Imagine watching TV. There’s some program you like on, let’s say, Ugly Betty, for example. Lots of actors and actresses playing their parts. No argument on religion at all.
Now you switch to another channel; a debate show. A religious person and an atheist are debating religion, somewhat heatedly. What does the person at home think? “Wow, that atheist is a bit angry. This is the only time today i’ve seen an atheist, so this shows how atheists are all in apologist mode”.
And there’s the problem. Because we at home don’t know the religious beliefs of people on TV unless they’re talking about them. And because the U.S. is a mainly Christian nation, people tend to assume American actors/actresses are themselves of some Christian belief. So the watcher at home sees religious people being normal and one religious guy being an ass, and on the other side the only atheist he’s seen is being an ass.
My analogy to gay people… i’ll give you another example. You may know of World of Warcraft, an online game. The company that made it had a policy a while back of not allowing groups of players to recruit for their group by saying it was “GLBT friendly” (they’ve since rescinded it, thankfully). There was much comment on the forums by players along the lines of “Why do gay people have to shove their sexuality into our faces?”*. Not recognising, of course, that heterosexuality is the norm, and flirting between males and females on the game is common, male and female NPCs in the game are married, etc. There are many, many gay people playing the game who weren’t part of the group; who did not talk about their sexuality. And so for these forum members, their only apparent exposure to gay people was when some of them were actively advertising their GLBT-friendly status.
My point isn’t that atheists all have to defend their views vigorously because we’re a minority. My point is that, since the default view of many people is set to “Christian” or “Heterosexual”, they don’t notice that the quiet people just getting on with things might actually be atheist or gay. They only notice the more visible ones; and so the view that “all those people just keep talking about their situation” is created.
*Well, more along the line of “Ew, gay people suck”, but you get the idea.
I come from a small town. A few yrs ago, a local church managed to get a majority of its members on the local school and public library board.
They attempted to start “editing:” what could and could not be taught in schools, and what books could be allowed in the local library. It took legal action to make them cease and desist, so to speak.
As an “out”, but not militant athiest, my opinion suddenly became “important”. For my troubles I got my front windows smashed, my car vandalised, and many, many anonymous late night phone calls from people threatening my family and my self… What a nice example of christianity at it’s finest.
All I said was that “Our taxes pay for secualr services, we should only expect secular results”
Most religions have a (often not so hidden) agenda of “power”… tell me, if their God is all powerfull, why do they need to dabble in that nasty stuff?
I respect utterly the idea that everyone has the right to define their own faith or lack of such… why does that position "scare’ most organised religion?
True. I understand that Islam doesn’t (didn’t?) even allow translations of the Koran to make sure there were not even the most minor deviation from it. In that light, your point is very much valid.
In contrast to that, take the Catholic church. “Thou shalt not kill”, fundamental as it is to a non-violent philosophy, has evolved to account for just war, self-defense, therapeutical abortions, etc.
Just as “All men are created equal” has remained but with an evolved interpretation and application to life, so do most religious precepts. Most religions are living things that grow and evolve.
Fundamentalists and literallists are a different story, of course.
Revenant, correction noted. Still a very good point.
FMLotus, the case you cite is a combination of religious intrusion in politics (which I have already addressed) and fanaticism, which I find deplorable and will agree that needs to be eliminated.
People who claim there are ‘religious wars’ merely demonstrate their ignorance of conflict studies and of the history of war.
I pursued conflict studies because I wanted to learn the truth about what goes on in international relations. I learned that wars are about greed and power or else about rights. In the case of the former (state-sponsored) wars, the issue is invariably territory. Somebody wants somebody else’s land. The land is disputed often because it’s been divided up at some point for reasons that people decide are invalid.
In the case of the latter, one or more groups will be guilty of mistreating one or more other groups. Those mistreated finally get sick of the mistreatment and rebel.
Now, the distinctions that people may make between who is ‘us’ and who is ‘them’ (i.e. oppressor and oppressed) can be based on religion, but they are often based on language or ethnicity or language or tribe or pretty much any excuse one group can find to discriminate against another.
Some leaders will exploit the prejudices to foster war - Hitler picked on a religious group as his ‘them’ but it wasn’t because of their religious beliefs, nor his.
