I keep waiting for discussions to be about democracy as a way of life, and they never do. It is like no one gets the concept. The discussion I would like to have can not move forward when what I say is just words without meaning. — Athena

It's not that we don't get the concept so much as that we disagree on the examples.

I prefer

In general, Ojibwe society was loosely organized, and there were few personal differences in equality except those based on age. Important people could gain respect and prestige as outstanding warriors, civil leaders, religious leaders, or shamans, but this seldom made them more powerful in society as compared to everyone else.

as a democratic way of life to

Only free adult men who were citizens – about 10% of the population – could vote in Athens' limited democracy. Women, children, slaves, and foreigners were excluded from participating in making political decisions. Women had no political rights or political power. Aristotle, in “On a Good Wife,” written in 330 BCE, declared that a good wife aims to "obey her husband; giving no heed to public affairs, nor having any part in arranging the marriages of her children.

What's left to discuss that hasn't been trashed-over multiple times?

What are the fatal flaws of the US Constitution? — Athena

We hold it to be self-evident that all men are created equal, except for those, and those, and the females. And those men that are less equal than these men will be worth 3/5 of a person - with the extra votes going to their owners. But that's only south of this river. West of that river, we'll see, once we've killed enough of those unequal men.
Plus, they might have articulated that right to bear arms clause a little more clearly.
As a way of life, it hasn't worked perfectly.
I'm not talking about a moral stance on the institution of slavery; I'm talking about the political instability of the structure. If it was a slave-owning country, that issue could be addressed later on, as it was in England. If it was to be a free country, that should apply to all of it. Making half and half built a civil war right into the foundation.

"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering (Nietzsche)" — ChatteringMonkey

He was a poor, sick man. I wasn't. Different experiences lead to different conclusions.

I think we want to see our actions framed in a larger whole ideally, so they become infused with some kind of meaning. — ChatteringMonkey

Some do, some don't; some find it, some receive it, some invent it; some join organizations, armies, movements to be "part of something greater than themselves", some prefer interactions on a small scale, some are loners; some crave ideals, or truths or certitudes; some crave power, wealth or social status; some crave love but will take revenge instead; some cry, some laugh, some lie, some work, some pray, some fight; all die.

Would you please copy and paste what I said that lead you to think what you think? — Athena

No. It would take a week to track down all the pieces of such a quilt.

Democracy is a way of life that is based on Greek and Roman classics. — Athena

Yes, you've said, on several occasions.

Basic to that way of life is secular thinking — Athena

Except for all the gods Socrates is supposed to have offended.

The God of Abraham religions are not compactable with democracy because in a democracy there is no God with favorite people. — Athena

Because Abraham is a clan patriarch and much later, Israel is a monarchy. The Greeks and Romans are not chosen by a god; they assemble their national gods out of their own self-image - as does every other culture.

There are fundamental differences separating church and state! — Athena

And a code of laws based on the biblical commandments meshed together with English common law, on the foundation of a fatally flawed constitution and electoral procedure.

I dunno, this whole idea, that religion is bad and that we therefor should just do away with it, seems rather shallow to me. — ChatteringMonkey

It doesn't matter. When we lose interest or belief in one kind of madness, we always find another to take its place.

You’re right to be scared of A.I.,
On Monday, researcher Geoffrey Hinton, known as “The Godfather of AI,” said he’d left his post at Google, citing concerns over potential threats from AI development. Google CEO Sundar Pichai talked last month about AI’s “black box” problem, where even its developers don’t always understand how the technology actually works.

Why These Scientists Fear Contact With Space Aliens: The more we learn about the cosmos, the more it seems possible that we are not alone. The entire galaxy is teeming with worlds, and we’re getting better at listening — so the question, “Is there anybody out there?” is one we may be able to answer soon.

I'm always in favour of people and dogs (and I've nothing against cats, rabbits and horses). — Ludwig V

Dunno that I would trust a rabbit with my life... But horses very often and cats sometimes have saved the lives of their human companions. I hear Jesus scores the odd goal in soccer; a cat couldn't do that.

