Religion has mastered one remarkable skill: surviving without evidence. For thousands of years, gods have been proposed, worshiped, feared, obeyed, and defended yet never independently verified. This is not a minor oversight. In every other domain of human knowledge, claims without evidence are discarded. Only in religion are they protected, revered, and shielded from scrutiny. Atheism begins with a simple, unromantic question: Where is the evidence? Not the feelings, not the traditions, not the anecdotes but the verifiable, testable, independently confirmable evidence. When that question is asked honestly, belief systems that rely on revelation and authority rather than observation begin to wobble. Faith is often praised as a virtue. In practice, it is an admission of ignorance dressed up as confidence. Faith exists precisely where evidence does not. No one has “faith” that gravity works or that germs cause disease. Those are facts established through experiment and replication. Faith only enters when knowledge fails. If faith were a reliable path to truth, different religions would converge on the same conclusions. Instead, they contradict one another on every fundamental claim how many gods exist, what they want, who they favour, and what happens after death. Billions of believers, thousands of gods, zero consensus. Why should we treat any one of them as special? A popular apologetic claim is that religion “invented” science or was its primary driver. History tells a messier story. Scientific progress emerged when thinkers began questioning authority including religious authority and insisting on evidence over scripture. Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, and countless others faced religious resistance, not encouragement. The Catholic Church condemned heliocentrism. Protestant leaders rejected evolution. Even today, creationism and intelligent design attempt to smuggle theology into science classrooms despite overwhelming biological evidence to the contrary. Another common claim is that without God, morality collapses. This argument misunderstands both morality and human behaviour. Moral systems existed long before monotheistic religions and vary widely across cultures. Empathy, cooperation, and fairness are products of social evolution, not divine command. If morality truly came from God, believers would behave demonstrably better than nonbelievers. They do not. Study after study shows no consistent correlation between religiosity and moral behaviour, and some of the least religious countries score highest on measures of social trust, equality, and well-being. Prayer is often described as powerful, transformative, and effective until it is tested. Controlled studies consistently show that intercessory prayer has no measurable effect on recovery, illness, or outcomes. In some cases, being told you are prayed for worsens outcomes due to performance anxiety. If prayer worked the way believers claim, hospitals would replace ICUs with chapels. They do not. Why? Because when lives are on the line, even believers trust medicine, not miracles. Why is scepticism encouraged everywhere except religion? Why are children taught to question advertisements, politicians, and strangers but not gods? Why is doubt framed as intellectual honesty in science and rebellion in theology? What would happen if religious claims were held to the same standards as scientific ones? If holy books were treated like hypotheses? If miracles required evidence before belief? Would anything remain? Atheism Is Not Nihilism It Is Responsibility. Atheism offers no cosmic rewards, no eternal surveillance, no divine forgiveness loopholes. That is precisely its strength. Meaning is not handed down; it is constructed. Morality is not outsourced; it is owned. There is no god to blame, no plan to hide behind. If this life is the only one, we know we have, then cruelty is less excusable, not more. Kindness matters now. Justice matters now. Truth matters now. And that is what makes atheism unsettling not that it removes meaning, but that it removes excuses. If faith is a reliable path to truth, why does it produce contradictory conclusions? Why are religious claims exempt from the standards applied to every other claim? If morality comes from God, why do moral intuitions change over time and culture? What belief would you abandon if evidence disproved it and why should religion be different?
Really sucks that that beautiful sentiment was said by a guy who visited pedo island
You don’t need to go into past, its happening in Myanmar right now
What is happening? I only found stuff about Buddhists being oppressed in the recent history.
They’re doing a genocide of Muslims.
Isn’t generalizing the entirety of Buddhism based on the actions of one or two extremist factions, kind of exactly the same thing as generalizing the entirety of Islam based on the actions of one or two extremist factions?
Looking forward to seeing the mental gymnastics that it will take to claim those two things are in any way different
They aren’t? That’s why we don’t say all Muslims are the same as the Taliban or all Christians the same as MAGA.
Then what’s the point of this post? Because it sounds like “Buddhism bad because there’s at least one bad faction that can be identified in its entire history”
The post doesn’t say that Buddhism or Christianity are bad. Westerners are just more familiar with the fucked up parts of Christian history than the fucked up parts of Buddhist history. As a result Buddhism is sort of portrayed as this peaceful religion whose adherents do no wrong, which doesn’t survive contact with actually reading about history.
Interesting you say Westerners when my experience with the “Stop saying all religions are bad, Buddhists never did anything wrong” people are typically Asian.
The point is that western atheists will present Christianity and Islam as uniquely bad or wrong, and that claim something like Buddhism is somehow more acceptable because no one has committed atrocities in its name.
That is, of course a false, orientalized, view of Buddhism. A genocide is being carried out in its name now. Pointing that out isn’t to say all Buddhists are bad, that would also be orientalist. Rather, it’s being pointed out to say that you can use any ideology to justify whatever action you’d like.
And my whole point is that you can’t just point to a few examples of extremist factions who commit atrocities in the name of religions, and use that as evidence to claim the whole religion is bad.
Because it’s absolutizing, overgeneralizing, chauvinistic, and culturally imperialistic to make a claim like that.
What matters isn’t whether it’s abrahamic, vedic, or even animistic in origin. That’s beside the point entirely.
The point of the post is a reaction to people who say “Stop saying all religions are bad and lead people to violence. I’m Buddhist and we never did anything wrong!”
Not really.
True Believer fundamentalists depend on the moderates to exist.