So the belief that ‘religion causes war’ is fallacious. Completely.
You talk of greed and power, and you’re right. But in religious war, the reward is not territory per se, but the opinion of one’s god. People fight to please their god; to spread their religion’s renown, and to kill those who disbelieve and spread (what they see as) lies. They fight to stop the encroachment of another belief into their world.
You speak of mistreatment, and I agree too. But our idea of mistreatment is based in our code of ethics, and our codes are dictated to us and affected by our religion. People bomb abortion clinics or attack abortion providers why? Because they think they are murderers. People who are mistreating babies! Now, I don’t deny that in the absence of religion, there would still be people who would be against abortion. But you can’t honestly tell me that the amount of attacks would stay the same if suddenly tomorrow everyone became atheist or had more liberal religious beliefs.
IANAM, but it’s not that they disallow any translation of the Koran. I’m sure you’ll find a good many translations online. The idea is that a version of the Koran not in Arabic using the standard text is not a Koran.
This is true. The Koran refers specifically to the original text, as apparently dictated by God himself. Any change, translation, or paraphrase and it would no longer be the Koran. Similar perhaps in the way that you’d view a famous speech by some public figure. Sure, you can make a translation of it, or paraphrase it, or change the words, but if you do it’s no longer that specific speech. It’s a translation of it or something similar without being the real deal.
Is there any reason to want religion gone? to attack it?
Is there any fundamental evil in believing in god(s)
My thesis is that all the damage that is being ascribed to religion is due to either religious fantacism or the intrusion of religious interest groups in governemnt. Neither of these a direct and unavoidable consequence of belief in god(s). Rather, a failure of government to deal with these extreme minorities.
That atheists are judging religion by the actions of select minorities of the religious.
That militan atheists are stereotyping theists (willingly or not) based on a minority subgroup of them. And that this behaviour is irresponsible and dangerous, and prone to the kinds of negative results that come out of religious extremism.
Yes, there is reason to want it gone. In practical terms, religious morals mean that many medical procedures are disallowed, and in extreme cases people attack others based on their religious beliefs. On more philosophical terms, I believe that religion involves many contradictions and leaps of faith, and as a person who would like to know the truth of the universe (assuming there is one), I think that spending too much time on these unlikely scenarios is pointless. That’s an opinion, of course.
Is there any fundamental evil in believing in gods? No. It’s what people are prepared to do with that belief that can be evil. Religion, however, opens up many more avenues for evil that aren’t open in the same way to athiests, so while I would say religion is not inherently evil, it’s not as potentially neutral, if that makes sense. On the other hand, I see what you mean when you say religious fanatacism is not a certain result of religious beliefs, but it is a result of them. Without religion there would be no religious fanaticism.
Sapo, you say that the intrusion of religion into government is due to an extremem minority. I was of the idea that the majority of the U.S. is in fact religious, and that again a significant portion of society was against abortion, for example. Is this not so?
I don’t disagree that athiests judge religion by the actions of minorities. I disagree that all do, or that even most do. I think you yourself are comitting the crime you’re speaking against; judging us based on only a few.
This is close to No True Scotsman territory. Islam recognises no distinction between religion and society and in practice Christianity has been entangled with the state since Constantine.
If you have religion it will interfere and impose as sure as night follows day.
Fanaticism, imposition, prosletizing etc are all inevitable products of belief systems. You can’t just treat ‘religion’ as some Platonic Form. Belief in gods always has real world consequences. Your God always wants you do do stuff, stop other people doing stuff, fight wars, persecute, convert etc etc etc. Religions are what religions do.
I am sure we agree in that people should be free to decide what procedures they want for themselves. If someone’s religion demands that someone reject a procedure, that is a personal issue. Even in the case of parents making the decision for their kids, the reality is that they have many other chances to mess up their lives to focus on one in particular.
If you are referring to the religious lobby pushing to outlaw certain procedures, then I am right there with you. The desires of a group shouldn’t be impossed on the rest of the population.
And there is the law to handle those extreme cases. If someone’s religion asks him to break the law, they are not excempt from paying the consequences. And if the doctrine is specifically asking for such crime, then that church must be declared illegal and prosecuted.