Our faith in people is put in place by some solid evidence; they haven't failed us in the past and so on, but with a god who is unknowable there is no past experience to draw upon. — Janus

My sentiments exactly, except that none of the people and dogs I've learned to trust over the years ever asked me to bomb, burn, stone or chop the heads off anybody else, so I detached from the god, but kept the people and dogs.

As I said earlier there is no faith without doubt (or at least it is extremely rare) — Janus

Right. So... They believe that their God is all-powerful, all-knowing, loving, merciful and benevolent. Except they're not sure enough to trust him/them with their lives. Ordinary guys in the trenches have more confidence in their comrades, children in parents and spouses in each other. Hm.

The history book you recommend has merit. — Athena

I'm not recommending a book. Your proposed book is fine - so long as it has lots of company from different perspectives. I'm recommending - warning - an adjustment of mind-set. All the times you've taken for granted that Americans were/are "the good guys" in a conflict; all the times you've advocated, directly or indirectly, for American-style capitalism; all the the usual accepted fictions... it's not deliberate; it's habitual. People need to develop a new habit: questioning the old verities.

Our public broadcasting station is doing a good job of increasing awareness of our wrongs. That is a history book for democracy. — Athena

Robust funding and support for that would be an excellent start! (and then find some way to seep-six DeSantis.)

Yeah, just like opium, it makes them feel good, but it could shut down options that they would otherwise pursue, maybe getting into political activism or something along those lines, because why bother? We are going to a better place, etc. — Manuel

In what countries do religious entities and their congregants stay out of politics?

Yes, the jealous god dies hard. — Wayfarer

The bastard has thus far shown no inclination to die at all. https://shepherd.com/book/towing-jehovah He's got more adherents now than ever before, coz they kept on keep on multiplying at His behest and for every suicide in His name, a hundred women are forced to make new ones.

Plenty of atheist dogma on display in this thread, but then, that's what you're going to get as soon as post an OP with such a title. Like tossing bloodied meat into the Piranha River.

Who was killed for the sport of pirhana-baiting this time?

There really isn't a good reason to keep it around. You can have all that stuff without religion, but a lot of the evil in the world had religion at it's heart. You'd be surprised what those who believe they are "God's chosen" can be capable of. — Darkneos

No, I wouldn't. I've listed and cited enough examples enough times to have internalized the list of atrocities - well, the European ones, anyway. I do, however, try be mindful of the opposing opinion and why so many otherwise reasoning, intelligent people desire to hold on to a faith, to ritual, the notion of sanctity, holy writ and the mythology of various cultural traditions.

That doesn't sound like a religion thing that sounds like a community thing, which you can have without religion. — Darkneos

Of course. Organized religion is a social mechanism. That is its main purpose and main (only?) benefit.

Most people are afraid to die. — Janus

But if they truly believed that death is not dying, but a passage to something better, why would they be? (Indeed, the interdict of suicide was invented by the RCC to prevent Christian serfs escaping from their masters.) They're okay with their saviour suffering and dying to enable them to live, but they'll buy kidneys from organ-leggers to put off following Him? It does happen that true believers let go of a spent life with grace and dignity (of course, so do some unbelievers). But I'm a bit skeptical regarding professed Christians' depth of faith. (especially the ones with those teeshirts)

You’d be hard pressed to find one that doesn’t. Most religions have something against it. — Darkneos

"It" doesn't make obedient little believers. "It" is regarded as providing some people freedom from hostages to the state (which has been synonymous with church) and thus their noses to the indentured grindstone. But the Catholics found a loophole - clever them! : monasticism. At a price.

I mean, I've seen many people hang on to life due to a belief that there will be a better life after this one. — Manuel

That sounds like a contradiction. Why would someone who believes he'll keep living after he dies hang on to a life he finds hard to tolerate? Why, for that matter, are so many Christians hanging on so hard to this sinful world, when their lord is calling them home?

