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State atheism
May 1, 2013 at 11:50 am
(This post was last modified: May 1, 2013 at 11:51 am by Astronaut17.)
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?
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RE: State atheism
May 1, 2013 at 12:04 pm
A government shouldn't be telling anyone what they can and can't do... well, as long as no one is being harmed anyway.
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RE: State atheism
May 1, 2013 at 12:06 pm
I don't want a government that decides that I can't worship if I want. Once you give government the power to take away one thing, I expect that they'll find other things to take away from us.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: State atheism
May 1, 2013 at 12:10 pm
Let them waste 1 hour a week eating crackers and thinking that their thought are helping the world. What they should do is tax those "holy places" based on the amount of money people are throwing at them and remove religious symbols from public (not private) buildings.
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RE: State atheism
May 1, 2013 at 12:12 pm
Who would we we laugh at?
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.
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RE: State atheism
May 1, 2013 at 12:29 pm
(May 1, 2013 at 11:50 am)Astronaut17 Wrote: 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.
I would not favor a state which would do this by coercion. Stupid and wish thinking people can not be made less stupid and more intellectually rigorous through coercion or through the denial of venues for their stupidity. At best they could be made to put on a facical act in public while seeking new venues for their stupidity and wish-thinking in private to replace the public venues they lost. It is is not exactly clear what other venues their stupidity will find, nor whether the new venue they resort to will indeed be less burdensome or harmful to the general welfare of the society in the long run. So religious places of worship is in many ways the evil that you know, versus the evil you don't.
So I would favor a state which would deny special treatments to any religiously based or religiously affliated institutions, contributions, and special public considerations, insist these institutions pay their way like any other institutions which competes in the public market place of venues. I would also impose insistent regulations upon them, so that rather than creationism be taught in public schools, modern biology and its evolutionary foundation be given equal time at sunday schools.
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RE: State atheism
May 1, 2013 at 12:38 pm
I'm a separatist. Church should stay out of government and government should stay out of religion.
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RE: State atheism
May 1, 2013 at 1:01 pm
(May 1, 2013 at 12:06 pm)Tonus Wrote: I don't want a government that decides that I can't worship if I want. Once you give government the power to take away one thing, I expect that they'll find other things to take away from us.
The government already has the power to take things away. Why shouldn't they have the power to take phony bullshit away, too?
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RE: State atheism
May 1, 2013 at 1:07 pm
(This post was last modified: May 1, 2013 at 1:16 pm by Anomalocaris.)
I disagree.
By themselves, good government and intrinsically proselytizing religions really can't co-exist for long while operating separately because the objectives and modes of operation of each is incompatible with the other. Absent some other offseting social forces, the proselytizing nature of the religion means any government that stays clear of interference in religion would eventually be subverted by the religion. They only thing that can keep separation of state and church even nominally stable is the presence of wide spread and studied disapproval of the religion amongest the fairly large and influential segments of society, and widespread and outspoken contempt of society for leveraging religion for political gains. So any good secular government must act to create and protect this social force for its own survival. This would then be seen as interference by state in the church.
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RE: State atheism
May 1, 2013 at 1:25 pm
(May 1, 2013 at 12:04 pm)frankiej Wrote: A government shouldn't be telling anyone what they can and can't do... well, as long as no one is being harmed anyway.
That's kind of the problem, though... I always state that I think religions shouldn't ever be banned but I also think that anyone attempting to do harm should be stopped...and I can't honestly think of anything good that organized, high-participant religions have ever done for the world in general. They do more harm than good, and sometimes I think that banning them entirely would prevent a lot of harm and strife coming to a lot of people.
Still, it would require interfering in the right to choose to do wrong...and I think people should be allowed to make the choice, albeit they must suffer the consequences for it. I think that government law should over-ride religious law, however; doesn't matter what your religion says, it only matters what you did in regards to the law of the land.
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