That’s for you to choose, of course. We are all free to do what we want in our time. Even in situations as dire as world wars, people can afford some time to go beyond survival.
And without guns there is no armed robbery, and without nuclear energy there is no Chernobyl and no Hiroshima. Without families there is no domestic violence.
Belief in gods is as neutral as everything else. It is what you do with it that can be right or wrong.
I have no numbers to prove this, of course, but I would be willing to bet that the number of people who is affected positively by religion is greater than the number of people using it as an excuse for evil.
If that is the case, that is another responsility of democracy: protecting its minorities. Despite our vast numerical superiority, the non-belgian americans could never pass a law demanding that belgians americans do or be prohibited from doing something.
Abortion, evolution, stem cell research, public prayer; no matter what the issue is, it should not be resolved by a show of numbers at a poll. There is a constitution that provides a legal framework to resolve those issues. Once that issue is analyzed under the law and a conclusion is reached, then it is the law’s job to uphold it and the losing side to observe it, like it or not.
FTR, as a theist, I side with the atheist on all those issues.
I realize that most atheists, just like most theists, are not “practicing”. That their belief in the absence or existence gods is not something of importance to how they carry their lives on a daily basis, or how they relate to others. That see the theist-atheist divide as something more similar to the coke-pepsi divide than anything else, a personal choice.
I am not talking about ALL, I am addressing the militant, in particular. The group that is active in seeking to put down those who believe in God and want their right to have a religion abolished.
If Islam, or any other religion, is truly, fundamentally and irreconciliably opposed to a nation’s way of life, then they can have it banned. It has been done before for neo-nazis and the KKK. A society doesn’t need to be tolerant of organizations that are intrinsically disruptive of their way of life.
Fanaticism, imposition, proselytizing, etc are not inevitable products of belief systems. It might be true that Abrahamic religions tend to fall that way. Again, act specifically against them or whatever feature of them is causing trouble.
We didn’t ban the pharmaceutical industry because of the effects of thalidomide. We changed our regulation of them and with positive results.
When I speak of non-problematic religions, I am not talking about ideal make-believe reilgions, I am talking about the existing majority of world religions, the dharmic and the spiritist. They are full blown religions, with a belief in a higher supernatural order, codes of conduct, worship rituals and the whole bangamalot.
Should they not? Why then do we have laws against murder, or theft, or any other action? Isn’t that the desires of a group imposing their views on the rest of the population?
And herein lies the problem. If I were to ask a Christian who bombed an abortion clinic whether there was scriptual support for his decision, i’m sure he’d be able to point to quite a few parts of the Bible. Whereas you looking at the same passages might have an entirely different view. Whose is the more correct?
Oh, and i’m not saying that such people aren’t punished. I’m saying that that’s a horrible act committed by people because of their religion. Them being punished for it doesn’t make it all ok.
Ouch. You characterise my position as practical, with no time for existential thought and a focus on the material. Not so. I am just as interested in what might be and if there are objective truths in the universe as you are. I am merely saying that there are some things that are unlikely enough that one’s time could be spent better on other ideas. For example, you don’t stop to imagine what the world would be like if it were actually the dream of each insect you see while walking down a road, do you? No. You look at the general situation, and if you believe such an idea has too many problems with it, you leave it at the bottom of the pile.
I agree totally. Belief in gods is like a hammer; you could use it to build something to help you or others, or you could choose to bash someone’s head in with it. My point is - if you don’t have the hammer, you can’t choose to whack someone.
You can’t choose to build, either, of course. But I suggest that many of the positives created by religious people would also be created by athiest people. Think of it as getting rid of the hammer but gaining a sledge.
You may very well be correct. I believe that those positive things would remain if there were only athiests, though.
The clincher is, of course, whether the religious people are right or not. Obviously if they are correct then anything that removed their religion would be a bad thing. Since I accept I may be wrong in saying gods do not exist, I would not support any kind of mandatory removal of religion.
Sure you could. If you could convince a majority, what’s stopping you?
You act as though all law was settled and final. This is not the case. Look at the row over the Second Amendment, for example. Interpretation depends on who interprets it, and if a majority sees it one way, that’s what it will mean in law.
