[faith] I don’t need faith in order to have a moral compass

I don’t need it to assuage my fear of death, or deal with grief over the deaths of others

I definitely don’t need it to fulfill my revenge fantasies against those who have wronged me or those I see as evil.

[faith] I need faith to find the peace I need to live fully. It’s a very personal thing.

I love talking about my beliefs openly with others in a give-and-take, nonjudgmental way

I do not feel the need to convince others my beliefs are correct. Only that I have a right to them.

[faith] I really dislike people trying to convert me to another belief system or telling me I’m wrong or unintelligent for having the beliefs I do.

Most of the latter do so based on their assumption that the only reasons for faith are the ones stated in the 1st tweet.

[faith, religion] Organized religion can & does do a lot of harm. Belief systems of all sorts can and do cause unimaginable harm.

This is why we always need informed consent from people before discussing our beliefs with them & why we need to keep our beliefs off others’ bodies

[faith] it is incredibly human to wonder who we are, what we are, how all this came to be. It is human to wonder about death.

There are more scientific studies than you think dealing with these exact questions and coming up with theories supported by robust evidence

[faith] But faith itself isn’t testable. A lot of these questions, we don’t have the ability to test them yet. So people are liable to come up with very different answers.

I’ve no idea why ppl get so attached to their own answers. Is it bc I’m autistic that I don’t understand?

I have no idea why people are so attached to being right about things they absolutely can’t know for sure. About things that are so complex that “right” and “wrong” cease to have logical meaning.

And I have no idea why people think others’ beliefs are harmful to them.

Beliefs cannot be harmful to others. Words and actions stemming from those beliefs absolutely can be. But we need to be really careful to focus on words & actions, not beliefs.

[religion] Otherwise you end up doing harm yourself.

It’s the difference between “You cause harm when you say queer people are going to hell and when you speak out/vote against reproductive healthcare”

And “You’re harmful because you believe in God.”

Everybody absolutely needs to learn where their actual boundaries are. Your boundaries are never, ever in someone else’s head.

People cause so much harm in the name of harm reduction. This is just one example.

I think this thread took an unexpected turn for a lot of people after the first tweet