…People ought to quit using terms they seemingly don’t understand.
The difference there is the KKK was a fringe group well outside the mainstream of society. Religion is mainstream society. Atheism/Secular Humanism is also a fringe group, and what the OP proposes would be analogous to the KKK attempting to become a majority group by ridiculing non-racists. It won’t work, and may have the opposite of its intended effect.
The second clan peaked at about 15% of whites, main line protestants are currently at 18.1%
Do you call them “fringe”
The OP opposes all religion. You do not get to splinter off different sects for his purposes. According to wikipedia, 80% of Americans identify with a religious denomination. Religion in a generic sense is mainstream, as I noted above. Atheists are a small fraction…and the militant/obnoxious faction of atheism is an even smaller fraction.
Why do you get toa lump togeather large groups of fairly incompatible religions for your argument then.
Note There are more agnostics than lutherans and more avowed Athiests than Anglican/Episcopal.
The KKK was just as much an anti catholic org as it was a white seprotist org.
I am not claiming that ridicule is the best option but to say it doesn’t work is wrong.
I seem to be in a minority but I think ridicule, and humour in general, are THE most effective means of keeping the majority of people from believing stupid things. People like to join groups, but they generally speaking don’t join groups that are laughed at (of course there will always be some contrary people).
On top of that some things are hard to criticize in a non-humorous situation, religion for example, and it’s mainly through humour that obvious logical consistencies can be pointed out.
As has already been said, in a serious debate ridicule sometimes needs to be toned down, but when someone says something ridiculous then perhaps it should be ridiculed.
How many times do you want me to repeat the same blatantly obvious point? Religion is mainstream in the U.S., and an overwhelming majority of the population express some degree of religious belief. Ridicule can work against a minority position. Possibly even in situations where there’s a fairly even split between sides…such as presidential elections. Ridicule will not work against an overwhelming majority.
Just so you guys knows, an appeal to ridicule is a logical fallacy, as ridiculing an idea or a person’s position has no effect on it’s validity.
It can over time, just as it did with homophobia.
You are setting some arbitrary goalposts here. non-religion is the fastest “religion” in the world.
People pointing out how silly the abrahamic mythos is part of the reason that is happening.
:rolleyes:
A quick google search produced this cite
*The third group are the non-religious and anti-religious groups. Non-religious include the agnostics, do not know, and do not care groups. The anti-religious are the more radical atheists, free thinkers, and those that are opposed to all religion. All together these groups are 14 percent of the world’s population. About two and a half percent are part of the more radical atheist group and eleven to twelve percent belong to the more moderate agnostic group.
This group is a falling part of world population, particularly the more radical atheists, who have lost almost half their percentage of the population since Communism failed in the Soviet Block countries. Outside the communist countries less than one percent of the population fits into the more radical atheist category. As Communist governments in China, North Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam lose power the atheist percentage of the world population will drop quickly. *
Counting forced athiests in the communists countries? Really? And the definition is arbitrary, I don’t want to forceably change anyones religion as long as they but out of goverment and my life. Am I not an “Athiest” by your cherry picked standard?
NON-Theists are growing…or are you claiming you theists aren’t losing ground?
And we have Tony Blair quoting The Life of Brian’s “What have the Romans ever done for us?” in public speaches.
Obviously ridicule of originized religion could never work because it is such a HUGE majority.
I don’t think the OP is in the US though…
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
If you’d been paying attention around here, you’d know that I’m an atheist. I’m just not an asshole about it.
Umm…look at any civil rights movement, you have to have people perform that funciton.
You get to be the kind and fluffy freindly athiest but without the “assholes” raising a stink you would stay in your polite but silent hidey hole.
But are you still ignoring how public ridicule has helped reduce homophobia over the past 30 years?
I can tell you personally that the Life of Brian was a watershed moment for me, it let me be honest about my feelings.
See, that’s the thing. Religion is not a bad thing. Religious people are not bad people. (Der Trihs will be along shortly to disagree). Most of my family, friends, neighbors, professional contacts, and clients are religious. I believe otherwise, but I have no desire to convert them. Their faith generally does not affect me any more than my atheism affects them. If a client wants to pay me to go to court to fight prayer at high school football games or some such, I’ll do it, but otherwise I have nothing to gain from this fight.
When they tell women that they are stealing from their husbands by taking out college loans it is a bad thing.
But most people are not bad people irrespective of their theism or lack of theism.
One important use for it is to get people to wake up to the fact that their irrational beliefs are not universally respected and accepted as truth. Treating irrational beliefs with respect strengthens them; it produces an impression that if there wasn’t something to them you wouldn’t be treating them like they were reasonable ideas.
Yes, it does. It causes them to make irrational decisions that affect you, and it both creates and encourages the outright fanatics. Once someone starts operating on faith, literally anything is justifiable, including acts like terrorism.
I really don’t get the whole militant atheist urge to stamp out religion. Religion is a powerful force for good in the world. In many instances, including the civil rights movement, churches assumed a leadership role in seeking social justice. Religions provide enormous amounts of charity work around the world.
Over the last few years, I’ve had reason to visit several rural churches, most of them black churches. Life in the rural South can be hard, especially for the poor. The churches are sources of strength in the community. They provide hope, and sometimes even joy in an otherwise harsh existence. Why would anyone want to take that away, especially from people that have so little?
Ridicule is a tool used for social engineering, and like any tool, is only effective when used in correct time, place and manner. Probably the best form of it that could be employed to fight religion and superstition is the subtle type rather than aggressive shaming. If we express the same level of disdain and surprise for religious behaviour that we would for say an adult who professes to believe in the tooth fairy then I suspect we would soon see a great reduction in overt religiosity.
Because it’s stupid, it’s destructive, and the believers won’t leave us alone. People who believe in lucky rabbit’s feet aren’t doing things like trying to write rabbit-footism into the law, so you don’t see much of a campaign to stamp out belief in lucky rabbit’s feet.
Because the churches provide false hope and render them easy to manipulate - that’s much of the point, it makes people less likely to do anything that will discomfort the powerful, and makes those believers into a tool to be used. They cause irrational & destructive beliefs and behavior that make life worse for people in general.