2/ Most of this prejudice is driven by lamentable ideas like homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, racism, supremacy, and intolerance experientially-associated with visible religious leaders who are shitheads. (The deplorable state of of Modern Evangelicalism doesn't help.)
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3/ But with exceptions (esp. wrt women), religious doctrine doesn't just reject these ideas -- it usually implies their antitheses. And, those lamentable things exist apart from religion. The prejudice for folks never exposed to religion comes lazily from their inherent distance.
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4/ The thing that really gets me -- besides the inherent assertion of superiority -- is that many of the same people who express disdain for religion celebrate altered states and experiences. (I'm looking at you, Silicon Valley bros who talk about your DMT experiences.)
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5/ That's the thing I realized as an adult. Religion during childhood permits you access to an altered state of experience -- reverence, godliness, wonder of something...big -- that is otherwise inaccessible and inexpressible.
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6/ When never-religious people express their superiority to religious people, in my mind, they reject a state of orientation that's good and they will never know. I think a lot of my infatuation with science is in some sense a pursuit of that state -- a desire for reentry.
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This is a really great thread and I'd love to continue unpacking this. Being religious myself, one thing I've come to appreciate is that my "access" is different from that of others, yet we're confident we're talking about the same thing... How does that "experience" get defined?
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Yea. I've tried different kinds of meditation and I catch glimpses of that experience sometimes. You're bigger on the inside?
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I was specifically thinking of people who didn’t have that exposure through parents growing up. But yes, my experience was fine. I knew others with bad experiences who (more justifiable) ended up hating their parents religion in some was as a proxy for their parents.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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I was raised without religion (which is rare in my country) and used to believe that I was kind of humble. Thinking it back, you're right. I just realized the way some atheists that were born religious treat religious people and annoys me is the same I treat the "new atheists"

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What country?
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