Irrational by nature
Offline Are humans irrational by nature? Everything seems to indicate that's absolutely the case, and religion is a perfect example of this.
When Ancient Greece was at the peak of its progress, people like Democritus managed to, more or less, figure out some of the things we know today. But in the end, the Roman empire collapsed, and we ended up having 1000 years of ignorance thanks to the Christians.
But science began to rise up against the irrational Christian beliefs, even though the church fought back by doing kind acts like setting Giordano Bruno on fire.
Today, nations like Poland and the US could go back to the dark ages thanks to the fundies that are taking control of their governments step by step. The problem isn't confined to the west. Turkey is becoming another Iraq and Malaysia is another fine example of that. Muslim fundies are taking control of the Turkish and Malaysian governments. The same thing happened to Iraq. Feminists gained a lot of power before the Ayatollahs took over. Needless to say the feminists were persecuted.
How can we stop centuries of ignorance from making a comeback? There were no nuclear weapons in the dark ages, or machine guns, or any other weapon that could kill hundreds, thousands of people, and even then, religions caused the deaths of millions. And there was no media that could be manipulated to feed lies into people's heads.
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APPEAL TO FEAR! APPEAL TO FEAR!
Except that it's precedented. Right, but you don't take any bad person's word that they do bad things because of their interpretation of scripture. People in harsh economic crises identify themselves with religions, but deep down they know they're only involved in a class struggle which is totally unaffected by their supposed beliefs.
Straw-man, I know, but I'm sick of hearing what sounds essentially like that.
Errr, actually I was pointing out his appeal to fear.
But whatever floats your boat.
And I was pointing out why worry is understandable in light of the motives of religious nutters. Can fear be a legitimate motive to oppose religion when the want of armageddon has access to the tools to make it happen? Well, yeah.
Like I said, if your goal is to keep religion out of government, I agree. If it is to end all religion I don't.
Religion can be kept out of government with the people still free to worship.
Fear makes people irrational. What if atheists and agnostics, out of fear, decided to start a crusade against religious people? Fear of a self-fulfilled armaggedon could lead to this. Fear of another dark ages could lead to this. Fear of being persecuted could lead to this.
But what if we, out of fear, started to behave like the communists? They didn't kill in the name of God, nor did they kill in the name of atheism, but they did kill in the name of power, and some of them were probably delusional enough to think they were doing something good.
Fear could make people marginalize religious people, which in turn could turn them into martyrs and make things even worse for us all. Appealing to emotions is the worse thing that can be done, specially fear. After all, fear of life, fear of the future, is what makes people believe in some imaginary friend who is safeguarding us all.
Banning religions is not a solution. Keeping religion out of the government is the solution, and right now, that's not happening in the US, Turkey, Iran, Latin America, Poland, and many other nations.
If there is such a thing as a truly modern religion, ruled by a contemporary god, I haven't seen it. To borrow an observation from Sam Harris, religious moderation owes its civility to the acceptance of the practicality of secularism, while religious ideas are held nominally by the grace of cognitive dissonance. I wouldn't restrict worship if I could, but let's not delude ourselves that it's compatible with a rational world.
If there is such a thing as a truly modern religion, ruled by a contemporary god, I haven't seen it. <------------------Scientology = science fiction mixed with psychoanalysis.
According to scientology, we are descendants of a group of gods called Thetans. The evil Xenu, ruler of the galatic empire, triedto killed the Thetans, but some of them survived and became what we are today. Xenu is still alive, but don't worry; Tom Cruise will save us all.
Scientology. GAH!
Are we sure there aren't two "human" species running around on this planet?
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Gah. Every time I see Poland brought up in regards to religion I get sad. Every time I'm over there I see how deeply infuriated the young, secular, educated urbanites are, like much of my family.
There's going to be a battle over religion and government there, too
The Enlightenment wounded the beast, but the killing blow has yet to land...
Like I said, if your goal is to keep religion out of government, I agree. If it is to end all religion I don't. <------------Each time someone tries to put an end to an evil (assuming religions are evil), terrible things happen. Just look at the French and Russian revolutions. Did they have to resort to so much violence in order to end monarchies?
Religion can be kept out of government with the people still free to worship. <-------true, but organizations like the Catholic Church have ways of interfering with people's affairs. I remember reading something about the Church buying hospitals in the US and asking doctors to refrain from talking about birth control, abortion, vasectomies in them. The rule applied even to people who were not catholic.