Debate:State atheism is the only way to get rid of religion

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(Is eradication of religion really something we should be aiming for?)
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==Is eradication of religion really something we should be aiming for?==
 
==Is eradication of religion really something we should be aiming for?==
Sure, there's a lot of bad stuff associated with religion, but should it really be completely banned? If extremism and oppositiion to science are the problem, aiming for moderate religions seems misdirected. Most moderates just go along with the ruling science but just add the caviat that God/the gods is/are behind it all (and some forms of Hinduism and Buddhism don't even require that caviat). Seems like a proper education and prevention of social or economic exclusion of people from a different culture or religion would be way more effective at getting rid of anti-science sentiment and extremism than making religion illegal. [[Special:Contributions/141.134.75.236|141.134.75.236]] ([[User talk:141.134.75.236|talk]]) 16:18, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
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Sure, there's a lot of bad stuff associated with religion, but should it really be completely banned? If extremism and oppositiion to science are the problem, (also) aiming for moderate religions seems misdirected. Most moderates just go along with the ruling science but just add the caviat that God/the gods is/are behind it all (and some forms of Hinduism and Buddhism don't even require that caviat). Seems like a proper education and prevention of social or economic exclusion of people from a different culture or religion would be way more effective at getting rid of anti-science sentiment and extremism than making religion illegal. [[Special:Contributions/141.134.75.236|141.134.75.236]] ([[User talk:141.134.75.236|talk]]) 16:18, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Revision as of 16:19, 24 March 2015

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Contents

Proposition

State atheism is better than secularism because secuarism allows unscientific blind beliefs to flourish. Religion is never going to get eradicated with secularism. A rational and scientific human mind among the entire population can be achieved only through state atheism. If exposure of religion to children is prohibited, then through scientific education, we can eradicate religion within two or three generations. --LobPo (talk) 11:47, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

For someone who despises Russia so much you sure sound a lot like Uncle Jo. Prohibiting exposing children to religion - sure, that will work. Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 13:27, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
From someone that said: A state which does not protect the rights of its citizens loses its sovereignty. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 15:11, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

State atheism could not successfully eradicate religion

I base my support for this position on two main lines. The first is that state suppression of anything will not be totally effective. See, for example, the War on Drugs, which are material things and so are much more straightforward to suppress than ideas. It hasn't worked out too well, because people find various controlled substances desirable enough to go to lengths great enough to evade the law. There are plenty of religious people who would be equally well motivated by sheer conviction as to their rightness, and so would find ways to circumvent the law. The second is some combination of appeal to infinite monkey and appeal to history. We pulled 'em out of our butt before, we could do it again: basically, somebody could plausibly come up with some religious belief even if none remained. Education is (A. Schaffly) not always sufficient to prevent people from maintaining or developing religious beliefs. PacWalker (talk) 11:59, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Not only that

But there's no reason to believe that eradicating religion is particularly helpful, even discounting those who would be quite angry at that elimination. Even if you buy into the notion that widespread common buy-in to religions is harmful to society, eradication is bad. Wrong ideas are amazingly helpful for improving understanding. Science is built on this notion. Seeing how you're wrong about things points you to ways to improve your understanding. To say certain ideas simply aren't allowed is to cut yourself off from examining their flaws.

To view religious beliefs as archaic ideas belonging to the past and not the future is okay. I do. But to see them as things to be quashed is to deny the quest for the truth due to how much you value the truth. there's an essay I've been meaning to write about this subject ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 14:01, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

How to get rid of religion

According to this article, religiosity is correlated with a feeling of helplessness. So a country with high HDI is supposed to be less religious. But this thesis fails to explain why UK, which ranks lower than US in the HDI scale, is more irreligious than the US. --LobPo (talk) 14:21, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

