Zasraniec wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 12:07 pm
I never understood patriotism anyway. It is just liking a country just because you were born in that country. It is a lot like religion. It mostly just causes problems rather than helping things.
I'll try my best to give my limited perspective as I'm no theologist.
You have a critical misunderstanding of the draw of religion, to me religion is a way to understand life and find meaning. Its a set of moral, ethical, and spiritual tenants, religion isn't a set thing either. Comparing Daoism/Taoism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam you'll find a great deal of similarities and differences but the core aspect in all of them is "How do you live, what is life?" they serve as potential answers depending on what you choose to believe.
And that is the core of our religious freedom, its that you are free to believe in whatever you want I could choose to worship a tree and it would be valid as long as it does not effect the freedom and life of someone else. You are correct in that religion has been used to commit murder and war but the same is equally true of the opposite some of the greatest acts and people were profoundly influenced by religion. Like all things religion can be corrupted and used for evil, but the blame for this lies squarely on those that did these acts and perverted them for whatever agenda. No different than how other things can be corrupted to serve the exact opposite of their purpose as on their own they are just books. Its what you do with them that matters
Likewise patriotism is just a pride in a country and what is important is pride isn't a bad thing. Pride only becomes a bad thing when it morphs into narcissism and a sense of superiority over others. One can be proud of their country while recognizing mistakes and desiring reform because pride isn't a set negative or positive, its a viewpoint and an emotion
In the end how you live your life is up to you, you can be an atheist, agnostic, religious, or whatever. I do highly recommend you should do more research on your own time its always good to learn more about a topic when you have a complete inability to understand it
Now that I got that out of my system. The best scifi show of the 90s got remastered a while back, Babylon 5. Fantastic show, great characters, story, background world, what it lacks in effects it entirely made up in ambition and some fantastic writing. Go in completely blind don't look it up just watch it on HBO Max.
https://www.engadget.com/babylon-5-rema ... 58907.html
Just watch it