State atheism

[Gearbreak]

We're just as bad as religion when we start banning their shit. Taxing them is fine, trying to take away their religion is not.

[Anomalocaris]

We're just as bad as religion when we start banning their shit. Taxing them is fine, trying to take away their religion is not.

Well, no.

It is not the basic act of religion ltrying to ban what it does not like that is its worst excess. It is the how it determines what it ought to like and dislike that enables religion to do its longest lasting and deepest harm.

So while we could be just as bad as religion when we start banning their shit, we don't need to be as bad as religion even when we start banning their shit.

[frz]

Separation of church and state is best. Banning religion would be taken away their freedom of expression.

[Gabriel Syme]

I wanted to know if you would be in favor towards a state atheism. Not a state atheism as did the Soviets (physical elimination of people), but a state atheism where there is the physical elimination of most places of worship, the conversion of these places in places and really useful, especially the confiscation of property and money of all religious movements in the world.

Do you think that if one uses the heritage of the Catholic Church for only a year, we would be able to send into space rover like, Curiosity once every 2 weeks.

What do you think?

Its a terrible idea all round, my man!

My main problems with it:

1) You would unfairly besmirch most atheists reputation

By advocating the state adopt a single stance above all others, and then pursuing a policy of oppressing human rights and state theft, you would portray atheism as intolerant, immoral and hypocritical (the latter because presumably you would be against a theocracy, but are pro the same conditions for atheism).

I think atheists are likely to be overwhelmingly decent people, so most probably the majority of them would oppose such policies. (although I have noticed some of them are easily swayed lol).

2) You would end up killing lots of people

Although you say you don't want to kill people, you would inevitably just create the next mass-murdering USSR / North Korea / whatever. This is because you would naturally encounter resistance to your plans, hell, someone might even fire a gun.

Ultimately, the only possible outcomes for this situation would be to either back down or murder those who opposed you.

3) You would create a major humanitarian disaster

By depriving religious organisations from functioning, you would in a stroke remove the education, healthcare and aid which 100s of millions of people depend on from religious groups.

For example, the Catholic Church alone provides 26% of the world total healthcare provision, is the largest non-governmental educational body in the world and spends approx. $2 billion on aid and development per year.

4) You would concentrate most wealth, and human heritage (buildings and art) in the hands of a small wealthy elite

As happened in the protestant reformation and French revolution, when this "steal the Churchs stuff and sell it" ploy was tried before. What happens is that a few very wealthy/powerful people hoover all the stuff up and most people get nothing.

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Banning religion would be taken away their freedom of expression.

Banning religion would be in direct contravention of the charter of universal human rights.

[Raven]

Banning religion would be the worst thing we could do. Besides being unconstitutional (in the US) and counter to human rights anywhere, you would give a bunch of wingnut fanatics a wonderful opportunity to die a martyr's death, something Xtians have not had in centuries. Just what we need, right? Let 'em pray for their pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye-when-they-die. Keeps them happy. But taxing the churches themselves and making them pay their fair share - THAT would be a good thing. It could be done if we sold it right. Why should the people in the pews pay, and the churches do not? Fair is fair.

[Ryantology]

No. I want religion to go away, but I want this to happen by way of our species growing up and leaving it behind. Forcing them to do it would be immoral and probably counter-productive.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Agree with most of the above; I hold the pillars of secularism and would ensure freedom of and for religion for all. I disagree it's people trying to prosletyize to me and others, but I wouldn't remove their right or their freedom to believe whatever they wanted to so long as it didn't harm anyone else.

[Mononoke]

People should be allowed to build private buildings to invisible friends. People should be allowed to congregate in said buildings and talk about their invisible friends. Like, I don't know, musicians in a concert hall learning about music theory, but less productive.

[Polaris]

I'd rather not repeat the 20th century...

[Dragonetti]

Government should be neutral to all systems of beliefs.

Government and States are here to enrich and improve society as a whole.