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Atheists, is there anything religious that sticks with you to this day? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Subject6051@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I am Ganesh, an Indian atheist and I don't eat beef. It's not like that I have a religious reason to do that, but after all those years seeing cows as peaceful animals and playing and growing up with them in a village, I doubt if I ever will be able to eat beef. I wasn't raised very religious, I didn't go to temple everyday and read Gita every evening unlike most muslims who are somewhat serious about their religion, my family has this watered down religion (which has it's advantages).

But yeah, not eating beef is a moral issue I deal with. I mean, I don't care that I don't eat beef, but the fact that I eat pork and chicken but not beef seems to me to be weird. So, is there any religious practice that you guys follow to this day?

edit: I like religious music, religious temples (Churches, Gurudwara's, Temples & Mosques in Iran), religious paintings and art sometimes. I know for a fact that the only art you could produce is those days was indeed religious and the greatest artists needed to make something religious to be funded, that we will never know what those artists would have produced in the absence of religion, but yeah, religious art is good nonetheless.

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[–] TheActualDevil@sffa.community 2 points 1 year ago

You make a lot of assumptions there though, don't you? You're assuming that you would be motivated to "return the favor," but where does that motivation come from? Humans reciprocal acts are learned traits. There's nothing they get in return for that act alone. The return only comes from the potential impact on the community, which is a social function, not biological.

I used lions as a contrast specifically because they're behavior is different. They are baser creatures who's community does come directly from biology and it's drastically different. I also also gave canines as an example because they are specifically social animals and those behaviors that are similar to ours are derived from the social aspect, not biological since it's community specific, not species.

Sociology studies how humans behave as groups in relation to each other. It's specifically about the things you're describing. Evolution drives us to pass our genes on. That's it. What you're saying can be just as easily used to trace literally everything humans do back to evolution. The argument could just as easily be made that religion is a result of evolution. Humans are curious because looking for answers gave us a cognitive advantage over competition. That trait leads us to searching for answers. If none are available, we find one. And now we have gods. But religion is organized and requires groups, which brings us back to sociology again.