Unpopular Opinions

Now we’ve devolved into not eating anything? Didn’t we kill that guy already?

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South Park is not funny, and is Shit. South Park is a bad show.

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I would say, it was funny in its first season. But once the novelty of “Oh my God, they killed Kenny! You bastards!” wore off, it just descended into a cringy mushroom trip of foulness because it had nothing else.

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I’m more of a Family guy, type of person so yes 100% yes

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Religion was a concept made-up by wiser minorities of the society as a tool to have control on the dumber majority.

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This works when looking backward through time over human history, but I don’t credit our ancestors, even the wiser ones, with having enough smarts to come up with this whole concept. I think it was stumbled upon and developed over time through natural societal progression, and then those who could think a little more clearly decided to hijack it.

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The fact that some of them credit the previous ones would prove that.

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Would prove what? What I said or what you said?

What you said.

Islam for instance, refers to several other prophets. The fact that Muhammad used to go to “business” trips (for trading) with his first wife would explain his knowledge about that.

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Right. So, over time, people learned to use those beliefs to their advantage and perhaps manufacture more beliefs to aid them. But the origination of beliefs, I am convinced, could not have been made up by humans as a tool. I’ll never accredit our species for having that much imagination early on.

not looking for a big back and forth, just interested in what makes you say that?

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He says as he is about to talk about religion with Heisenberg.

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Actually I know a good article about this, here you go. Ironically it is a bit wordy but I found its analysis of the purpose of cave painting to be interesting. Ehrenreich comes to the conclusion that art developed in relation to the development of stratified societies.

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Nah, this is actually one I can keep relatively short and sweet.

Frankly, because our species is stupid, or at least unwise, to be lenient, and works by looking at ourselves in retrospect. You know that saying “you have to know where you came from to know where you’re going?” That applies to humanity as a whole. We do something, we screw up, we look back at what we did, and then we start to see the wider ramifications and possibilities, and that’s more prominent the further back in history you go. People trying things for the first time nowadays at least have a history of there being screw-ups to help at least try to predict and avoid doing so.

So, to that end, I have no confidence in the idea that religion was invented as a means of control, because I don’t believe anyone could have simply come up with it out of the blue. Someone came up with religion first (going on the assumption that religions of every sort are entirely made up and have no basis in truth whatsoever), and then someone realized how they could use it. The example of the Flying Spaghetti Monster on how to just make up a religion is fine and dandy, when you’re able to look back on history for examples. But the very first one, ever? No. That’s not how the human mind works. Nobody came up with that as a means of social control from the get-go.

Unpopular Opinion: people who vape are definitely more careless and obnoxious than people who smoke and it’s not even close.

Religion came from mythology. And mythology was an attempt to explain the world out of distress.

“Why doesn’t the rain fall anymore? What causes rain in the first place? And how do we make it rain again? We need to know because our life depends on it.”

The first two questions are mythology, the third is religion. It surely goes further back than the point in time there was a “majority” one could rule.

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The only episode of South Park I’ve ever seen was one the four kids weren’t even in. It was something about religious zealots going to other planets trying to convert the local alien populations to Christianity. I remember it being pretty funny but that was at least 10-15 years ago and I never felt an urge to seek out other episodes. :man_shrugging:

Arguably, by the time humans were intelligent/mentally aware enough to concoct semi-cohesive myths and religions they were also civilized enough to have a concept of “haves/have nots”. I will agree that the early religions likely had little, if any, malicious intent and were mostly about attempting to explain the world. However, given the status often held by those involved in the cults/mysteries/religions, the “minority’s” intent is not necessarily mutually exclusive with the power they simultaneously held over the “majority”.

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At every moment in human history where someone could hold power, someone likely attempted to abuse that power. It’s in our nature.

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And that’s not just our nature, that’s the nature of almost every social species. Apes, seals, buffalo, etc., any alpha or ruling member of a group will try to control instinctively.

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Is it though? :thinking:

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