Yes, that is the terrible, childish, absurd, anti-life side of religion; which is not to say that that is all religion can be, but those kinds of attitudes human life can certainly do without. — Janus

That's all "salvation" can be.
Religion may provide many benefits besides eternal life for the chosen believers: it can provide tribal unity, community, emotional and material support, relief from labour via festivals and holy days, some minor protections from the depradations of overlords, rites of passage, guarantee of bloodline descent of property via marriage laws, supremacy of a caste or gender, education of a sort, moral guidelines for the making of legal systems (uneven, at best, justice-wise), work for builders, artists, artisans, third sons and sadistic thugs, escape for the marriage-averse, comfort, merriment and feasts.

The point of the idea of salvation whether in Semitic or Asiatic religions, was to transcend nature, to realise one's identity with what is beyond coming-and-going, birth-and-death. — Wayfarer

Yah, the whole exceptional, we're above-all-that, reality-can't-get-me cuz I made up a supernatural protector delusion. I got that. But in order for salvation to take place, first you have to be damned. For pissing off that same supernatural entity you then rely on to save you from death - at a price. Just throw a couple dozen babies off the battlements; just burn a pile of your best cattle; just cut the hearts out of your most virile young warriors, just torture this demigod to death....
I don't like it. So I became an atheist.
(without any dogma)

There is no such thing as a spiritual yearning. — Darkneos

I suspect that might be more accurately stated as "I have not experienced a spiritual yearning, and therefore do not believe that anyone has or can."

I don't think we disagree on the large picture, but we seem to differ on the scope of the solution. — Manuel

I didn't offer it as a solution to anything I consider a problem. Just a possible approach to some "spiritual" dimension people might miss if they wean off religion.

But what I'm adding, is that even if those people get relief from nature, it is not enough to ward off suicide, or waves of meaninglessness or depression for many. — Manuel

Nor does religion.

Also that reconnection isn't a real thing it's just a fantasy we made up in our heads. — Darkneos

What isn't?

But just because it may satisfy me or you, doesn't mean it will work equally well with everyone, for some it doesn't cut it. — Manuel

It actually does. The Japanese, some of the most modern-stressed people in the world, prescribe forest therapy for burnout, grief, recovery from illness.

Shinrin-yoku (森林浴)—which literally translates to “forest bath”—is the Japanese practice of “bathing” oneself in nature with the intention of receiving therapeutic benefits.

but if one's child dies from starvation or one's whole family was killed, then these things have more limited utility. — Manuel

As do the gods, whose followers cause most of this suffering. The cruelties of humans to one another compensated-for by clinging to gods made in the image of men? Limited, at best. And limiting, in that the believer also surrenders his own agency in return for scant solace. As for natural disaster, I find it more spiritually and rationally acceptable that bad things just happen in an unreasoning, amoral universe than that a god causes them to happen as punishment for something a distant ancestor may or may not have done. Maybe that's just atheist dogma....

I still feel the inclination to some philosophical framework, it does provide me with the "religious" equivalent, and is very interesting, at least to me. — Manuel

Is that a spiritual yearning, though, or an intellectual desire to make sense of things?

One major issue is that there is nothing like a "spiritual equivalent" in science, and this is a need people tend to have, as temporal, fragile, self-conscious beings. — Manuel

Nature works. Just go out in the woods, or walk along a beach; gaze at stars or learn about coral reefs. Our earliest conscious, reasoning connection to the universe was through the earth, air, water and other life all around us. Urban civilization creates artificial barriers between our inner life and the sources of life. We need to reconnect for full physical, mental and spiritual wholeness. We don't need supernatural or philosophical intermediaries.