Well, good. Just to be fair, it should probably be pointed out that not all athiests are on one side on these things, though i’d say the majority are.
I’d agree.
Well, you did just say “athiests” in general in that last part. That’s what threw me.
I’d add that actually most militant athiests do not seek to abolish the right to have a religion. Dawkins is most often brought up as an example, and i’ve seen him talk about letting people make their own choices. You see the difference between atheism of the “i’m athiest, whatever you are is fine by me” and “militant” atheism of the “i’m athiest, you religious people are all stupid, hear me roar” kind - but there’s also an even smaller fraction of (for lack of a better term) super-militant athiests, who would say “abolish religion, pull down the churches” and so on. I think you’re seeing us as being in one of two camps, the normals and the extreme nutcases, when actually it’s more of a continuum of nutcases from us normals in the majority to a few at militant to a tiny sample up at super-militant.
There is always a very minimum set of basics that define the character of a nation. In some cases, they were the reason the nation came to be. It is a given that in a democracy, a majority will set the rules and the rest is left with accepting them or leaving. That said, those rules are not set to the whims of any majority (one would hope), but with an eye on the protection of basic rights to the whole population. I like to think that if we outlaw murder, it is not just because a majority once aligned to set it in law, but because it was considered that doing so was what was best for the entire community.
It doesn’t matter who is correct. The one who breaks the law, pays for it. The community who is continuously cranking out troublemakers, gets outlawed. We didn’t outlaw mail delivery because once a postal employee climbed on the roof of a McDonald’s with a gun, if that happened every week, I am sure something would be done about it.
And some others do it out of passion, and others out of psycopathy, some others just didn’t know better, some didn’t even mean to do it. Religion is one more card in the shuffle. Why would you single it out from the rest of the reasons people do evil things?
And yes, punishment doesn’t make it all ok. But that is what we got. That’s how the system works.
Again, we all have different plans on what to do with out times. Insect dreams might not be your turn on, they might be someone else’s. We are under no imperative to optimize our thinking.
And there you answered yourself.
And nobody would starve if we only had beef and corn. But people like pork and goat and chicken and fish. People want to have their wheat and their cassava. And we are all better for it. On their potential to do good things for society, the atheist/theist divide is as relevant as blonde/brunette.
Think of how many people would turn antisocial if it weren’t for their fear of God.
And I applaud you and thank you for it. But even if there were definitive proof of the inexistence of god, that should be no objection to religion.
Think of how many quackeries are out there that have been thoroughly refuted and are still out there. Let’s say, magnetic bracelets to channel good energies (or choose any other disprovable analog if you believe on this one). They are known to have no effect on anything (other than the bank account) yet that is no reason to outlaw them. People should be free to believe whatever harmless delusion they want.
The Constitution, I hope
True, but the system has strong checks and balances to keep the ship on its keel. We don’t have a reversal on gay marriage or abortion every four years with the changing president. Again, it all boils down to the government being there to protect the freedom of the minorities and to rule in favour of the common good and not the interests of lobbies (be them majority or minority). If that isn’t happening, it is a failure of the government. Not a fault of religion.
That’s true. But religious people don’t just have views on the more aesthetic parts of law; they have views on these minimum set of basics. Abortion is probably the most obvious, because many religious people believe that a fertilised egg counts as a human person, and as such is entitled to the protection of these basics. I get that you are saying you’d prefer that people didn’t push their beliefs onto others, but the fact is that it does happen and it is, in many cases, because of religion.
Ah, but here’s the problem. Religion is continuously cranking out troublemakers; the difference (before I get horribly killed for that last remark) is that the vast majority of religious people aren’t criminals. We shouldn’t outlaw religion merely because a few religious people commit crimes. However - there are some types of crime which are almost only committed by religious people, and while it would not be fair to say “all religious people are bad” because of this, it is fair to say “a religious person is more likely than a non-religious person to commit these crimes” - and thus that religion, in a very general and slight way, is worse than the alternative.
I don’t. I think psychopathy is bad too. I think ignorance is bad too. If I could help people not make mistakes, I would.
