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Comment by xboxnolifes | Hacker News Reader

There are quite a lot of varying degrees of casual believers in religion. I grew up in a family of Christians/Catholics who never go to church, rarely say grace, have never personally read the Bible, but still believe in God/afterlife/etc and have personal beliefs that are molded from religious teachings.

I know at least for the Christian based religious groups I'm aware of, you don't even need to share faith to be part of the community.

Believe it or not, they don't get into fist fights when they meet someone of another faith either.

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For Jehovah's Witnesses specifically, this could not be further from the truth [0], and for Christian groups generally, you beg the question here by ceding one must believe in that religion's concept of a deity/afterlife/etc. Such a belief is extremely hard to come by if not raised in that religion, and even harder if you're attached to reality's cause-effect relationships. Not impossible! But hard.

And you're right; warring religious groups don't use fists...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses_congrega...

Citing a disciplinary rulebook is not citing reality.

And the bible is... what exactly? :)

This is a stupidly glib comment. The poster meant that the reality of life as a Jehova's Witness cannot be gleaned from looking at some document of the religion, and I think you knew that, but decided to take a shot at the Bible anyways because you've been acculturated to think that dunking on religion is both correct and acceptable.

It should be acceptable, why not?

Yeah it is, when you’re talking about being a “casual” Jehovah’s Witness.

That’s not a thing. They’re probably among the worst examples of religion as a hobby.

Even non-believers have had their beliefs shaped in part by experiences with religion. In the case of joining a religious community, adhering to the dogma is usually important, let alone preferred.

I also have known "Catholic-lite" adherents, but they ultimately identify as Catholic. Anyway some of the minor sects don't take the distinctions between theirs and others lightly.

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