Thank you for challenging me and causing me to think things through. I might know a little more about history than you think. — Athena

I didn't say anything about how much you, personally, know about what aspect of history. I'm merely warning that, regardless what else is taught in their schools, as long as Americans lull themselves with mythical versions of their story as a nation, their national identity and character; as long as they keep telling those stories to their children, and do not correct the inaccuracies, fallacies, misconceptions and outright fictions in their own understanding of their own history; as long as they refuse to come to terms over what's dysfunctional in their social system and why, nothing in their perilous present situation will improve and there are strong indications that it will deteriorate, and at an accelerating pace.
(and this applies equally to other nations that are not under consideration here)

So, when you say "be Christlike," what you mean at a more meta level is to search for our purpose and meaning, whether that be through figuring out the metaphor of Christ, figuring out the necessity of following the legalistic rules of Judaism, or understanding the metaphor and underlying purpose of any religion. — Hanover

That's the search fundamentalists - the real literalists - are all about rejecting. "Don't ask questions. Don't think abut it. Just obey the rules." In fact, the modern ones more or less ignore or actually despise the whole notion of christlike behaviour and go directly to stoning blasphemers.

That approach I think works for any religion, and I think it adds tremendous depth to the religious text and it removes the simplistic objections from the atheistic camp.

The simplistic objection from atheists is not about the fanciful language, it's about the moral and legal aspects of imposing 1500BCE laws on post-Enlightenment societies.

The Christian fundamentalist movement, which is a naive literalism that tries to limit interpretation to the actual text, specifically denying that it requires special understanding, is a new idea. — Hanover

In response to college educated liberal Christian theologians. It was a backlash of illiteracy. Atheists as a class of scapegoat hadn't been invented yet.

The OP is strictly speaking about atheist dogma — Moliere

Ah! Some atheists are said to adopt a certain pattern of thought, which renders that pattern of thought "atheist dogma" and that is the cause of religious fundamentalism. IOW, "atheist dogma" historically precedes religious dogma and atheists precede religionists, which would at least suggest that atheism caused religion.
I guess I'm still finding that line of thought hard to follow.

but atheists create ideas, including ideas about fundamentalism. — Moliere

So.... all the bad religious shit listed above is caused by ideas, and since ideas fall into the purview of atheists.... ? I'm not following.
Shouldn't chains of causation have a designated starting-point before they're given credence?

Well, there is the problem of the title, for a start... After that, it's opinion.

he either finds a way to refuse believing the curse and thus isn't influenced by it, — Benj96

If he's a sociopath, no problem. If he has a conscience, she is its voice and he can't help hearing that, though he might be able to rationalize his way out of it.

Societies which still follow to a large extent the traditional model of forced or arranged marriage (like India or other parts of the world) should have comparatively small "incel" (online) groups, because here forced marriage still arguably successfully helps to stabilize society. — TheArchitectOfTheGods

It also enables misogynistic men to buy a wife/ sex slave/ punching bag and save a ton of money, risk of disease and legal hassle on prostitutes. (You know they're not all voluntary independent contractors, either, right?)

By making amends for his originals wrongdoing. An apology is not enough; she also demanded that he confess. If he's done that, he's already in prison, unless the authorities either didn't take him seriously or decided to let him off. Which might be sufficient for the 'witch', but not for his conscience. He doesn't just need to be be freed; he needs to feel free. He needs to do something positive to restore karmic balance.

Oh my goodness what a delicious argument. The South used the Bible to defend slavery. Both the North and the South thought they were defending the will of God, making the civil war a very deadly war. — Athena

Whereas, it wasn't even remotely about religion or any kind of moral principle. (Lincoln: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.")
The real issues were political and economic. And this fundamental, foundational schism was built into the original federation by those very same men who signed that document which began as idealistic and wound up as fraudulent. That expedient compromise has cost a whole lot of powerless people a whole lot of blood and pain and grief.

In the beginning of US democracy, there was a high illiteracy rate, — Athena

Not merely encouraged but often mandated by the elite, who sent many of their own children to Europe for their education. The FF's had had that classical education themselves. https://www.memoriapress.com/articles/classical-education-founding-fathers/
and did nothing to enable their fellow Americans.

This is not the peaceful democracy we defended in two world wars, — Athena

Of course not!
Aside from the fact that America didn't actually need to defend itself in either of those wars (Hawaii wasn't a state then; it was occupied territory)
that peaceful democracy never existed in the physical universe.

