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

From RationalWiki
Jump to: navigation, search
Debate.JPG This is a Debate page.
Feel free to add your own spin on the story. Please keep it civil!
Information icon.svg This debate was created by LobPo.


Contents

[edit] 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)
Superstitious belief is not right. --LobPo (talk) 17:32, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Nice equivocation of right & rights. ЩєазєюіδWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 18:23, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Nice, particularly in how it avoids what's actually problematic about this idiotic suggestion. Yes, superstitious beliefs are not right, that's essentially a tautology, but they are absolutely a right. The right to one's own thoughts is central and essential to modern post enlightenment society and discourse. Having a government which actively seeks to limit the thoughts of its citizens, whether its in the name of saving their souls or preventing them from believing things that some high school kid has decided are silly after reading the first couple pages of a Dawkins book, is the antithesis of what I value. Marlow (talk) 18:58, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
No harm, no foul. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 17:33, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
No harm, and doesn't block my driveway, people can think whatever they want. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 21:00, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Atheism is a worldview. In that regard, it's not special compared to any religion. The only thing that makes it special is the fact that it's the correct worldview (atheism or agnosticism, not sure which one). Now, the problem is that giving the state the right to decide what the correct worldview is and to suppress all other worldviews can only backfire. I sure wouldn't want to live in a world where any inquiry about whether vaccines cause autism are prohibited, or where teaching a child about what I perceive to be the way the world works could get me into prison. Doesn't matter that I find both creationists and anti-vaccers stupid. --Norman (talk) 12:42, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)
While I'm hesitant to accept that the premise of the above quotation holds down to an individual level, as an observation of occurrence of religious ideas in a society considered collectively, I think it spot on. PacWalker 12:58, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

[edit] 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)
It might be narrow, but from the televangelists and conservative Christians in the US government it seems to be what Christianity has become. When public figures chuckle at a good Christian radio host contemplating pistol whipping a bus full of nuns because they dare speak out about a new budget slashing help for the poor, in opposition to what Jesus taught, what are people supposed to view the faith as anymore? I don't see how this perception is the problem of the people who don't believe and are not a part of the faith. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 16:38, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
" When public figures chuckle at a good Christian radio host contemplating pistol whipping a bus full of nuns because they dare speak out about a new budget slashing help for the poor, in opposition to what Jesus taught, what are people supposed to view the faith as anymore?" Well, I guess they could listen to the fuckin' nuns who were 1. deeply invovled with the faith and 2. using it as a grounding for a critique of unjust social policies. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 17:39, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Whose perception? The view from inside any particular faith community differs from the views promoted by those who make a noisy public show of religiosity, which differ again from well-researched survey data on "what Christianity has become," if any such studies exist. Alec Sanderson (talk) 16:56, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Most people are trying to be good people, or at least just trying to live their lives without harming their neighbors. Religions are made up of people. Any good or bad they do is the result of the actions of the people involved. The religions "guide" the people as to what the definition of "good" is. The religions grow or shrink based on how effective the ideology is in growing the religion, just like biology, whether or not the people adhering to the religious ideology conciously know what they are doing.
I know it sounds like the crazy conspiracy nonsense we denounce, but I can't help but notice all the cities with Christian-run homeless shelters (and no city one) that mandate group prayers and require everyone to be in by 7 PM. I'm not personally advocating the elimination of all religions, but I just want a society where no one is ever forced by their circumstances to join a religion, in much the same why I don't want people to be forced to stay in abusive relationships. And having some form of social safety net outside of the relationship is the best way to accomplish this. CorruptUser (talk) 17:34, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
I smell a false dilemma here. We can have both religion and a proper social safety net. Ask the Swedes. 2/3 of them belong to the Church of Sweden. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 17:42, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Never claimed we couldn't. Not all religions are about forcing people into the religions. However, the Jehova's Witnesses, the FLDS, the Amish, Quiverfulls, Scientology and probably a huge number of others operate in this manner; prevent members from accessing any social services, prevent them from acquiring skills and/or connections to the outside, and you can force them to stay in. CorruptUser (talk) 17:46, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
No doubt. But there's a big gap between that and your original claim that most religious people want to see welfare disappear. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 17:49, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
"Tend" is probably the wrong word, I admit. Probably need the qualifier "some" before "religious people". CorruptUser (talk) 17:57, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
If you want a nice public study look at the last 2 US presidential elections. 2008 had a loud, boastful, ignorant, fatalist religious fanatic as a vice presidential candidate...while 2012 had 2 religious right candidates looking to gut help for the poor and give tax breaks to wealthy while endorsed by the religious leaders to the point of thumbing their nose at US law. As well as the popularity of televangelists fleecing the faithful, and popular media personalities. It doesn't mean everyone is of the same ideal...but these are the people with millions of followers that openly condemn other popular religious leaders that seem to be trying to be more in the spirit of Jesus. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 17:56, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
You know those folks lost those elections, right? And that their presence had as much to do with a strategic decision on the part of the Republican party to use religious discourse as a way to provide a particular justification for a particular ideological position -- in other words, the people who stood to benefit from the gutting of social policies were more interested in using religion as a way to achieve a polical project that would put more money in their pockets than they were in crafting policy that was tru to a particular reading of scripture. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 18:02, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes, on the losing and using it for political gain. One can't just ignore tens of millions of people, thousands of churches, and tens of thousands of hours of media time as " not true representatives of Christians" because you judged the quality of their faith to be unworthy. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 20:01, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
From Wikipedia:Church attendance vs welfare spending in Christian Societies. So does low welfare spending increase church attendance, low church attendance cause welfare, or is it just a causalation? CorruptUser (talk) 20:12, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
You're conflating religiosity(proxied here by attendance, a close correlate) with religious belief. Unfortunately, study has revealed they're not the same thing. There's even reason to believe that religiosity is mostly genetic(adoption studies). ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 20:20, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
It's also a re-enforcement of the study that many people consider themselves Christian but don't really know much about it. Probably why so many people can be manipulated by saying something is true to their faith when it is the exact opposite. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 21:04, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

