r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/MelanieWalmartinez • Sep 01 '26

Video Students get smudged by indigenous elders for peace and blessings throughout the year

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u/Goodknight808 Sep 01 '26

"Why did God create atheists? If everything has a holy purpose, what is the purpose of someone who doesn't believe in God?"

The Rabbi replied: "God created atheists to teach us true compassion. When a religious person sees someone starving, they might pray and say, 'God will provide.' But when an atheist sees someone starving, they don't think God is going to fix it. They know that if they do not help, no one will. Therefore, when it comes to acts of charity and kindness, you must act as if there is no God—relying completely on yourself to change the world."

Basically an atheist who does good, does it on their own. No fear of divine retribution involved. Just pure goodness.

If you need to be afraid of a divine being in order to make you do good....you may not actually be a good person at the core.

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u/Chonch_Monkey Sep 01 '26

"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then, brother, that person is a piece of shit."

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u/REDDITATO_ Sep 01 '26

"If I put my own thought into quotes it suddenly seems way more wise."

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u/Chonch_Monkey Sep 01 '26

It's from season 1 of True Detective

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u/REDDITATO_ Sep 01 '26

Fair enough lol. Just sounds like a normal sentence.

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u/CyberHunks Sep 02 '26

Hence why it was put in quotes, to show that it’s a quote from something lmao

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u/Chonch_Monkey Sep 02 '26

"I just enjoy quoting myself" - Chonch_Monkey

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u/REDDITATO_ Sep 02 '26

The joke I was making was that since it was in quotes and just a normal ass sentence with no attribution it sounded like you were just putting quotes around your own thoughts. Normally a quote says where it's from. If it doesn't it usually doesn't just sound like some shit your uncle said once. Obviously I know what quotation marks are, I'm the one who mentioned them in the first place.

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u/Short_Ad_9290 Sep 01 '26

even the Bible condemns not helping those who are in need. "Ur brother asks for help and u say keep warm it will be well when u can help him" James Said something like that, Christ used the story of Samaritan to teach kindness without discrimination so I'm just saying a lot of the accusation some people(Christians) get shouldn't be but of course in reality a lot of Christians don't even follow "Christ" and are guilty of the said part my emphasis is that using Christianity as an example there's a lot of good that is supposed to be done but it's not

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u/REDDITATO_ Sep 01 '26

Sounds like you really missed the point of that person's comment. Of course Christianity, and pretty much every other religion, have teachings encouraging charity. But if the implication is "god will be mad if you're not charitable" and that's the only reason you do it, you should reexamine your motives.

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u/Great-Tank-5719 Sep 01 '26

Where did the concept of mortality come from? In the old testament, God had prophets tell people that sacrificing your children and murdering other people was bad. Why didn't they know about that yet?

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '26

[deleted]

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u/Great-Tank-5719 Sep 02 '26

So, if you read and understand my comment, the acts are good and have always been good, people just didn't have that morality because to them it was a new concept. It goes against people being naturally good without any moral compass, because morality as we know it has been shaped by these judeo-christian values, they aren't naturally implanted in us. Look at other cultures where they aren't prevalent, and their concept of good and bad are not even the same, so no, christian morals that atheists think are natural to have, are not.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '26

[deleted]

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u/Great-Tank-5719 Sep 02 '26

Keeping the scope of morals to the conversation (i.e western morals) no christian morals are not the only ones, but they are the only christian morals, other moral beliefs usually place other virtues in good or bad categories. Obviously muslim values differ, as well as other regions that don't consider themselves christian. But if you go to regions that are culturally different, but have christian beliefs, they are pretty much the same. You also can't say the beliefs existed before God because nothing did. Go ahead and cite a culture before Judaism that mirrors their morality code.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '26

[deleted]

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u/Great-Tank-5719 Sep 03 '26

That first paragraph wasn't from me bud. The case isn't whether people do good because "God told them to" they do "good" deeds because God told them what was good. My whole point is that people's idea of what is good came from somewhere, and the good that atheism in western societies is largely based on the fact that judeo-christian values and what is considered the right thing to do came from those values, not out of human nature. Non of these ancient civilizations you cite have any similarities with modern culture or beliefs, so being a good person subjectively in nature and motivation, is nowhere near the same.

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u/kitkat2024 Sep 01 '26

They sacrificed their children to god they named Ball. The same one Epstein sacrificed to.

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u/Great-Tank-5719 Sep 02 '26

Yeah, and God hated that because it's evil.

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '26

[deleted]

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u/Clodhoppa81 Sep 01 '26

Learn to speak on individuals rather than stereotyping.

You should learn reading comprehension. Nowhere did they say it was just an atheist thing and nowhere did they say that Christians don't do good.

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u/Goodknight808 Sep 01 '26

Who implied that?

I said "if you need to be afraid of a divine being in order to make you good....you may not actually be a good person at the core."

Why did you read that as "those who believe in God do not do good"? That is not what I said or implied.

I said plainly, that if you need to be forced to do good deeds, you maybe aren't very good.

Drop an insult and its owner picks it up????

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '26

[deleted]

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u/Clodhoppa81 Sep 01 '26

Where did they say one is better than the other?

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '26

[deleted]

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u/Samsaknight_X Sep 02 '26

Ur ons of the only ppl who think that

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u/axonxorz Sep 01 '26

Learn to speak on individuals rather than stereotyping.

Says the person that read an excerpt from nearly 100-year-old Jewish parables and substituted the lesson with weird victimization.

Hit dog hollers, and all that.

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u/Great-Tank-5719 Sep 01 '26

So then why is the vast amount of charitable giving and volunteer work done by churches and not atheists?