1775–1783 American Revolution English Colonists vs. Great Britain
1798–1800 Franco-American Naval War United States vs. France
1801–1805; 1815 Barbary Wars United States vs. Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli
1812–1815 War of 1812 United States vs. Great Britain
1813–1814 Creek War United States vs. Creek Nation
1836 War of Texas Independence Texas vs. Mexico
1846–1848 Mexican-American War United States vs. Mexico
1861–1865 U.S. Civil War Union vs. Confederacy
1898 Spanish-American War United States vs. Spain

That's not including most of the campaigns against First Nations and all the little secret and overt interventions in other nations' colonial conflicts and not even mentioning conflicts between farmers and ranchers, disputes over water rights, labour wars,

In the 1800s and early 1900s, picketers often faced the risk of being beaten up by police or thugs recruited by management. “The U.S. has one of the most violent labor histories in the world,” says Judith Stepan-Norris,

police violence against protesters of every kind... and then there's all the gangs and outlaws.

Trump divided us as much as the Civil War and we remain glaring aware of the divide. — Athena

Nixon had laid some good ground-work for that, undoing whatever Johnson had been able accomplish to mitigate the enormous gulf that had always existed and is never going away. The United States has never been anything but a figment of wishful thinking. When Bobby Kennedy was killed, the excellent film director, Norman Jewison, felt he had to leave the country, saying, "How can America be so violent that it destroys its own best people?"

I'm convinced that you care deeply and passionately about education. But if you're not prepared to teach young people about their own history - the unspun, unrevised, unvarnished, unedited truth - no substantial problem will ever be addressed. You may as well leave the lobbyists, jingoists and propagandists take over.

Excuse me for butting in, but may I ask whether there is a reason why you only recommend scepticism about powerful large entities - not that that's inappropriate. — Ludwig V

It mainly applies to entities that have some power to affect our lives, environment, economic interactions, safety, etc.

But surely we also ought to be sceptical about individuals as well? — Ludwig V

Individual strangers rarely have enough effect on us to merit the kind of scrutiny that institutions do. It takes effort and time to investigate the validity of any statement, so, when it doesn't really matter, you might as well believe it as not - and believing what someone says about themselves, their occupation or other things they know about is more likely to be the correct interpretation than rejecting it. It's also the more sociable attitude, leading to a complaisant atmosphere.
Where you need to be skeptical in person-to-person communications is in the case of legal or financial transactions; where being fooled can be costly or damaging to yourself.

I would suggest that one at least reins in the scepticism about people one loves. — Ludwig V

We generally come to love someone gradually, and trust is usually built up along with affection as a relationship develops. So of course you get to know what the other knows well, what they get wrong or confuse, what they're self-deluded about, what they're sensitive about - we make the small, necessary adjustments along the way. With a child, parents have a good deal of influence over how truthful they are as they're growing up : what examples they're exposed to, how much they're trusted, whether they're rewarded for dishonest behaviour.
Some kinds of emotion-caused skepticism, however - sexual jealousy, sibling rivalry, envy, attention-seeking, distrust of praise etc. - are not necessarily within our control.

I agree with you that diversity is possible under a single government, even more so under a single municipal administration. — Jacques

And even more so in a United Nations style loose federation of independent states, who sign on to a charter of human rights and international law. Government doesn't dictate cuisines, dress codes, language or religious observance.

The US did not begin with the understanding of being born equal and equality under the law as we have today. — Athena

Yes, the US started with exactly that understanding.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

They just found it expedient never to implement it.

Humans are not equal to ants or dinosaurs. — Athena

I was aware of that. Also, that if you transpose a remark from one context to another, it becomes nonsense.

Fighting can result in injury or death. Even if animals aren’t directly harmed by others, they can be harmed by deprivation.

But not, AFAIK, to the level of killing 58 random members of one's own herd or pack, or letting entire classes of it starve.

