The relativity of persecution

[trenton]

The thoughts I have commonly focus on religion and they have since I was a child.  At the time of was because I was trying to figure out which religion is the right one.  my childhood vows was, If I could ever figure out which religion was the right one, then I would convert to that one.  This time it is because every religion also claims to be the most persecuted and I have deconstructed this debate.

Here is a story.  I had a casual conversation with a Christian one day and he mentioned that Christianity is the most persecuted religion as of it were a fact.  I was sceptical and asked for his reasoning.  He said it was because of the church burnings in Africa.  I then told this to another woman in a casual conversation.  She asked for my reasoning before asking for my religious affiliation.  I told her that I have no religious affiliation, and then she bought the idea Christianity is the most persecuted religion.  She then told her friends who were even more sceptical.  They asked for her reasoning, her affiliation, and who she heard this from.  She told her friends that she heard it from someone with no religious affiliation.  This made it seem believable enough for them to buy it.  The Christian quickly left.  His plan was a success and now everybody else would promote his religion for him.

Christians will focus on the church burnings, Muslims will focus on islamophobia and persecution at the hands of other Muslims, Jews will bring up the 1940's and so forth.  This happens because they frame life as an epic battle between good and evil.  So how do I determine which religion is objectively the most persecuted?

There are a ton of problems with the above question.  First of all, which years should be counted?  Should this be since 2000, 1900, 1000, or since ever?  Secondly, which types of persecution should be measured?  Should murder, rape, slavery, torture, and others all be measured separately?  Should turning away refugees over islamophobia count as persecution and to what degree?  Which religions should be counted on such a study?  Should Sunni and Shiite Muslims be measured separately or does Muslim on Muslim persecution count?

If measuring murders, then should it be done by quantity or by percentage?  For example, if Christianity is a more popular religion than Judaism, then logically more Christians should be murdered more, but the likelihood of being murdered if you are Jew should be higher.  Furthermore, if I am counting pegan tribes, African tribes, and native American tribes then the likelihood of being murdered is very high.  This is because some of these tribes are now dead religions because they were victims of a successful genocide.  In that case of you were part of a particular pegan tribe, then there is 100% chance that you will be murdered during the genocide.  Percentage wise, that makes pegans the most persecuted if they are being counted.  Christians, Jews and others would argue that pegans should not be counted as real religions.

A final problem I will mention here is the age of every religion.  If Hinduism is the oldest living religion, then logically it had the most opportunities to be persecuted.  So if the parameters start the 15th century BCE, then hindus should the most persecuted.

Conclusions:

There is not a way to determine things like "most" or "least" objectively.  Such a study can only conclude most or least given a certain set of parameters.  Given A I conclude X, given B I conclude Y, and given C I conclude Z.  All of these are presented like they are facts, but in fact they are self constructed.

This puts me in a wierd position.  I feel like I don't know, yet I know that everything is relative.  If I say "everything is relative" then it is presented like a fact, but if there is no real truth to these "facts," then it is as if I don't know anything.  What if there is no truth to discussing whether or not there is truth to things as it appears either way from either angle?

If measured by the past decade, then apparently it is Christians according to a quick Google search.  This fear of white genocide in Africa is likely driving some people to become white Christian nationalists.  It seems hard to compare and quantify, so how can we be sure that these studies are right?

[Leo Gura]

Obviously any such statement as "X is the most or best" are childish. These are the result of a childish mind. As your mind matures you realize that reality is far too profound for making such gross oversimplicifications.

And you also realize that everyone is trying to play up their victimhood narrative as part of survival. Notice that everyone is trying to act the most innocent, the most wronged, the most oppressed. It's a game you play.

Quit that game.

[trenton]

51 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Obviously any such statement as "X is the most or best" are childish. These are the result of a childish mind. As your mind matures you realize that reality is far too profound for making such gross oversimplicifications.

And you also realize that everyone is trying to play up their victimhood narrative as part of survival. Notice that everyone is trying to act the most innocent, the most wronged, the most oppressed. It's a game you play.

Quit that game.

To help my mind to mature more, there are a few things I need to figure out.

How do I stop getting upset with myself for thinking of scenarios in which I hurt others and therefore repeat to myself that I should shut up and not tell anyone?  This is a psychological pattern in which I compensate for not getting my hopes up through catastrophizing.  Bad scenarios occur to me regularly.  Maybe I should surrender to the possibility of me being selfish and hurting people?  Of course I don't mean to use that as an excuse.  It could actually be the case that my level of consciousness is such that I would do that and I am attempting to avoid it.

This psychological pattern reminds me of how I was worried about making girls uncomfortable on a date when In fact I am too shy and meek.

If I figure this out, then I can stop being a victim of myself by judging myself harshly.  I think doing this keeps me out of trouble by not allowing these possibilities to surface.

[Leo Gura]

24 minutes ago, trenton said:

How do I stop getting upset with myself for thinking of scenarios in which I hurt others and therefore repeat to myself that I should shut up and not tell anyone? 

I'm not clear what this means.

- - - - -

In general it is important to accept that as a living organism you do have to be selfish and your survival in necessarily hurt others. You cannot be alive without hurting others. Life is brutal. Life is a zero-sum game to a large degree.

[Kamo]

56 minutes ago, trenton said:

To help my mind to mature more, there are a few things I need to figure out.

How do I stop getting upset with myself for thinking of scenarios in which I hurt others and therefore repeat to myself that I should shut up and not tell anyone?  This is a psychological pattern in which I compensate for not getting my hopes up through catastrophizing.  Bad scenarios occur to me regularly.  Maybe I should surrender to the possibility of me being selfish and hurting people?  Of course I don't mean to use that as an excuse.  It could actually be the case that my level of consciousness is such that I would do that and I am attempting to avoid it.

This psychological pattern reminds me of how I was worried about making girls uncomfortable on a date when In fact I am too shy and meek.

If I figure this out, then I can stop being a victim of myself by judging myself harshly.  I think doing this keeps me out of trouble by not allowing these possibilities to surface.

These are only thoughts, and are illusory, Leo has a video on thoughts. "Grasping the illusory nature of thoughts." The harmful thoughts dont mean anything and generally point to the opposite of how you believe you are, which is why they bother you, your trying to avoid them which gives them the energy. Just know everyone at one time or another in their life experiences similar thoughts. Theres a book that may help you, Its called "Overcoming unwanted intrusive thoughts." Theres a small section specifically about harm and self harm. Then later the book teaches you further how to understand and get over them.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Kamo

[trenton]

@Kamo I watched the video on grasping the nature of thought.  It seems very helpful and I will be practicing that.  I came up with a couple of thoughts to flatten immediately.  This can help me sleep.