Why is religion often seen as something negative? (fanaticism, worship, marriage)
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Since when one party (you) refuses to talk about fruit because they dislike green tartiness, you cannot compare apples and oranges.
Religions ARE clubs.
Religions ARE sometimes nonviolent gangs and sometimes violent ones.
Religions ARE The Politics Of Heaven.
so you are saying that tools like fire, guns, cars, and alcohol/sugar are not as good as the word club?
'religions" are clubs and need to be monitored as such. that seems to work.
So, I would use the statement, for discussion and learning, that some clubs need to "controlled" like we control fire, guns, cars, and nuc's. I would toss in alcohol and sugar too, but that may be widening it too much.
We can’t remove everything which has the potential to harm or is sometimes negative - religion, drugs, alcohol, knives, guns, bad parents, mentally unstable people, and so on.
'The technology is out of the bag'. Quite so, which is why I am no Luddite, let alone a devotee of a 'Goiden age' which never existed. But what we can do is try to educate people into seeing what's in their individual and collective best interests. It's called Humanist morality. And that is the basis of atheist morality.
Cue - some theists asking who are 'We' to think we have a mandate to educate anybody?
yeah, catchy phrase. But ultimately doesn't mean a hill beans when using it to support anti-religious/god dogma's. yes, religion cans be dangerous. but so can denying everything for anti-religious/god agenda's.
they both rely on hiding the complete truth to recruit. they can't rely on open and honest discussions.
You mean we anti-religious folks have an agenda? I must have missed a memo.
Unless, of course, making sure that religion obeys the Constitution, stays out of the government, and keeps its religious dogma to itself.
so you are saying that tools like fire, guns, cars, and alcohol/sugar are not as good as the word club?
'religions" are clubs and need to be monitored as such. that seems to work.
So, I would use the statement, for discussion and learning, that some clubs need to "controlled" like we control fire, guns, cars, and nuc's. I would toss in alcohol and sugar too, but that may be widening it too much.
That is right, religions are more like peaceful or unpeaceful gangs than political parties, more like political parties than clubs, more like clubs then books, and more like books than utensils.
I've only seen a few religions where the leadership is elected rather than accepted, and where accepting and unaccepting the religion is seen as inconsequential and with no need for membership to be socially enforced.
Communist clubs, White Supremacy clubs, Biker gang clubs, etc are often monitored (since the rich see them as a threat to their culture).
Fire is mindless and is not composed of a corporation of people.
Guns are also mindless and cause explicit physical harm, even if they psychologically empower some people and perhaps psychologically derange some other people.
Cars have computers in them but are not corporations. They also require testing on all ends (cars and drivers), monitored licensing privileges, mandatory accident and damage insurance, and a traffic police force to make sure order is maintained. Religions have not been either as destructive or as useful as cars.
Compared? I'm sure some gangs are atheist. I'm sure some gangs are nonviolent.
Don't know too many atheist gangs, to be honest.
In fact, I doubt many gangs at all care about religion.
However, gangs do tend to have a lot of religious people in them as members who may be in devout practice. Namely because a lot of gangs are made up of homogenous ethnic groups that tend to have a ot of religion in their cultures to begin with. For instance, Latino gangs tend to have a lot of Catholic members and white racist gangs tend to be primarily Christian.
In fact, I doubt many gangs at all care about religion.
However, gangs do tend to have a lot of religious people in them as members who may be in devout practice. Namely because a lot of gangs are made up of homogenous ethnic groups that tend to have a ot of religion in their cultures to begin with. For instance, Latino gangs tend to have a lot of Catholic members and white racist gangs tend to be primarily Christian.
Or the "Italian " Mafia ?ostensibly 'devote' Catholics
My post is directed towards the developed world. I know that things are very different in poor and/or undeveloped countries. Today it feels like everybody is against religion. Especially Christianity. Las I’ve been living in countries like Sweden, Norway, Canada and Australia it really feels like most people see religion as backward, oppressive, evil, stupid and so forth. Anybody religious is either stupid or weird.
So in claiming that 'everybody' is against religion and that most people see the religious (ie, themselves) as 'stupid or weird' is demonstrably wrong - unless you think that the world is full of people who both think religion is bad and/or dumb while embracing it themselves (which is highly implausible).
In other words, you've started off by establishing a seriously lack of credibility. Why should anyone waste their time with the rest of what you've written, which continues in the same less-than-accurate vein?
You mean we anti-religious folks have an agenda? I must have missed a memo.
Unless, of course, making sure that religion obeys the Constitution, stays out of the government, and keeps its religious dogma to itself.
Is that the agenda you mean?
what you listed is not anti-religious. although, anti-religious will trip over some appropriate stuff, more by accident than thinking about it.
anti-religion will do anything to stop any beliefs that religions could use. If science is being used to form a belief about god ... outlaw the science discussion. If the science demonstrates that some claims by the believer lines up to the standard stand they make a conscious choice to minimize that discussion so that theist can't use it so that selling atheism isn't harder. The word "god" absolutely freaks anti-religious people out. they get so freaked out that they lose focus on what is actually being said. Like word "hilter" freaks most people out even if we were talking about the rocket advancements they made. Now, for me, The word "hitler" is far worse than the word god. But anti-religious have a visceral reaction to the word.
If I use your list for anti-religious, then I would say that religion is nothing more than teaching love, compassion, and understanding along with the duty to help when one can.
Now you and I know that theism and atheism can coexist just fine. But the personality disorders i would associate with Fundy theist are in atheism and I would classify them as anti-religious. Just as the Fundy theist is anti-religious to every other religion.
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It's the one I mean.
