Hello!

[AlexG]

So hi there! thought id join this forum for some friendly advice on a short university debate I have coming up, hopefully you can help me
But first a bit about myself. My names Alex (who'd of thunk it) I'm 19 and in my second year of university at De Montfort uni in Leicester, UK. Studying Criminology and forensic science.
so yer, that's me. As for advice on my debate, I'm just looking for ideas on the best angle to tackle the topic that "all religion should be banned." This is only for a mock to build our presentational and debating skills but, being one of the few atheists I know on my course, in a massively culturally diverse area, it would be good to put together a strong argument for my case. I only have a meagre 3 minutes to do this, so one well informed point would be more than enough. I am taking a guess that whoever is on my debating team (they are randomly allocated) will be likely to have plenty on the death count put down to religious differences (crusades to modern day terrorism etc. ) so anything other than that would be very helpful i have a couple of weeks before this comes up, so plenty of time. I appreciate this thread is probably not the ideal place to post for this sort of advice, so I am more than happy to move it, if this proves to be the case. Anyway pleased to meet you all. I look forward to being part of the forum!

[leo-rcc]

Hi and welcome. So do you think all religion should be banned?

[Minimalist]

Complex question there, Alex....and welcome, btw. Without creating the "Thought Police" I don't see how it can be done because there are plenty of people who are simply too stupid to ever give up their illusions of a sky-daddy watching out for them.

Still, given the harm which religion has inflicted on society (every society) since the dawn of the Agricultural Revolution it would seem possible to at least envision removing religion as an institution. The French Revolution did a fine job of this, for example....if only they could have sustained it.

One very positive step would be the elimination of all tax exemptions/subsidies for these parasites. Confiscation of church property and turning it into Starbucks franchises or whorehouses would be even better. If people want to believe in bullshit they can do so in their own homes without this whole god-establishment pushing its own agenda.

[thesummerqueen]

Welcome -

A quick run through our religion specific subheadings might give you the one point you want to elaborate on.

[AlexG]

Hi and welcome. So do you think all religion should be banned?

hi! In reality, of course I would not want it banned, I just rather it naturally fell out of people's conciousness and it was replaced with scientific reasoning (I suppose this is a fairly reasonable argument against the banning of religion, which I had not though of). However I know for sure that I will be arguing the case for the banning of religion, so I best concentrate on an argument for it; before I go thinking that there are no justifiable reasons for my side of the debate!

Complex question there, Alex....and welcome, btw. Without creating the "Thought Police" I don't see how it can be done because there are plenty of people who are simply too stupid to ever give up their illusions of a sky-daddy watching out for them.

Still, given the harm which religion has inflicted on society (every society) since the dawn of the Agricultural Revolution it would seem possible to at least envision removing religion as an institution. The French Revolution did a fine job of this, for example....if only they could have sustained it.

One very positive step would be the elimination of all tax exemptions/subsidies for these parasites. Confiscation of church property and turning it into Starbucks franchises or whorehouses would be even better. If people want to believe in bullshit they can do so in their own homes without this whole god-establishment pushing its own agenda.

The institution idea is a very interesting one, thank you! I know that there is no chance of me really getting people to question their religion after the end of a very short mock debate, but maybe at least if one person has a genuine think about what has been said afterwards I would regard this as a good success