re upset that you told the moderators you didn’t want anything to do with their website and then they did you the favor of keeping you from ever accidentally posting something there ever again. You very literally did everything in your power to get banned short of explicitly requesting one in writing. And as the first mod that replied to you in your first comment told you, “you don’t have to come here if you don’t want to.” Maybe you should have, I dunno…listened to them?

I’m a fucking anarchist 😂

Being an ancap doesn’t count. That’s not a real ideology.

Please quote me exactly where I said I want authority to force others to cater to my desires. The exact sentence.

There’s text and then there’s subtext. You want access to a private space that can serve as a platform for you to voice your opinions, even when the people already in that private space don’t want you there or to have to listen to you. Your desire for authority over that space is a foundational component of that.

Also just a heads up, when you start spewing a bunch of bullshit like “it’s not authoritianism because you have no valid claim to rights.” I don’t see the point in arguing. If fudging details makes you feel happy, that’s your choice.

It’s not bullshit, though, because that’s the underlying premise of an authoritarian regime, particularly in a governmental sense: you have an authority that ignores the collective will of the people of a nation state. Those people have a valid claim to rights by virtue of their relationship to that nation as its citizens. You claiming that it’s authoritarian to bar your entrance into a private online community is like saying it’s authoritarian for someone to lock their doors to keep you out of their house. You don’t have some inalienable right to access EVERY single space that exists in the physical or virtual world.

Freedom of speech exists beyond it’s legal representations. Like holy fuck, that is a BAD argument.

Except, it really doesn’t. Private individuals don’t owe you a platform. And that’s what you’re demanding. You seem to be conflating those two things: freedom of speech and a platform. They’re different things. You can’t be compelled to express opinions that you don’t hold by the threat of state violence. That’s freedom of speech. But you’re also not owed a mechanism by which to broadcast those things. In America, for example, you can put a sign in your yard calling for virtually any kind of political policy change, ideological position, or political candidate that you want. But you don’t have the inalienable right to stick the same sign in your neighbor’s yard. Your argument is, basically, that, yes, you actually do, and no one should be able to stop you.

Also, it’s “its legal representation” not “it’s legal representation.” “Its” indicates possession. “It’s” is a contraction of “it” and “is.” Just a heads up, since you don’t seem to know the difference.

For example, in a hypothetical would you be okay with beehaw refusing to serve gay members? You’d be okay with that?

I’m sure you think this is some big “gotcha,” but it isn’t. If you recall, I said, “Beehaw’s administrators and moderators don’t want you there because you insist on being able to voice beliefs that they find offensive or dangerous.” The implication is that they aren’t responding to your identity (such as being LGBT), they’re responding to behavior (what you say and do). These are different things, and your hypothetical actively and transparently misrepresents Beehaw’s moderators in that regard. That said, there are plenty of privately hosted websites out there that are deeply reactionary. Stormfront is a famous one. Places like this are ran by people who hold beliefs that I find absolutely despicable, and I’m sure they would actively ban anyone who was LGBT, leftist, anti-racist, etc., but I do believe they should have the freedom to host their own terrible little corner of the internet without a government shutting them down or compelling them to conform to some arbitrary standard of behavior. Suggesting otherwise would obviously open the door for a government to do the same to progressive spaces with impunity. Which, historically, most Western governments have already done…a lot. But it seems ill advised to try and make that any easier than it already is.

Your other examples are just terrible to the point of not even being worth individual acknowledgment. Businesses, hospitals, educational institutions, and other, similar organizations are typically subject to anti-discriminatory regulation on the basis of federal funding and some kind of critical material relationship with the populace as a whole. In other words, banning someone from a hospital or from employment on the basis of their identity is a material detriment to the collective public good. Banning someone from a private internet forum, however, is not, because labor, commerce, medical care, and internet forums are all different things that should probably be governed and regulated in different ways. This is, of course, how it is in the USA, but other places have similar statutes. Additionally, if you get money from the government, you automatically play by its rules. Places like Beehaw are private. Totally private. They receive no financial support from any government in any way. Whether you feel any of this is justifiable or not ultimately boils down to your perspective on the concept of freedom of association. You clearly don’t believe individuals should be allowed freedom of association, seemingly in any capacity, and I clearly do.

Okay, so, first of all, thank you. I’m really glad you made this comment because it basically just proves by pure example that you literally just don’t know what the definition of the word “authoritarian” is.

It’s ironic, really, because your own definition of authoritarianism (which is pretty much just people creating and enforcing rules for how you interact with them) implies that what you really don’t like is the fact that you lack the ability to force your own will on others. Beehaw’s administrators and moderators don’t want you there because you insist on being able to voice beliefs that they find offensive or dangerous, but the implication of your criticism of them as “authoritarian” is that you think they shouldn’t have the power to keep you out, and that you should have the power to come and go as you please and to say whatever you want without consequence or censure. In other words, you want the authority to force others to cater to your desires and to run the website in a way that benefits you, at the cost of what others may want. If others don’t want to be around you or interact with you because they find the way you act to be harmful or offensive, but you think they should be forced to tolerate your presence and be forced to interact with you regardless, then you’re saying you think you should be able to impose your own will over theirs.

Does this…remind you of anything?

It’s not authoritarianism if your participation is voluntary, bud. Your opinion, as horrific as I can only imagine it is, might not be allowed on Beehaw, but Beehaw moderators can’t make you go there and post, either. If you invite someone over to your house and then they start telling you in the middle of dinner they think “[insert group here] deserves the gas chambers,” that might be “just an opinion” to them, but you’d be well within your rights to ask them to leave. You’re not an “authoritarian” for not tolerating their “difference of opinion,” because they have no real right to be there without your consent in the first place. Same deal with any lemmy instance. I’m sorry your feelings are hurt that other people aren’t obligated to listen to whatever odious beliefs you have, but I think this XKCD sums it up best.

That doesn’t fit here because your own initial argument isn’t really even an argument. It’s just the assertion that “Beehaw is authoritarian,” lacking any supporting argumentation or evidence. I can’t misrepresent your argument because you don’t even really have an argument. And you’re effectively admitting to being unable to answer the question: what makes Beehaw’s moderators authoritarian but lemmy.ca or another’s not? If you’re unable to answer that question, then maybe you just have a weird chip on your shoulder, or maybe you got banned for using a slur and are bitter about it? I don’t know what it is, but if you can’t defend your own position then you might wanna do the mature thing and admit it.