I’m not an expert on Buddhism, but I know with Abrahamics the moderates finance and enable the fundies (often without knowing), and provide them with a veneer of respectability.
Fundies are by nature parasitic. You can see this with sects of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all depend on more “practical” donors for financing and support why they do more esoteric things.
OP’s post is a reaction to people who react to people who say “all religions are bad” by saying “nuh uh, Buddhists never did anything wrong”. Your experience or lack thereof with such people will dictate whether this feels like a strawman or not.
It is most definitely not a “Buddhism is bad because some Buddhists are bad” argument.
In that case, the problem originates in playing the game thats rules are set by the ignorant in the first place.
If someone says “all religions are bad,” the proper response isn’t to engage with it as you would with a rational argument made in good faith; i.e. by perhaps offering counterexamples. Because it’s not a rational argument made in good faith.
The proper response is to reject the assertion on the basis that its an absolute statement and an overgeneralization. And then going into the ethics of such a chauvinistic, exceptionalistic, and culturally-imperialistic statement as “all religions are bad.”
The point isn’t to put any religion on a pedestal. But anti-religious bigotry doesn’t belong on that pedestal either.
chauvinistic, exceptionalistic, and culturally-imperialistic statement as “all religions are bad.”
Okay you’re gonna have to explain to me what the heck anti-theism has to do with chauvinism or imperialism or bigotry or any of those words. Cause it sounds like you’re doing an academia word salad to sound superior to others, but whose text when you parse it doesn’t really mean anything at all. Like Jordan Peterson, but leftish.
seems to be one of those people who wants to say, “ah but my particular interpretation of my particular religion is good, it’s just all the other ones that are bad”
I guess the flaw is already in the wording: (from the post) “Buddhism never did anything problematic”, Buddhism cannot do anything, people can (in the name of Buddhism)
Yeah, it seems any doctrine can be malappropriated by people who never tried to understand it and twisted toward some diabolical purpose. That doesn’t mean the doctrine at its core is flawed.
I’m against religious extremism as much as anyone else. But I’m also against generalizing entire cultures based on the actions of extremist factions. There’s no way to convince me that could be based in anything other than ignorance.
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Good for you, you can hold that opinion as long as you don’t try to take away anyone’s right to following their own beliefs/religions/paths (inasmuch as they themselves are not using it to harm or oppress others, of course; but in those cases you can prosecute the extremism without persecuting the belief systems).
In case you don’t already understand this, in many places, religion is so deeply and inextricably intertwined with culture that it would be impossible for you to outlaw religion without committing cultural imperialism.
So in that since “anti-religion” can be just as dogmatic, chauvinistic, ignorant, and oppressive as religion can be.
When I said I oppose religious extremism, that includes anti-religious extremism. You don’t get a pass just because you claim your worldview is better. Everyone believes their own worldview to be the best. That isn’t justification to repress other worldviews.
In other words, if ignorance is a sin, you’re just as sinful as the rest of us. Find me the person with infinite and perfect knowledge of all that is, and I will show you someone who is sinless.
Who exactly? Wasn’t there a military coup? What is the connection to Buddhism?
Yeah, it’s a military coup, and they’re killing Buddhists too. But of course they found some fake buddhists to side with the junta to try to try and lend it some semblance of legitimacy.
So people are latching onto that and trying to say it’s Buddhism’s fault, because I guess that sounds edgy?
If those kids could read Chinese they’d be very upset.
Fear leads to religion, religion leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.
Suffering leads to fear
And fear is the mind killer
And Chriss angel is the mindfreak.
And the freak is on a leash
BOOOM GER DUBGAGAG, GER DUBGAGAG, SKREEEEEEEE
And I always strive to do the leash I can do.
- Sean Connery in a lazy mood
CHEEEEEEZITS!!1!
That’s David Blane. And a young Mikey Day. The orange soda was cake.
From my perspective, not suffering is evil!
- Buddha
, suffering is required by religion.
I only know the broad strokes of Chinese history.
Where Buddhists doing things in the name of Buddah or was it just more cultural.
Like the partition in India is very clearly drawn on religious lines but it’s a bit different than the Crusades I would think.
Faith does not require religion.
Religion requires faith.
Faith was not invented by man.
Religion was invented by man.
Man is flawed.
I stand by my beliefs. My relationship with God is mine and mine alone. The problem has never been faith. It’s been the men that then co-opted my faith to serve their religions as defined by them not God.
the men that then co-opted my faith to serve their religions as defined by them not God
Those other people, they follow a tainted and corrupted version of the perfect and pure religion that you happen to have stumbled upon.
The problem is that you are exactly such a person from the point of view of those corrupted impure men.
What if faith is just nostalgia from when you were little and/or converted? It was a time of a more loving, innocent and black and white time. I know this seems like I’m trying to get you to not have faith. *But, if people are better towards their fellow man for any reason, I’m all for it. I’m just kind of *thinking out loud.
*need coffee
For me its a simple comfort in that which we can’t explain or prove. I would argue in it’s purest faith is simply philosophical.
… if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
The universe is irrational. There’s nothing wrong with people trying to make sense and comfort out of something so existentially scary lol
What are they talking about? Wasn’t Buddhism oppressed in most of Chinese history?
Oppressed never become oppressors. That’s why Israel’s neighbours are all friends with them
I understand how you read my comment, but it really just was a honest question.
Fair, my bad.
No idea, but Rohingyas for example are heavily oppressed by Buddhists.
They are all bs - debate over
