Everyone understands that, that’s a surface-level reading not some secret hidden meaning. The problem is if you take more than a second to think about it instead of just taking the story at face value you see the real relationship here.
You have one horrifically vile being ruining someone’s life even though the victim worships them. The victim continues to worship them in spite of their atrocities just because they’re powerful.
It’s touted as a story about how you should just keep blind faith in the powerful but that’s really the exact opposite of what it shows. And it’s more relevant now than ever, I’m sure it’ll take you no effort at all to think of another toxic parasocial relationship.
This. ALL of this. I hate the story of Job because it just encourages people to accept abuse.
Unfortunately, this plays into why Christianity spread so far to start with. Storues like this reinforce class dynamics, which means ruling classes around the world want to implement them, and since they have more political power they have that ability.
This is a large part of why the vikings moved away from paganism to Christianity. It simply benefitted the rulers, from chiefs to kings. So they eventually forced their people to switch under threat of execution.
I think, and it’s hard for me as an agno-atheist to really put myself in a devout person’s shoes, making the religuosity too reward based.
Actually devout people aren’t that for an afterlife reward, they’re religious because of actual faith that it’s better for the world.
If anyone only holds to their faith for whatever it’s purported benefits are, they’re not pious, simply herd followers who would cling to whatever creed they were raised under.
I doubt this. Atheists (myself included) often get the frustrating question of “what stops you from harming people if you don’t believe in Hell?” when people learn about our lack of faith.
Many of them think that promises of reward and punishment are the only thing ensuring that people act morally.
If you’ve ever talked to a religious conservative American, many of them believe that religion, particularly Christianity, has a monopoly of defining what morality is.
Everyone understands that, that’s a surface-level reading not some secret hidden meaning. The problem is if you take more than a second to think about it instead of just taking the story at face value you see the real relationship here.
You have one horrifically vile being ruining someone’s life even though the victim worships them. The victim continues to worship them in spite of their atrocities just because they’re powerful.
It’s touted as a story about how you should just keep blind faith in the powerful but that’s really the exact opposite of what it shows. And it’s more relevant now than ever, I’m sure it’ll take you no effort at all to think of another toxic parasocial relationship.
This. ALL of this. I hate the story of Job because it just encourages people to accept abuse.
Unfortunately, this plays into why Christianity spread so far to start with. Storues like this reinforce class dynamics, which means ruling classes around the world want to implement them, and since they have more political power they have that ability.
This is a large part of why the vikings moved away from paganism to Christianity. It simply benefitted the rulers, from chiefs to kings. So they eventually forced their people to switch under threat of execution.
I think, and it’s hard for me as an agno-atheist to really put myself in a devout person’s shoes, making the religuosity too reward based.
Actually devout people aren’t that for an afterlife reward, they’re religious because of actual faith that it’s better for the world.
If anyone only holds to their faith for whatever it’s purported benefits are, they’re not pious, simply herd followers who would cling to whatever creed they were raised under.
I doubt this. Atheists (myself included) often get the frustrating question of “what stops you from harming people if you don’t believe in Hell?” when people learn about our lack of faith.
Many of them think that promises of reward and punishment are the only thing ensuring that people act morally.
If you’ve ever talked to a religious conservative American, many of them believe that religion, particularly Christianity, has a monopoly of defining what morality is.