Ban All Abrahamic Religions.

Strange that there is anything to add that hasn't already.

 

Religion governs thoughts and beliefs, it is brainwashed unto children under threat of damnation. Children think they are thinking freely but that is the grand lie of religion. It is a tyranny that the population chooses candidates based on their religion and you have to obey religion to be a politician! So why do we allow such tyranny to exist, and say it is a tyranny to remove such tyranny?? What hypocrasy!

I never said anything about banning violence, I have no problem with violence if it is done for noble reasons.


I can't believe any of you are sticking up for religion. Richard Dawkins would be sick to his stomach...

Isn't it enough that religion is a total, sick lie, that you should oppose its propogation in society? Or do we sit here and let lies fester until truth and freedom becomes an ancient myth?
There can be no freedom if there is no truth, lies are a weapon of tyranny. You mentioned Kim Jung 2, but he uses lies to keep himself in power.

 

Pure speculation. Most atheists started out in a religion. An obvious rationalization that could explain away inconvenient truths. Was Mao raised with priests? What about Lennin?

 

Well too bad about Richard Dawkins. When confronted with facts inconsistent with your dogmas, you cover your ears, close your eyes and chant your atheist mantra. Are you sure you aren't religious? Anyone advocating violence to suppress much of humanity is a really sick puppy.

 

I am not sticking up for religion. I am sticking up for people's freedoms.
And I could not give a shit less about Richard dawkins...but I would stick up for his freedoms just as I have everyone elses.

 

In regards to Mao, I alluded to this in another post about North Korea, that the flavor of irreligosity in the East seems much different than that in the west...Applicable here.


I was responding to a post about death of millions, I was under the impression that implies Stalin. Of course I'm speculating, but are you really going to try and tell me that childhood and formative experiences don't influence ideas and behaviors as adults?

That for instance those kids that get sent to some of those christian camps to get yelled at, showed demons and shit and told how much of sinners they are isn't going to impact them at all later on?

 

"The flavor of irreligiosity"? What a nebulous concept. Do you have a source for that? Could you tell us more.? Sounds like another convenient rationalization. There are lots of childhood experiences that influence ideas and behaviors. Most Christians don't grow up to be sadistic mass murderers. Most of them also don't go on to be atheist Marxists. Believe it or not, many of them grow up to be nice normal people. Obviously any Christian influences on Stalin weren't strong enough to keep him in the church. In the absence of evidence about what made Stalin what he was, you're on thin ice with your speculative armchair psychoanalyses. Stalin certainly was responsible for the deaths of millions. Stalin killed 20 million. Mao killed twice as many. http://historyofrussia.org/stalin-killed-how-many-people/

I would be the last to argue that Stalin's atrocities were mainly the result of atheism, since I know plenty of atheists who are fine people. Same goes for Mao. Human behavior is complex, and simplistic efforts to attribute it to religion or irreligion are flawed. For one thing, there are lots of different "flavors" of Abrahamic religion, some harsh and mean-spirited, some kindly and compassionate. On the one hand, we have Saint Francis of Assisi, who was the very model of what a good person should be; on the other hand, we have Pope Gregory IX who canonized Francis and also founded the papal Inquisition. A phenomenon like the crusades certainly had a lot more to it than Christians versus Muslims. Certainly politics and sociological variables played an important part in shaping the Crusades: a social release for societies overburdened by landless nobles., the desire of Italian merchant states to remove Muslim obstacles to trade in the eastern Mediterranean, a desire by Pope Urban II to heal the schism in Christendom by focusing on a common enemy, etc. What I'm against are blanket, simplistic generalizations that lead to bigotry, hatred, and the very violence people are complaining about.

BTW, what is this thread doing on the Politics Forum. Shouldn't it be on the Philosophy and Religion forum, specifically on the Atheist subsection?

 

Nebulous Concept? What do you find nebulous from the difference in presumably atheists of North Korea chanting their leader lives for thousands of years to Western Atheism reliant on science?

Pretty clear difference.

Since you avoided my questions, I'll have to assume you find it ok to berate and abuse children in these christian camps and therefore I don't care to reach out to address your other questions.

 

Ah another religion is the worst thread.

Tired old thread is tired old thread.

 

The concept of "flavor of irreligiosity" seems pretty nebulous, so I asked you for sources and specifics. You seem to like to make blanket generalizations, like equating North Korean culture with Chinese culture. I would say that in both countries Communism ( a pseudonym for Marxist-Leninist fascism) has aspects of secular religion. This is not because religion or oriental culture caused it to be that way, but because the same psychological, sociological and political factors that shaped state religion also shaped Communist ideology. We could add the Reign of Terror under the French Revolution, if you prefer a western example of secular religion. The atheist cult of Reason, as formulated by Hebert, Chaumette and their followers, was part and parcel of the war against Christianity, but had many of the trappings of religion, replete with the conversion of churches into Temples of Reason, the personification of Reason as a goddess, and ceremonies involving the destruction of relics . No society has attempted to impose official atheism without similar results. Reading the posts on this forum, as well as writings of Dawkins and other atheists, I doubt that the picture would be an improvement if any of you had real power. Science has little to say about God, so "western atheism reliant on science' sounds like pseudoscience which is dangerous. True science is tentative, not dogmatic. Nothing is certain, not even that!

