(June 20, 2015 at 11:14 pm)Jenny A Wrote: ...
If religion were ended by force, I think the results would be horrific, because only a very repressive totalitarian government could manage such a thing. Political ideologies can be every bit as destructive as religion.
Religion cannot be ended by force. If such an attempt were made, and if it had any seeming success, it would only mean that it drove religion underground. People would still be secretly religious. That is what happens with opposing religions in countries where there is a state religion that forbids such things. People still believe, but hide it. When the Catholics were torturing "heretics" in the dark ages, it did not make everyone believe Catholicism.
Unless, of course, you mean that force is used to end the entire human race. That would end religion by force, but that is pretty much the only way that force could ever end religion.
One cannot stop people from believing nonsense by force. At most, one gets them pretending to not believe whatever they believe. Again, excluding just killing everyone.
Of course, you are right that it would be a very bad thing to try to end religion by force. Just like it would be a bad thing to try to force people to believe anything, or to not believe anything. The attempted use of force to convince people of things is itself a fallacy, and even has a name: argumentum ad baculum or appeal to force. Aside from being unkind, it is unreasonable as well. And ultimately, ineffective for getting everyone to believe or not believe something.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
