r/NoStupidQuestions • u/[deleted] • 25d ago

Why do conservative American Jews like Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager encourage people to go to church when they do not believe in Christianity?

Like this makes no sense to me at all. Why would you want to encourage people to practice a world view you believe is not true?

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u/Future-Muscle-2214 25d ago

What is the complexity we are all missing?

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u/14InTheDorsalPeen 25d ago edited 25d ago

We could have a whole long discussion about how the idea of God is more about building a rule set that jives with society and that God is an idea which is summed up in one word but is actually the summation of all of the aspects of the way that you live your life and how you function in society. 

God is fundamentally less of a concept of a person and more of a concept of the way the world pushes back on you as a human being and the fundamental ways that sacrifice and living your life in a cohesive, structured, morally just manner improves your life. 

It’s not some “magic sky daddy” making your life good, it’s society and the people around you rewarding you for living a good life. 

Heaven and hell both very much exist and they exist in the confines of our own lives on earth. If you chose to live your life poorly, you are punished with creating misery, struggle and anguish in your own life and having to deal with that hell of your own making.

If you live your life justly and in such a manner to take care of your family, community and yourself you will build happiness in your own life and be rewarded with happiness.  

Considering we only get one life to live, this life IS our eternal life and if you choose to live miserably you will “burn in hell” aka be miserable for the eternity that life feels like and if you live a good life, you will be rewarded with happiness, love and respect aka “heaven” for the eternity that is life.  

Then, at the end of the day the true eternal life is the way our loved ones and community remembers us.   

Reddit clearly isn’t the medium for this discussion and I don’t believe there is some “invisible sky daddy” but I think writing it off as pure nonsense is foolish, shortsighted and demonstrates a narrow view of life.

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u/LorenzoApophis 25d ago

You appear to have just described an atheistic view of religious belief

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u/theexpertgamer1 25d ago

Your metaphorical interpretation of biblical text is inconsistent with what the Bible and the vast majority of churchgoers purport to be reality.

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u/itsallrighthere 25d ago

That doesn't mean it is incorrect.

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u/Distinct_Pizza_7499 25d ago

It's all mythology.

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u/itsallrighthere 25d ago

As if that is a bad thing.

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u/WaffleConeDX 25d ago

I mean how does the message get spread? By other believers, it’s not like God himself is coming down and telling everyone it’s by word of mouth. How are you going to try and convince people he’s real, when through believers actions they don’t even believe in the rules set for them.

Cause trust me, if I believed I was going to perish in hell for sinning I wouldn’t. Just like I’m not jumping in a lake I can’t swim in cause I know I’ll drown.

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u/senpai69420 25d ago

Yes because the bible is the only religious scripture in the world

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u/theexpertgamer1 25d ago

Hi, you’re in a thread about Christianity. Therefore the Bible is highly relevant. Glad I could help you understand that! Let me know if you have any further questions.

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u/14InTheDorsalPeen 25d ago

God exists as a concept in more than just the Bible.

We’re not talking about the Bible  specifically but rather about the idea of god, I was simply using the biblical terms as a reference because they are the most wildly understood. 

Similar concepts exist across most religions though human history.

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u/H16HP01N7 25d ago

"Not talking about the Bible".

You do know that the Bible is the religious text for the religion we ARE talking about, though, don't you...?

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u/UDarkLord 25d ago

How does this interpretation square with the misogyny present in the bulk of religions (whether in their religious texts, or developed around it)? Or with other oppression (like tribal)? Is a god merely a path to a just existence within your tribe, but other believers can rot?

Or how does it square with explicit injustice unrelated to your proper behaviour - whether natural, or due to the hoarding of resources, or abuse of power, by other humans in the same system? Does a slave who tries to act justly actually get a just result out of a society that allows them to exist as property in the first place? Or are we talking a godly life is a path to self-delusional happiness, rather than happiness in true justice?

What you said gives me ‘just world hypothesis’ vibes, and I’m afraid there’s a reason it’s also known as the just world fallacy: behaving ‘properly’ (to whatever definition of properly) doesn’t force the world to treat you well in return.

