• nbafantest@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    For most religious people, religion is a way to be a better person and live a better life.

    Let’s say you struggle with anger issues? How do you deal with it?

    Religions have thousands of years of lessons about anger. Churches will have entire support groups built around helping with anger. You’ll often get sermons about anger. Ways to deal with it. Why it happens. Benefits of not giving into anger etc.

    If you have a slip up with anger, religions have ways of handling it and helping you grow.

    Probably the most visible thing is addiction. Churches have helped soooo many people deal with addiction who otherwise might be dead by now.

    Religion is not for everyone, but there are certainly lots of people who feel they are better off because of it

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      6 months ago

      I’m not sure if I agree with this explanation. Sure, religion is something some people turn to after having issues, but it’s also equally, if not probably more frequently, an excuse to cause issues.

      I see it more often used as a coping mechanism, not a way to be a better person. It’s something to give hope of your problem just solving itself, and an excuse when it doesn’t work. It’s also used to excuse horrible behavior towards other people, not to be a nicer person towards them.

      There’s both sides of all of this obviously, but I see it doing the inverse of what you said much more frequently.

      The biggest boon I see from religion is that it creates community by default. In a time period so lacking in community, religion would be a good tool for this. I think it’d be better for people to form non-religious community, but there’s no force to push towards that.