By jungle rules, Whites can enslave dark-skinned people, and kill those who do not stay in their place. — Athena

No, they really can't. That was civilized Europeans. Some African nations did take their captured enemies as slaves, which had nothing to do with commerce or skin-colour, though they were often ransomed back by their own nation. They didn't live in the jungle, for the most part.
In fact, there is no one jungle, and no 'law of the jungle': that's also an invention of civilized Europeans.

This paradigm, I believe, is why superstitions, premonitions, prophecies, omens, mysticism and belief in magic persist today. — Benj96

And also because humans love magic; they crave miracles, wishing wells, love potions, lucky charms, the end of the rainbow. They desire wish-control over the physical world which is beyond their ability to manipulate, and they desire short-cuts and quick fixes. Magical thinking applies as much to vengeful and cruel impulses as it does to acquisitive ones.

I guess secular liberals are at fault for having "abolished Christmas" by removing the nativity scenes from government buildings and "persecuting Christians" by teaching evolution in science class. Then we went on a rampage of "obliterating history" by removing the triumphant statues of defeated Confederate generals and renaming schools that commemorated the civic benevolence of slave traders. Any group that's lost its former power can be a victim; any group that presents itself as marginalized and stigmatized for demanding back its lost dominion can become toxic.
The one constant is: you can't tell people anything they're determined not to know.

Good night.

guys we are not good at getting in relationships... — ChatteringMonkey

They say... But did they want to? Were they trying? If they were unsuccessful, you assume it's because of factors they can't help and can't change - and that's generous of you. But is not necessarily the case.
Nice guys want to understand things in their own framework, on their terms. So do not-nice ones. So they misinterpret and misestimate one another's intentions.

We used to say 'backlash', but this looks to me broader deeper and more insidious.

Don't take it too seriously Vera Mont, It wasn't meant that way. — ChatteringMonkey

However, to a great many people receiving daily threats, and those who have already been attacked, it is very serious indeed. The fact that the 'movement' is spreading, growing, recruiting

Four clicks on an incognito browser is all it takes for YouTube to churn up a video about, as the host puts it, “embracing the idea of violence” in a society that “despises” what it means to be a man
https://globalnews.ca/news/8508795/canada-social-media-algorithm-reform/

and increasingly violent in its rhetoric is very serious.

So, involuntary? No. Not definitively. An obstacle. — Benj96

I'm sure lots of people have problems around sex, sexuality, and the need for love.
That wasn't my concern. I just wish people would ask more often: Is what somebody claims on the internet necessarily the truth, or any version of a truth? What is your reason for believing or disbelieving it? What is your reason for extrapolating it to a version you can understand and sympathize with?

because they are almost by definition socially inept, unattractive etc. and we have some kind of biological preference for the attractive and the successful. — ChatteringMonkey

So you and others keep saying. How do you know? What does "almost by definition" actually mean? Might there not be motivations other than self-pity involved?

I would argue that Incels will never gain any amount of social power to sufficiently alter the culture so it would become damaging to women and our culture as a whole... — ChatteringMonkey

I've heard that argued about some groups who have since done a good deal of damage. ISIS comes to mind... Society as whole might recover from them; the direct casualties will not. I consider poisoning a large segment of the next generation of men to the whole concept of healthy relationships as a damage.

I suppose many women have told you how cute you are, so I don't need to.

Some questions relating I wish more people would ask. :

1. Is it true?
How many of the incels are really celibate, is it really involuntary, and how can you tell, other then their own self-stigmatization?

2. When I type 'incel' into the search box, the picture that comes up is of a robust, good-looking young man. If he can't get a date, it's not because of his face.
So, what is the reason?

3. Who is being oppressed, in what way, by whom?
At what point in history did it become the social norm to demand physical attractiveness in men? And if women can - and are as a matter of course expected to - make an effort to improve their appearance to attract masculine attention, why is it such an unacceptable imposition on men?

4. What is it the members of this self-designated group actually want from society? What are they demanding? Is that something society owes them and is capable of granting?

5. Is any of that subculture really about loneliness, sadness, low self-esteem or lack of confidence?
That's how the 'movement' started. It was hijacked and sensationalized. Weaponized in more up-to-date jargon. For what purpose?