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Updated On: 12/19/19 at 10:59 PM

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Updated On: 12/19/19 at 12:39 AM

qolbinau said: "Close - not quite as extreme. Religion is one of the metaphorical cancers harming people in the world (not the only thing). And Dave's point is that obviously the indoctrination of young children into their religious (muslim) identity and a set of beliefs about the role of Allah in the world etc.. is a very dangerous precursor to radicalisation (you will almost never find an Islamic terrorist is an atheist because they genuinely believe what they say they believe).

Look, I know what I am saying is not pleasant - I wish it could be. It must be hard for some to see why religion is so bad. After all, there are religious democrats and religious republicans (in fact, most if not all elected democrats describe themselves as religious). There are very peaceful, liberal, moderate muslims who support gay rights, women's rights and trans rights. So when you see this you might hold a number of assumptions: all religions can have good and bad impacts, but they're more or less the same - good people do good things and bad people do bad things - religion isn't really a major factor. We should all live together peacefully and just focus on individual-level beliefs/ideas/behaviours because religion isn't really that important.

But I'm telling you unfortunately this vision is even more impractical than mine, and based on assumptions that simply aren't true. The doctrines of the major religions have terrible implications for peace, gay people, women, scientific progress etc.. as we have seen over and over again throughout history, and today. The reason why many religious people are 'good' despite this is because they reject the fundamentalist, literal doctrines. Many religious people say they are Christian because they grew up that way, but they don't operate their lives in the same way as the fundamentalist Christians might do in the Republican party or deep south. And these fundamentalist types - Christians, Muslims etc. - seem to want to do everything they can to ensure either public policy aligns with their views (see: the Republican Party aka, the Christian Party of America), ISIS etc. - and/or that their family, friends behave in ways that are consistent with their views (see: the rejection of gay people, free thinkers, adulterers, etc.). They genuinely, deeply believe what they say they believe - Islamic extremists genuinely believe that they need to uphold Sharia law for the good of society and must use force/violence if needed to achieve it (watch the documentary "Among the Believers" if you need to hear it from them directly). Devout Christians genuinely believe that gay marriage, homosexuality, abortion etc. is against God's plan and need to be discouraged for the good of society.

Unfortunately, those with strong ideas based on the doctrines of their religions won't hold the same standards of "let's all just respect each other and live peacefully". It hasn't happened and it won't happen. Let us accept the vision that we must reduce religious beliefs in society, and then hope we can find a way to execute this in a peaceful and productive manner. My ideas are around changing our education systems and attitudes towards indoctrination of children (which have and are changing, but very slowly).

RE: The idea of morals/ethics. I mean, I don't know how you are defining those terms - but just to explain my view. There are no such thing as absolute morals. However, objectively there are behaviours and attitudes that impact the physical and mental wellbeing of others (e.g., attitudes towards gay people, women etc.; violence towards gay people women etc.; denial of climate change etc.). If the world's moral framework was based upon simply engaging in behaviours/holding ideas that minimise the physical and mental suffering of others - the world will be a better place. Unfortunately, religious doctrine is completely incompatible with this because their ideas impact the suffering of others (e.g., violence to implement Sharia law; excluding, hurting and killing gay people, treating women like second class citizens etc.).

If religious people would simply leave others alone to live their lives peacefully there would be no issue here. But they don't and won't.



"

This post should be read by any person in the world.

It is basically the truth of human life.

I mean it. Very well spoken Qolbinau!

songanddanceman2 said: "in fact the U.K. Has never been attacked so much."

I think this is false: there was more terrorism in the UK in previous decades. It's just that it was caused by Catholic religious nuts rather than Muslim religious nuts.

Based on my earlier post here, I obviously agree with you on the role of Western aggression in creating home-grown radicals. However, I think your assessment of qolbinau is very wrong. He has a point that can't be dismissed as simplistic Trumpism. Religious belief is a chosen thing - I turned away from Catholicism many years ago, so I know this as an intimate fact. As such, it's entirely fair game to judge people based on their religious beliefs. (Surely many religious people would judge me negatively for being an atheist, and I accept their right to do so.)

I actually don't believe that Islam has some unique penchant for terrorism; in fact, the IRA terrorism I alluded to earlier proves that's not the case. I do think that religion can and should be critiqued, though. I mean, to listen to some progressives, you'd think that Islam was the most wonderful thing ever. It's not. Every Muslim must be judged as an individual, and Islam is definitely not some giant terrorist organization, but let's not pretend that the religion itself is some kind of force for progress and equality in the world. (I could say much the same for Catholicism, my family's religion.)

Updated On: 6/5/17 at 08:56 AM

qolbinau-

In your ideal society, do you see a point in the future in which, one your educational goals are met, that practice of religion is prohibited?

After all, education alone does not stop people from practicing it, or even being radicalized.

I have yet to see a good solution for how one would go to a different country and enforce education standards in such a way to minimize the belief in religion.

Yet the people arguing for their thesis do not seem to see it as such.

Kad said: "qolbinau-

In your ideal society, do you see a point in the future in which, one your educational goals are met, that practice of religion is prohibited?

After all, education alone does not stop people from practicing it, or even being radicalized.



"

I don't think I see that particular law in an ideal society - I think making religion illegal would probably have severe unintended consequences and actually motivate martyrdom or other uprising actions where people feel they are freedom fighters etc. against the state - I mean, this is what is already happening in Islamic countries when governments are trying to intervene with force or legislation against extremists groups. Plus, I feel it is a dangerous precedent to start applying legislation around the ideas people can or cannot hold (although we already do this in very occasional/extreme examples).