I don't feel it necessary to respond to every item raised in a post I reply to, but since you ask, I don't think it's acceptable to berate children, or adults for that matter, in camps or outside of them. Most of the atheists I know come from fundamentalist "Christian" backgrounds where that sort of thing went on. I oppose brainwashing of any kind, and think freedom of thought and conscience are the most precious human rights. I realize that there are misguided Christian sects that do this, and I try my best to resist them and speak out against them. This is why I find the OP's views so offensive. She even advocates the use of violence for a "higher purpose" of suppressing thoughts she doesn't agree with. That mentatlity led to the Inquisition. BTW, I suppose you know that atheists also have their summer camps designed to instill "healthy" secular views and values in the kiddies.
http://www.kidscamps.com/religious_camps/atheist.html
What do you think of those?

 

ignorance is bliss

the only way to eliminate religion is by education and empowerment, this happens to a lot of sheltered religious college students every year. Religion exists to keep people in line, sort of like government fuck its the oldest form of government or at least the most corrupt.

OP have you ever spoken to a religious nut about their religion? You can't argue with "because" or "I have faith so that's all i need to know gods real" you can't reason with unreasonable people.


I used to claim to be Atheist until I really knew what "they" were about , I'm not hell bent on changing people minds gave that up long long ago, can't fix stupid. Atheists are hell bent on disproving religion which is just as big of a waste of time than spending Sunday mornings in church. My younger self spent Sunday morning miles down a mountain hiking trail, talk about doing something worthwhile on a Sunday morning. My only concern for religious folk is for the children, those poor children who never get a chance to think and discover for themselves, I claim child abuse!!!

 

I claim, or call out, fanaticism--Christian and atheist! What do you think about kids who grow up without parental guidance? Should parents share their beliefs, values, and personal experiences with their children, or keep them to themselves, lest they interfere with the kid's unencumbered adventure in the school of hard knocks. Can parental non-involvement be a form of child abuse?

 

What about the atrocities the atheists have committed. Like the holocaust? :toetap05:

Yeah, y'all saint. -rolls eyes-

 

Whatever.

The only way to ban religion is through violent force, and if thats what you're advocating then it seems a bit hypocritical doesnt it. Why should anyone have the power to dictate what another person believes?

There are already existing laws to handle some of the points brought up in this thread, child abuse in the name of religion, etc

 

That one I'm not sure can be hung on the atheists. Nazi ideology was a crazy mixture of pseudo-Chrisitian and Teutonic pagan ideas, with some secular eugenics thrown in.

 

Right. Just from a tactical standpoint I think atheists would be ill-advised to be threatening Abrahamic religion. Abrahamic adherents make up about 55% of the world's population, compared with around11 % self-identifying atheists and another 10% other non-believers. History teaches that Abrahamics are willing to fight and die for their faith, so I wouldn't want to bet the farm that atheists would come out ahead in any showdown. Atheists have enough of a struggle convincing believers they should be tolerated and accepted as friends and neighbors. This militant, intolerant approach undermines those efforts and sets the cause back decades.

 

This is somewhat tangential but I think it's kind of in step with the thread, what do you think about the Milo Yianopolous scandal? Do you think his admission of having a sexual relationship with an adult priest as an adolescent and his seeming glorification of these types of relationships is something we should not criticize him for and essentially "dictate his beliefs" by lampooning him all over the media and affecting his life?

 

I think Milo did more than have a sexual relationship with an adult priest. He tried to justify it as appropriate. The priest may be responsible for messing up Milo's mind, in which case we can be understanding. But Milo advocated sexual relations between adult males and thirteen year olds. I think that's wrong, because it might turn the poor kids into messed-up Milos. It's not Milo's sexuality I'm talking about, its his messed up mind, misogyny, and demagogic right-wing politics. I think adults need to take responsibility for their beliefs and actions. (See Simone de Beauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity).Those who live by the sword will die by the sword, and Milo is a mean-spirited Social Injustice Warrior waving his twisted sword around like it's something to be proud of.

 

There are no laws to protect a public figure from the backlash of public opinion. Criticizing something is not the same as banning something and neither is removing one's access to a public platform.People are generally given a public platform because, first and foremost in today's world, there is money to be made, and because people are interested in hearing what a public figure has to say. When someone like Milo says something controversial about pedophilia he is going to drive some of his audience away and therefore earn less for the companies he is representing. He still has the freedom to believe what he wants and to state his thoughts out loud, and to make a parallel to religion he can gather with like minded people to discuss it. No one has taken any of that away from him, he is just now considered a risk to his sponsors and has alienated some of his conservative following who, by the same token, have the freedom not to listen to him anymore.

 

Religion, for better or for worse, is a freedom for the people just like political views. Getting rid of all of one or both, will cause what?
Anyone thinks lives have been lost over either, will unfortunately see those numbers max out after a reaction of consequences on these two subjects.
Who will we follow then? Someone, unfortunately has always been needed to keep people in line. A utopian society is a great pipe dream, but not much more.