RE: Why should religion have any influence on our lives?
October 3, 2014 at 8:38 am
(This post was last modified: October 3, 2014 at 8:45 am by Fidel_Castronaut.)
(October 3, 2014 at 8:34 am)Michael B Wrote:(October 3, 2014 at 8:19 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote: *coughs* I don't think you quite read Fidel right there, Michael. Pretty sure he wasn't talking about top-down government enforcement (hence his point about religious neutrality being a good thing), he was talking about what people as individuals can do, I believe.
If that's the the case then I'm not following the argument. Surely as atheists you already don't teach religion to children? Who is it that needs to refuse to teach it? But perhaps Fidel can elaborate a little more.
I'm not talking about atheists I'm talking about society.
You claimed that the only way to remove the impact/influence of religion on society is to remove religious people.
I am saying that's absurd and that, in fact, if you use the metric that the influence of religion on society is directly proportional to the number of religious people there are in society, removing them (physically, by force) is not necessary.
You can also remove the ability for them to propagate by either. 1) Physically preventing religion being teached (I am 100% for removing religious education that teaches one religion as true and others as false) or 2) Creating an equal playing field for all religions, including non-religious beliefs and ideologies, to be taught on an equal basis with no true value claims inherent within it.
The latter is the basis for UK education policy right now. The former would be a facet of a totalitarian state, I agree, but nowhere have I advocated it and nowhere have I inferred anything to do with atheism.
You've also made the mistake of presuming that as an atheist I don't want people to know about religion/teach religion. Why have to presumed this? Being an atheist doesn't preclude me from studying or teaching about religion. Indeed I'm a PhD student who actively studies it and teaches it. What I [i]don't[i] teach is that religion x = the truth whilst all others teach lies.
(October 3, 2014 at 8:34 am)Michael B Wrote: Again, this makes the mistake of trying to divide beliefs from people. There are plenty of atheists who have political machinations and would seek to make society more atheist. Do people really need reminding of the great atheistic political movements of the first half of the twentieth century? The widespread enforcement of atheism by the suppression of religion was a corner-stone of both the Russian and Chinese revolutions.
Atheists, not atheism. Your point is invalid, and that's bracketing out the spuriousness of the claims regarding political movements in the 20th century and atheism.
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