Passion is probably the best analogy with these examples. Like religion, passion can be the motivation for both good and bad. However, I would say that in general the good things about passion, like ambition, inventiveness, and interest, outweigh the bad, and so it’s a good thing it exists. On the other hand, i’d say the bad of religion outweighs the good; so i’m not all that happy it exists.
Yes, that’s exactly right. I was making this very objection - you seemed to be characterising my position as one of “Oh, he can’t be bothered to look into all these things, while religious people do”, when I actually do and am interested. I question my situation pretty often, and it was your seeming thought that I didn’t that I objected to.
My point was we can’t do it in the same way, but we can do it.
Exactly! But if, say, eating beef caused some harm to the world, and eating corn cause less harm, shouldn’t we stick to just corn? It removes one of our options, but we lose nothing and gain more.
This is a worringly good point, and another reason i’d be against any mandatory banning of religion. Philosophically i’d like it gone, but practically any attempt to do so would be foolish (as well as wrong).
It’s worth pointing out also that people who would turn antisocial if they came to believe God doesn’t exist would have a flawed reasoning process. There are plenty of good reasons to act socially acceptably when you’re an atheist (and I don’t think you were trying to tell me atheists are all antisocial ). I’m not suggesting life would be better if all theists suddenly were forced not to believe (even if we could do that); i’m suggesting life would be better if they came to that realisation on their own, thinking through it and so providing a healthy basing of atheism rather than just “God doesn’t exist, so I can do whatever I want”.
I agree. I would say, however, that if there were definitive proof of the inexistence of god (I actually believe there is such proof, but we’ll define “definitive” as convincing everyone) that we should ban any kind of lawmaking or anything that affects others with a religious basis. People would be free to make decisions for themselves, but not for anyone else.
Amendments need a super-majority, right? It’s happened before.
It is a fault of both. Without religion, the situation would not occur (in the case of abortion, stem cell research, etc).
Just as a final thing; we do tend to get into these debates, don’t we? Just so that we don’t get on another multi-page question and answer session, I’d point out that i’m not trying to convince you that i’m right, only that (as was your original question) there are good reasons for wanting there to be no religion.
Yes we do, and I cherish them . They sure beat the cut-and-run we often get from others who just pick at whatever low hanging fruit they see and flee the threads as soon as they start smelling trouble. Or those who just stay forever with “I know you are, but what am I?” hoping their counterpart will just give up and leave them to think they “won the thread”. A moderate’s counterpoint is always welcome when one wants to refine one’s position.
There sure might be many good reasons for wanting there had been no religions, but they are here, sucky as they are. There are many reasons for wanting them to stay, now that they are here.
Let’s just hope we die with them and not from them.
Which is my point precisely; throughout the history of war, there have been no wars fought for this cause.
Using your line of thinking, Jodie Foster is to blame for the death of John Lennon.
Using your line of thinking, being white is the cause of racism.
Using your line of thinking, being heterosexual is the cause of homophobia.
Do you get that a person’s perverting something to his own ends is not the fault of the thing which has been perverted?
A lot of your definitions and exclusions seem to be so narrow and specific they smell like strawmen to me. For example, ruling out suicide bombing a s a religious act. Requiring that religious leaders be “mainstream” in order to serve as examples.
The above quote is a case in point. Why does the religion have to be “established” to count? If I tell people I am the Second Coming, and enough believe me to form an army, and I start attacking someone, religion cannot be a factor because I’m not “established”? What constitutes establishment? A PO box? 501(c) tax exemption?
And “for the purpose of defending their religion” is the only reason that qualifies a religious war? What about expanding their religion? What about stamping out heresy? Are those wars somehow qualitatively not religious?
Forgive me for sounding argumentative, but your sharply limited definitions and distinct exceptions, given at the start of the discussion, seem like attempts to rule out whole segments of discussion by fiat. Whether that’s because you’re tired of hearing those arguments, or unable to refute them, I can’t tell.
Just to be fair, it should probably be pointed out that not all athiests are on one side on these things, though i’d say the majority are.
Just so that we don’t get on another multi-page question and answer session, I’d point out that i’m not trying to convince you that i’m right, only that (as was your original question) there are good reasons for wanting there to be no religion.