Atheists, Answer This Question.... { Christians/Theists you get in here to }

[SeekerSA]

Why not just make it a crime to preach and attempt to convert any place outside of the building of any particular religion

You really cannot do this in the US as you have this free speech everyone raves about.

Recently the ACLU argued for the JW's in a gated community denying them to exercise their nonsense.

I have a 90lb bull mastiff and he keeps them out of my yard. My doG is greater than theirs if you get my drift?

Then again, we really do not have this problem here in South Africa apart from the occasional JW shouting at the gate till he meets Rex. It is fun to watch their eyes get real big and then run down the street.

Meet Rex


He does not bark till he is 3 paces from the gate which he would have no problem scaling if he weren't so dumb.

[Clark Park]

Originally Posted by LargeKingCat

Religions like any other social fad come and go. Think about it.... We do not have Horus' eye on our dollar coin or Athena stamped on our nickles now do we? and when was the last time they sang "Hail Zoroaster" Before a baseball game ? Those religions have come and gone
Christainity will be like that in a few thousand years or less.

While I doubt there is any organized modern day religious communities of the ancient Egyptian or Greek religions (although I am quite sure there must be at least a few individuals that profess belief in the Deities of classical antiquity); Zoroastrianism is still a living religion. Modern day Zoroastrians are usually referred to as Parsis, and while most of them live in India and Pakistan, there are Parsi communities in the US and Australia.

[OwlKaMyst]

Originally Posted by SeekerSA

You really cannot do this in the US as you have this free speech everyone raves about.

and we have freedom OF religion and not freedom FROM religion...which at times would be nice to have...
and what about that freedom of speech. There are already laws that supercede that. People cannot sexually harrass someone. Telling a woman she has nice boobs could get you in trouble.
You can't kill people over thier faith either, but that is the premiss of the discussion....it's hypothetical, thus so are the answers...
In my hypothetical solution, people would still be 'free' to speak what they want about religion....they would just be limited to where they could do that.
While that does go against the reality of our free speech, currently, as of a few months ago- we now have restrictions on where and when we can protest.
So while it is hypothetical, the direction in reality is that it's headed that way....Or at least a similar direction....
Not as free as we used to be...

[Randomstudent]

Originally Posted by mikebnllnb

The eventual eradication of religion is a slow burn. Will the idea of a creator ever completely die? Probably not. But I think that dogmatic religion will.

As long as people lust for power, and control over other people organized religion will never die.

[PoppySead]

If atheist tortured believers, took away their rights and eventually locked them up and killed them we would be them. Not wanting to participate in all of those hideous things are why I'm an atheist.

[SeekerSA]

OKM

In SA our free speech goes hand in hand with laws like anti hate speech, one cannot go into town and start preachings that gays are an abomination, that will get you arrested, they can do that within the confines of their church.

In the cities, gated communities are all over and where they are not, folk have huge 6'+ walls with razor wire and electric fencing. Intercoms at the gate is how far they will get. Likewise, in an apartment block, they are also gated for security and if say someone lets one of these tards in, they are allowed to go only to that apartment. If they wish to continue, they have to go back out and reuse the intercom apartment by apartment.

In shopping malls and any public place, they have to get the permission from the mall owner to say erect a stand handing out literature or even going person to person. Public places require permission from the municipality.

Probably the only place you will find say a guitar wielding street evangelist will be in the outback towns that have no malls and still have public pavements. It is probably too difficult to police that.

This all comes with the right to privacy. Properties are all at minimum fenced off all round and not open plan front yards that gives them access to your front door.

I do not recall any instances recently where anyone really complained or a court case. Most of this stuff was anyway driven by security rather than preventing the religious. The laws and situation tend to work out in the home owner/occupants favour.

The malls that exist, they are very strict on keeping the shoppers happy and not harassed.

Come christmas time, we do not have these issues of public buildings/places and nativity scenes like they do in the US. Xmas is very secular here and if you hear carols in the mall, it is usually secular.

In a nation that is probably as self ID xian as America is, we just do not have these issues that seem to plague the US.

Hell where I stay not even the churches do nativity scenes on their property, stuff would probably be stolen anyway So they do it in the church buildings.

Then again being Africa and summer here in December, most folk head off on annual vacation.

In Bulawayo where I grew up, we had a park and this was done up in lights, props from various fairy tales, a nativity scene, they had an open air carols by candle light hosted by some charity organisation and that was it.

I guess our christmas here is much like your thanksgiving, all about family.