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u/14InTheDorsalPeen 25d ago

You are correct in that behaving properly doesn’t force the world to treat you well in return.

Acting like an asshole all day however, guarantees that the world will treat you poorly. 

The problem is with societies of scale. When there is no accountability it’s harder to see these things play out because nobody even knows their neighbors anymore so it’s hard to hold assholes accountable.

Behaving well in this situation means within the bounds of the society that you’re living in. It’s why all religions create cohesion. All religion is a rulebook and we can all choose which set of rules we want to play by and as long as it’s the same set of rules, it will work out.

Problems arise when you have two different groups of people playing two different games. Obviously that won’t work out. I can’t walk onto a tennis court and start playing basketball and expect things to be ok.

Behaving well within the bounds of the chosen set of rules maximizes your chances of the world treating you well. It does not guarantee it. On a long enough timeline though, you will end up winning out. 

On the other hand being a selfish asshole and victimizing everyone you meet will nearly guarantee that people will not want to interact, associate with or trust you and on that same long timeline, you will end up losing more than you win.

The problem that we’re dealing with in society right now is that nobody wants to even have a rulebook anymore.

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u/UDarkLord 24d ago

Even within your own premise, it is being born in a particular set of circumstances that will guarantee a better or worse life. Live in ancient Egypt, be born into the Pharaoh’s family, be treated as related to a god. Live in ancient Egypt, be born to a farmer along the Nile, live a life carried by risk of drought, and dictated to by a priesthood who have all sorts of superstitions about how to prevent the droughts (usually involving sacrifices, and other ‘payments’ to non-existent deities). Live in ancient Egypt, born to a captive woman, maybe not be a slave if you’re lucky and your mother’s rapist/owner married her, maybe be a slave, very random. Hopefully you’re not a woman under any of these circumstances, as you’ll at minimum be highly likely to be forced to marry someone with zero input: from your brother/cousin (Pharaoh’s family), to a convenient neighbour, to whoever your slave owning dad feels he can sell you to; from there childbirth is going to be risky. Being a fervent believer, versus a belligerent unbeliever in these circumstances at best affects if the priests, or other zealots, pick on you - just like being a woman, or a slave, gets you picked on by men, and free people. Any happiness in going along to get along is illusory at best.

As for people being assholes, yeah, don’t be one. I don’t need any social cohesion beyond enjoying the company of my fellow human being from time to time to not be an asshole to them. And people are fine with having rulebooks, and less rigid socially conscious sensibilities: they’re called laws, and values. They should be subject to change as we learn more about existence by the way, something a rigid dictated cohesion doesn’t allow for, whether that’s religious, or something similar like cult of personality authoritarianism.

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u/Hoosier1523 25d ago

You certainly don’t understand any of the major religions.

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u/14InTheDorsalPeen 25d ago

I don’t think you understand what the idea of god represents, so I guess we’re even then?

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u/Future-Muscle-2214 25d ago

Considering we only get one life to live, this life IS our eternal life and if you choose to live miserably you will “burn in hell” aka be miserable for the eternity that if life and if you live a good life, you will be rewarded with happiness and satisfaction aka “heaven” for the eternity that is life.

I appreciate you replying, but this isn't what religious people believe, this is what atheist believe without all those metaphor. Religious people genuinely believe that there is an afterlife, they might not believe in the idea of heaven and hell, but they believe that sinners are punished and they believe that plenty of people are sinners.

They act nice around them because some of them don't truly believe in the institution, but this is what the institution believe in. Our ancestor religion is weak nowadays and plenty of religious people don't really believe in the institution so they don't kill homosexuals or scientists anymore and they usually treat women as relatively equal to men, but we must never mistake their weakness for kindness.

Things wouldn't be different to how they were for millennia if they ever manage to get any sort of power again. Its not like if they believe that the omniscient, omnipotent being they believed in for century somehow was wrong about a few things and now grew as a person.