And this article is interesting. It shows modern China with a rising standard of living is becoming more religious that Mao's China when standard of living was very poor. --LobPo (talk) 14:25, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
I'm tempted to label this a claim of causalation, but let me instead ask you whether you believe this correlation holds over historical timescales. PacWalker (talk) 14:37, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
I like my religion. I chose it freely and fully informed when I was many decades past the age of majority. It makes my life easier, makes me happier, and, as far as I can tell, my adherence to it causes no ill effect on anyone else. I would prefer you do not marshall the power of the state to take it away from me. Thanks. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 14:46, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
This whole discussion starts from the premise that getting rid of religion is a desirable outcome. I do not agree. State atheism, like state religion, stinks of government overreach and thought policing.
In my secondary schooling, I was subject to compulsory chapel three times a week (some years six times a week) along with the rest of the student body, including the Jewish kids. Roman Catholics went to mass elsewhere on Sundays, but had to sit through Protestant vespers or matins during the week. To all outward appearances we were a mostly obedient flock, but we had fun mixing parody lyrics into the hymnic din, and harmonious "aw, shucks" (or equivalent) instead of "amen" before closing the hymnals and sitting down again. The experience was rich and complex, shall we say. It was not the intent of the school's administration to plant the seeds of my budding ignosticism/apatheism, but that's how it worked.
When I had kids of my own, we made a regular weekly practice of gathering with a congregation which might feel like home to Aging Hippie. They did not protest. They flippin well protested other things, but not that. Long story short, no government has any business trying to direct the inner life of any citizen. Such efforts belong on the dust-heap of history. Alec Sanderson (talk) 15:34, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
The discussion also assumes that getting rid of religion is possible. The states that adopted state atheism as policy ended up with personality cults, public processions carrying images of culture heroes, incorrupt bodies[wp] in shrines, and some of the worst inquisition-style institutions of repression yet known. If you can't free yourself from that stuff just by getting rid of God, what's the point? As Michael Crichton observed:
I studied anthropology in college, and one of the things I learned was that certain human social structures always reappear. They can't be eliminated from society. One of those structures is religion. Today it is said we live in a secular society in which many people---the best people, the most enlightened people---do not believe in any religion. But I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely re-emerges in another form. You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.
You'll still have all the problems that religions create without God. - Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 15:55, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Just fund welfare

My Grandmother used to work for the Mafia. One of the more famous members too. No, not as a hitwoman or anything, she just babysat some of their kids. She has some, how shall I say, enlightening views of the Mob. The Mafia was good to her and her community, during the Great Depression when people were eating their dogs. Welfare was basically a joke. So the mob steps in and fills the gap, providing the services that the government simply wasn't, paid for via extortion of the "wealthy" businesses. People didn't not snitch on the mob because of fear of retaliation, they didn't snitch on the mob because of fear of life without the mob. If you were on a jury, if you convict Easy Eddy that meant your cousin was going to go hungry, and be forced to move in with you. Do you want that to happen? Of course, Mafia extortion keeps the local society poor and starves the government of revenue which causes welfare to be cut further, so it becomes a vicious cycle.

Religion often does the same thing, providing food and such to the poor, and all the recipients have to do in return is join in group prayers. Ever wonder why religious people tend to oppose government welfare? It's a devil's deal; cut welfare and replace it with charity, which creates an endless stream of people who depend on the religious institutions for survival. What better way to increase the number of desperate people who depend on the religion than to ban abortions, prevent women from being educated, or prevent people from acquiring any sort of skills or connections that would let them survive outside of the religion?

Classic abusive scenario; you are the sole breadwinner in your family, so staying with you may seem like the better option. And if you prevent your partner from acquiring friends and connections that would help them escape, that's even fewer options. So if you were to offer a social safety net, that would eliminate the whole "stay or starve" situation that many religions have. CorruptUser (talk) 15:09, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Counterpoint: there is a hefty religious component to the economic left. Liberation theology as an example. ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 15:23, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Couterpoint, redux: What CU describes is a pretty fucking narrow understanding of what religion does. Also, the claim "religious people tend to oppose government welfare"? Christian conservatives, sure, but that is as much, if not more, a political PoV as a religious one. I'd like to see if that claim holds true fro Jews, liberal Christians, Muslims, Unitarians, etc. etc. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 15:44, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Is eradication of religion really something we should be aiming for?

Sure, there's a lot of bad stuff associated with religion, but should it really be completely banned? If extremism and oppositiion to science are the problem, (also) aiming for moderate religions seems misdirected. Most moderates just go along with the ruling science but just add the caviat that God/the gods is/are behind it all (and some forms of Hinduism and Buddhism don't even require that caviat). Seems like a proper education and prevention of social or economic exclusion of people from a different culture or religion would be way more effective at getting rid of anti-science sentiment and extremism than making religion illegal. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 16:18, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

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