I don’t think we’re talking about the same emotions at all.

Yes, we are.

Love and respect.

I know I don’t worship my dog.

So you would be ok with me killing it and serving it to you? (no, I never would)

Serving my dog? No.

Serving a farm raised dog intended for consumption like a pig or cow? Yeah I’d try it.

My personal oddities aside, I still disagree. I don’t think worshipping a holy entity is at all the same as loving your pet. Maybe it is for you, but I know I don’t feel commonality between what I feel for my pet dog and what I feel for God.

For example, I give my pet treats and teach him to do tricks. My relationship with God is one of respect and wondering. Would you say that’s similar or different?

My personal oddities aside, I still disagree. I don’t think worshipping a holy entity is at all the same as loving your pet. Maybe it is for you, but I know I don’t feel commonality between what I feel for my pet dog and what I feel for God.

This is actually a good point because as someone who doesn’t really believe in god - or rather, any god that mankind thought up, I definitely don’t think the same way of my cat.

This is also true and a really valid perspective to consider.

I feel like the answer OP was trying to go for was “they both love the thing so much they couldn’t do it” but that’s a really narrow-minded view of human experiences. I’m actually wondering how many people are like me and believe in God but feel no more love for God than they do any random things in life.

I’m actually wondering how many people are like me and believe in God but feel no more love for God than they do any random things in life.

Exactly! I would probably think more of my cat because to me, god is just some character from a book that may or may not be real.

Well, your relationship with your dog involves another being, so it certainly seems different to me.

Your relationship with your dog is much more significant since he probably cares about you, is a good companion and can be proven to exist (unless you’re making him up for the purpose of these comments). A relationship with god is a one-sided time/effort/focus sink that provides no benefit to anyone involved unless they’re in on the con and passing around a collection plate.

If someone doesn’t eat beef or tries to discourage others from doing so because it might be magic, they ought to lay off their bullshit. Stuff like that carves out a blind spot in peoples’ critical thinking where things like ayurveda, homeopathy, chiropractors and acupuncturists can hide and prey on the desperate. Accepting the less-harmful aspects makes it harder to reject the dangerous ones.

This is why I’m bringing up Indian culture where the cow worship is pretty wellknown.

For them, again, cows are sacred beasts. Basically a living deity so whether you agree or not about the deity or existence of Gods you can’t disagree that cows exist.

So from there I’m attempting to conceptualize how Indians feel towards Cows (worship of deity) and see if it’s similar to how I feel about my pet dog.

At least that’s what I took from the post.

Yes, I think your comment captures my showerthought. It was an excercize in empathy. I do realize that the love for a sacred animal is significantly more profound than the way I feel about my dog. That being said, I do have respect and love for my dear canine companion, which causes an inhibition for eating him.

Mmm I see I see. I don’t personally agree but I agree when looking at it from your perspective.

I did a bit of a dive for it in a different comment but for me I do not share that love for sacred thing that you do which generated some interesting discussion. All around I’d say discussion mission was successful

It was just a showerthought, but this platform turned it into an interesting discussion. How amazing.

I have read that it is important to create content for Lemmy, in order to feed it. This has been my first post, I think. Better to get it done than put it off. I am glad people have been able to discuss.

Do you have any data on this:

A relationship with god is a one-sided time/effort/focus sink that provides no benefit to anyone involved unless they’re in on the con and passing around a collection plate.

If you’re asking me for data to show that it’s a one-sided relationship with nobody on the receiving side of the worship and praise being directed at the idea of a god, I can’t help you with that. The existence of a god has yet to be proven but more and more of what has historically been answered with “god did it” is being explained by scientific inquiry. If somebody comes forward with high-quality evidence of a god, I’d be very interested in seeing it.

If you’re asking about data showing the benefits of having a daily routine and social interaction within your community, that’s something I believe I can find along with data that demonstrates a link between drinking an appropriate amount of water and not being dead. Making it a religious practice (daily prayer, regular church attendance) is unnecessary and adds nothing but an open door for manipulators and scam artists.

If you’d like to understand how receiving churchgoers’ money benefits the clergy selling the idea of a god, that one’s pretty obvious so I can’t say whether it’s been studied or what kind of data there is to present here.

Can you please clarify your question so I’ll have a better chance of addressing it if I haven’t already?

It’s a pretty straightforward question. Do you have any data that backs up what you claimed? I don’t see what other way there is to interpret that question.

Okay, please see my reply above where I’ve identified the parts of my statement I think you’re asking about. I’m asking you to specify because there are a few different (though related) ideas involved. I’ll restate them here so you can select one or more and, if you wish, refer to them by the letter before each sentence.

a.) A relationship with one or more gods is one-sided.

b.) Spending any amount of time, effort, focus (or other resources like money, for that matter) on religious endeavors is a waste of those things.

c.) A person who gives their resources mentioned above (in part b) to a religious organization or in the process of worship receives no benefit unless they’re working with the ones fleecing the other believers.

Let me know which of these you are interested in or if there’s something else you had in mind.

For example, there are some herbs that fell under the umbrella of homeopathy that turned out to have very valuable medicinal properties when properly studied.

If they’re being used in homeopathy, they’re not being used in homeopathy. The method of preparation for homeopathic “medicine” dilutes it to the point where it’s statistically unlikely to be present in the final product. If there is any of it in the product and especially if there enough for it to have any effect, it wasn’t made by any process that meets the description of homeopathy and is some other type of (probably less-than-strictly-regulated) supplement with the homeopathy label slapped on for marketing.

A substance with beneficial properties that is studied and used to treat an illness or injury may become medicine. Some quack including it in a recipe book for their snake oil doesn’t make their quackery valid.

You are right, I’ll delete my comment. I didn’t realize that homeopathy meant those crazy people that use ridiculous dilutions. I heard that it’s improbable that even 1 molecule of ‘active’ ingredient is left over after they dilute and dilute.

That whole industry is a wacky rabbit hole you could spend a lifetime exploring and still not reach the end of it. It’s a bit of a hot-button issue for me due to the harm it causes when seriously ill people decide to forego actual medicine and waste money on a sugar pill instead. That’s something they won’t get back while tumors grow, cancer spreads or other long-term damage is done. Supplementary, Complementary and Alternative Medicine practitioners collect a paycheck giving false hope to people who might not have the time and money to spare.

Serving my dog? No.

Why not?

See comments like this leave people concerned. What are you attempting to say with this?

Are you questioning why I would have issues eating an animal I love after it has been murdered and cooked? Or is this some edgy bullshit argument to try to prove that you’re right?

Are you questioning why I would have issues eating an animal I love

No, I was asking you to actually say it.

Oh. So you’re saying something shocking to elicit a specific answer so that you can have your All star ™️ response that “wins the argument”?

Well whenever you decide to discuss things without “winning” I wrote up how I feel regarding the two situations here https://lemmy.world/comment/3124935 and would love to see howyour experience is similar or different.

A “Showerthought” is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you’re doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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People from other cultures who revere cows must feel the same way about beef as we feel about eating dogs.

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