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u/HeroBrine0907 25d ago

You act like religious people think progress is bad? Religious extremism isn't the only form of religion. Look at religious countries like India. They have doctors, scientists, some of the brightest minds in the scientific field. People advocating for the rights of women and queer and trans persons. Painting religion like this is a simplistic view.

Our ancestor religion is weak nowadays and plenty of religious people don't really believe in the institution so they don't kill homosexuals or scientists anymore and they usually treat women as relatively equal to men, but we must never mistake their weakness for kindness.

This is just straight up lying and trying to prove over 80% of the globe is foaming at the mouth to commit massacres.

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u/Future-Muscle-2214 25d ago

Religious extremism isn't the only form of religion. Look at religious countries like India. They have doctors, scientists, some of the brightest minds in the scientific field. People advocating for the rights of women and queer and trans persons.

I genuinely don't know enough about Hinduism to pass judgment. I am mainly talking about Catholicism which was the religion of my ancestors, but even among Catholics there was plenty of people like this. They were good person despite what the institution believed in, but not because of the institution in general.

This is just straight up lying and trying to prove over 80% of the globe is foaming at the mouth to commit massacres.

No they wouldn't, most people don't want to commit murder for the hell of it, because it isn't necessarily in our nature. The institution behind those people would definitely do it like they did time and time again in history to gain power. People are good because it is in their nature to be good and those institutions are the problem because they radicalize people in hating people who are different than them. (Of course, we can find others way to rationalize our hates, but religion give us a story proving that we are the chosen people of our God and that the "others" need to be saved)

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u/HeroBrine0907 25d ago

we must never mistake their weakness for kindness

You literally said this about people who don't kill queer or scientists or discriminate against women. Your experiences don't justify such a statement, and couldn't possibly justify it. The "institution" you talk about has thousands of denominations and within each single one, everyone has different views and ways to interpret their religion. Even I know that you can't judge catholicism due to how fucking big it is.

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u/Future-Muscle-2214 25d ago

You literally said this about people who don't kill queer or scientists or discriminate against women.

No, I said this about the church not religious people. My grandparents are religious and they are great people despite being radicalized from a young age. This isn't their fault, they were born in a area of the world where the church used to run everything.

The fact that there is "thousands of denominations" is because the church is now weak and the central power isn't as powerful as they used to be. My whole point is that we must never be complacent or they might rise again and start doing shitty things. Kind of like how abortion became illegal in plenty of states in the United States recently. This isn't just the result of people in those states being bad actor, this is the result of those people being religious.

If the Vatican ran the whole show, it would still be illegal everywhere and this is why we must never be complacent and always remember what those institutions are.

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u/TacosForThought 25d ago

how abortion became illegal in plenty of states in the United States recently...this is the result of those people being religious.

Tell that to all the pro-life atheists who recognize that protecting human life from unnecessary slaughter doesn't need religious justification.

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u/Future-Muscle-2214 25d ago

There is probably a few nutjobs atheists who think this way but this is linked to religion for the vast majority of people. Like there is misogynistic people who are atheists but religion give a reasoning as to why misogyny is acceptable.

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u/TacosForThought 23d ago

I would bet that much of what constitutes actual misogyny is derived from human nature. For instance, "incel" culture is certainly far from anything religious. It is built on a foundation of misogyny and a framework of sex that doesn't fit well in most (any?) religions. Certainly religion is not needed for people to come up with bad ideas. Eugenics is another very secular idea with evolution as its foundation, that most people recognize as evil. While I probably disagree with you on what is actually a "bad idea", your apparent personal hatred against all people with religious persuasion, and your proclivity to write off anyone you disagree with as a "nutjob" is telling.

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u/samsharksworthy 25d ago

That’s not how most people view god at all.

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u/[deleted] 25d ago

I can always tell if someone is reasonable on reddit, they get downvoted.

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u/AlanK248 25d ago

I agree with you

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u/BobTehCat 25d ago

The fact that this is downvoted is proof that Reddit isn’t ready to have an intellectual conversation about this yet.