Good point! Sadly, this sort of thing is becoming the norm in many areas. School board members and now even healthcare providers who publicly advocate for public health have been on the receiving end of this garbage. I suppose this is the inevitable consequence of our increasing polarization. It seems like we used to be able to disagree without wanting to harm others.
If we are talking about Christian fundamentalists, I'd have to agree. My experience has been similar.
I think there is usually a positive relationship between religiosity and well-being in research surveys, though I suspect the strength of the relationship has to do with how these variables are defined and measured. Thinking about specific people is hard in this context because some religious believers don't think they are supposed to admit being unhappy because that would suggest they aren't sufficiently grateful to their imagined god(s), etc.
Funny! If I remember correctly, priests were supposed to be the only ones who could communicate with their god in early versions of Catholicism. That gave them lots of power, obviously. Now I suppose anybody can attempt to communicate with their god and get the same results.
We don't have a cure for the flu either, but we have managed to reach the point where we can live with it (even though it does continue to kill some every year). Maybe we can at least get to that point with COVID. As for religion, it is easy enough to banish it from our own lives. The real problem is that our neighbors keep elevating religious people (and thus religion itself) into positions of power. It does seem like there has been little progress here even as the trends about religious identification have shown some positive movement. So yes, some pessimism does seem warranted.
It sure is! It is important to remember that we aren't alone, even though it may feel like it at times.
You are right. As pessimistic and hopeless as I sometimes feel, I suppose we do need to keep at it. The stakes are too high to give up.
Thanks for saying that! I know exactly what you mean about the realization that we are often surrounded by religious believers being unnerving. When I lived in places where religion was less prominent, I'd forget this sometimes. Although I no longer have that luxury, there are times when it reveals itself in unpleasant ways and still manages to catch me off-guard.
Yes, that example does seem to work. Not only do many of these incidents put others in danger, but they clearly inconvenience everyone else for no clear reason. It is puzzling to me that we have been as tolerant of them as we have.
Great point about advertising. I have noticed that a growing number of TV commercials explicitly tell viewers "you deserve" such and such. It really is a clever tactic for making people want crap they don't need.
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