[edit] 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 opposition 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 (which would just make it more extreme btw). 141.134.75.236 (talk) 16:18, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

The answer is an obvious "no" to virtually everyone here, and we're mostly atheists. ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 16:34, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

[edit] State atheism is not necessarily violent suppression

An atheist state will not necessarily violently suppress religion. A liberal atheist state will 1. actively propagate scientific understanding of religion and God, 2. prohibit construction of new religious buildings, but will not demolish existing religious buildings, 3. will heavily tax religious organizations and this extra tax-money will be used to fund atheist education. 4. will heavily tax religious items. Tax on religious books may be over 1000% of the book's original cost. --LobPo (talk) 17:45, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Quick question: are you a troll, an idiot, or one of these teenage geniuses who thinks he has all the answers because he's that much smarter than everyone else in the class and nobody understands him? Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 17:48, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Why? --LobPo (talk) 17:49, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Because if you fall into any of those three categories I'm going to take this page of my watchlist and ignore anything you post from here on out. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 17:50, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
This debate proposes that state atheism can eliminate religion. Taxation shows a frustrating inability to drive products all the way off the market (see, for example tobacco). There is some point at which demand is just not terribly respondent to price. I should remember the actual economic term for this, but I don't. As to point 2 above, have antique/grandfathered ivory products disappeared? PacWalker (talk) 21:12, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
I was wondering about that. People can check out religious books from the library, or have their own (physical or electronic), or make their own religious items. Can't tax those things and can't get rid of them if people say no. Without understanding of those faiths you also can't understand history so history books would need to be removed, including books about science/philosophy/fiction that mention faith to prevent exposure entirely. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 21:19, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Elasticity is the term for importance of price shifts in supply or demand. ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 21:23, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Ah yes. Duh. Thank you. PacWalker (talk) 21:31, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

[edit] That's totalitarian crap

The state shouldn't neither establish nor suppress religion. That'd be totalitarian. If I don't harm anyone else, it's my stinkin business, whether I believe in the god of the so-called Abrahamitic religions, Shiva, Buddha, Madoka or don't in any gods at all. And it won't work anyway, just look at the Soviet Union, Red China, Old Japan and many others--Arisboch (talk) 19:50, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Bullshit, Madoka is the One True God, who with her Prophet Homura she will lead us to the path of truth and not let us fall into the claws of Kyubey. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ Red rose 02.svg WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT MY HAIR? 20:11, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

[edit] Efficacy of state atheism

Lob, are there any examples of 100% irreligion resulting from state atheism?

If not, how does state atheism compare with liberal democracy? αδελφός ΓυζζγςατΡοτατο (talk/stalk) 21:04, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

[edit] Inability of a single state/group of states to effectively prevent international transfer of ideas

I do not believe a single state (or even a fair-sized group of states) could effectively prevent religious ideas (or other ideas) from spreading to their populace from abroad. Either people will find ways to slip through the cracks (see, for example, missionaries to PRC-held territory, or workarounds for various internet censorship mechanisms) or other states will find a way to exploit/create openings to convey ideas (see, as a primarily secular example, Radio Free Europe). While this objection does not necessarily hold if the whole world were to adopt such policies, I do not believe such a scenario to be the subject of this debate. PacWalker (talk) 21:07, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

[edit] Why is US more religious?

Why is US more religious than Europe? --LobPo (talk) 05:34, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Describe how just asking this question furthers the debate. To my knowledge no present-day European state has a policy such as that proposed here. My knowledge is somewhat prone to error, however, so if I am mistaken let me know. PacWalker 05:40, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
My vague understanding is that most European countries have state churches, or had them for a long time in the past. Having a state church seems to enable the assumption that your soul's salvation has been taken care of by your citizenship and taxes, so personal involvement is very optional. Where the church is also historically a focus of political resistance, like in Ireland or Poland, they seem to thrive better. - Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 12:25, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
So if I couple that information with the assertion (which I do not contest) that Europe is less religious than America, I seem to be led to the conclusion that increasing secularization of the state actually increases religiosity... which actually makes more sense by far than I was about to say it did. PacWalker 12:52, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
It's complicated. There's lots of relevant historical elements, my advice is to start with reading about the second great awakening, which was probably the most important turning point for American religiosity. But it's also not possible to ignore the rise of the religious right in the 70s and 80s, and how they made religious identity a crucial part of every stupid fucking discussion. ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 13:49, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
To me, there are four crucial things: First, America had no established church. Established churches in Europe tended to cut down on revivalism and born-again-type religious believers, which were often the strongest believers. Second, America has and has had a much, much higher immigrant population than Europe. Immigrants often seek to preserve their identity in their new host culture, which often means preserving the faith. Third, religion has been tied to cultural identity. Slaves were forced to be religious, and modern black identity still carries a religious component. Rural folk are supposed to be religious, in the same way that Europeans are supposed to be nonreligious. Being a white southerner has been tied to "tradition", especially a conservative Christian tradition. Fourth, World War II. Not only did WWII kill millions of Europeans and make the world and god seem unjust, but in both wars nationalism was tied to religion (think Onward Christian Soldiers and Gott mit Uns), and nationalism failed and led to death, thus making religion seem bad. FuzzyCatPotato™ (talk/stalk) 15:35, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I feel we should remember that "Europe" is not a country and that religious belief varies widely amongst the countries which comprise Europe.--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 15:45, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Community
Tools
support