I agree that the actual practicality of some of these ideas is hard. I could see it happening in western countries faster (education system reform) - we actually aren't too far off it now (which is why I think western countries are more and more escaping the shackles from religion). But in other countries, such as several of the Islamic countries, they are decades behind. The Islamic terrorism that we are dealing with is nothing like the scale of the terrorism that they are dealing with overseas internally (which is very much as mentioned a war of ideas - maybe western intervention has helped enable them (unintended) but the root cause is not the west. The root cause is the islamist ideas that these extremists want to implement - much to the dismay of the public and governments). People often use the argument "Terrorism has nothing to do with Islam - Muslims are the biggest victims". But actually, the reason why muslims are the biggest victims is because it has everything to do with Islam. It's also nothing new. Islam has been used a political weapon for a very, very long time (I mean, its initial spread/conquest was not peaceful by any means).

I won't begin to speculate what must be done overseas, but at the very least in Western countries I hope people at the very least do not deny the truth. How can we ever defeat a war of ideas if people can't acknowledge that there is a war of ideas? There are many people that cannot accept the reality that islamic extremists are using religious texts to motivate very dangerous, violent ideas (which makes perfect sense if you read some of the passages from these texts). Unless the interventions actually tackle this root cause, we won't remove it from our society.

Updated On: 6/5/17 at 10:47 PM

Updated On: 6/7/17 at 10:58 PM

Kad said: "I have yet to see a good solution for how one would go to a different country and enforce education standards in such a way to minimize the belief in religion.

any solution will have incremental benefits at best, but we had best try.

it's odd, the majority of liberals (rightly) argue about gun control, understanding that any benefit will be incremental, and they refute the argument from conservatives that it won't change anything. but when it comes to religion, liberals use the exact same argument. now isn't there something really insidious about that?

Kad said: "In your ideal society, do you see a point in the future in which, one your educational goals are met, that practice of religion is prohibited?"

Since I've expressed some sympathy for qolbinau's attitude towards religion, I'd like to answer this myself: absolutely not.

I know you weren't directly quoting me but I'm guessing what would need to happen overseas is a grassroots uprising where people start to share different ideas about religion with friends and family, then wider groups etc.. etc.. until attitudes slowly change (i.e., that it is not true and can be immoral; or maybe more mildly that it is true but some of the beliefs can be fine-tuned a little bit to be a bit more moral/consistent with perhaps the peaceful ideas of the religion). It will be a long, slow process.

I understand that science can be used for harm but there are major differences between science and religion. Science is a process for understanding the truth - that's it. With that is going to be a whole lot of positive and negative things. But understanding the truth is an absolutely core part of humanity and necessary for planes to fly, people to be healed etc.. etc....

Religion is similar in some sense that it also claims to be a process for understanding the truth - it's not. But it claims to be. However, the major difference from science (besides being based on untruths) is that in addition to claiming to be a process for understanding the truth it also (at least in the case of Christianity and Islam) prescribes a set of behaviours that it claims are important for living a 'good' life and a 'good' after-life. For example, the way we treat apostates, gay people, women etc. The way we might go about spreading the 'good news' and dealing with those who oppose the 'good news'. People interpret these 'rules' in all sorts of ways, with the general rule of thumb being the more literal they interpret it, the worse outcomes on human suffering. Like a loaded gun, the specific language in these texts is too dangerous to be left uncriticised. It seems perfectly reasonable and logical that a devout Muslim who believes the Quran is perfect because it is literally the word of God could be fooled into thinking that certain acts of violence, behaviours towards women and gay people etc. is going to be a positive thing for society and their place in the afterlife. The holy text (plus related texts like the Hadith) are like loaded guns ready for the unfortunate person to pick it up and use it negatively.

And we have to really understand and recognise that the specific ideas, such as of martyrdom, or the role of men and women in society, and homosexuality, and how apostates should be treated etc. as found in these texts does indeed guide behaviour of many religious people. When you say things like "Humans have evolved to justify things" it makes it sound like you think that say - people naturally want to kill apostates and try to find reasons to justify it. Or, people want to throw acid wash on girls' faces and find reasons to justify it. Or, people want to throw gay people off roofs and try and find a way to justify it. I mean, we don't grow up with these ideas - they are taught. Sometimes it's by religion, sometimes it's not. Religion is the source of too much though to go unnoticed.

We can illustrate this with a specific example. There are a large number of people in Egypt (and other countries too) that believe people who leave Islam should be killed. Why is this the case? Why do they believe it? Was it something they were born with that they then had to find a way to justify? Or could it be perhaps that they believe the Quran is the word of god and are aware of this particular passage? (or know people who have passed the idea down and down and down over time based on a reading of this passage at some stage).

https://quran.com/4/89

They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allah . But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper.

(Some claim this refers to 'hypocrites', not apostates. Though hypocrites in this context is a mild form of leaving the religion - leaving without quite leaving. Probably how an extremist would intercept the 'moderate' believers they are trying to revolt against in Islamic countries such as Pakistan.)




This is evil, pure evil. And it's rather unambiguous isn't it? But it makes perfect sense - if you believe that this is the word of God and is perfect. Then it is perfectly logical and reasonable that you would actually think apostates should be killed. This is why we need to unload this gun as soon as possible. We need to disarm these ideas quickly. It's not going to happen tomorrow, or next year, or 10 years. It might happen in 100 years, or 200 years. It won't happen if we don't recognise the issue and it won't happen if we don't continue to spread the moral true ideas of secularism and atheism with our friends and family, and friends of friends, and family of friends of friends etc. until every person on this earth understands that the passage above, and passages like the one above, are untrue and immoral.

Updated On: 6/7/17 at 08:04 AM

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Updated On: 12/19/19 at 06:21 PM