In my experience, people like that will be terrible with or without religion.
The difference of “external man in the sky” vs “internal concept of my own rightness” for how they feel ok about their own actions doesn’t make a difference when they’re still a bigoted asshat at their core.
There’s a pretty big difference though: when you’re absolutely convinced that your own inner voice that distinguishes right from wrong is inspired by, or at least approved by, the ultimate judge of the Universe, it’s going to be incomparably harder for you to accept that you are, indeed, being an unreasonably smug asshole.
You think that something like 40% of the population of the US is voting for cruel and regressive laws just for the lulz, and it has nothing to do with their stated belief system?
![Victory? [elder cactus]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/244d43ec-eeec-4e9c-a97a-a7e978cc47a5.jpeg){kind=link}
In my experience, people like that will be terrible with or without religion.
The difference of “external man in the sky” vs “internal concept of my own rightness” for how they feel ok about their own actions doesn’t make a difference when they’re still a bigoted asshat at their core.
There’s a pretty big difference though: when you’re absolutely convinced that your own inner voice that distinguishes right from wrong is inspired by, or at least approved by, the ultimate judge of the Universe, it’s going to be incomparably harder for you to accept that you are, indeed, being an unreasonably smug asshole.
You think that something like 40% of the population of the US is voting for cruel and regressive laws just for the lulz, and it has nothing to do with their stated belief system?
Yes. The cruelty is the point. Belief systems are a nice excuse for later. They would do that either way