Thread:User talk:Tmtoulouse/Bump: You know that obnoxious thing people do on the internet when they've said something and they feel they haven't been paid enough attention? I'm doing that./reply (28)

Consider that in Islam, your "Sunday School" may well indoctrinate children to become fanatic suicide bombers. Much of the children's television in the Islamic world is seriously unhinged. However, your argument would count this under religion, and therefore harmless and should be respected and tolerated. I do not buy for one moment that just because we arbitrarily put one form of belief under the banner of "religion" that we should protect it and shield it from free and rational inquiry, and mockery if it necessarily flows from that. Should we not also shoehorn any political beliefs - views on taxation, universal health care, abortion and so on - into that protective bubble?

Your attempt to create a distinction that is objective and all-encompassing is noble, but currently it's very half-baked and open to many holes. Currently all you have is "that's different" when faced with some beliefs falling on the wrong side protective scrutiny free zone you're trying make. This is just special pleading and I don't think you will ever get that far without first trying to figure out a full and encompassing definition of the word "religion" first. Once you've done that, the hard part is done.

Right now you seem to be working backwards; trying to say religion is free from rational/irrational labels and trying to justify that. Instead, try to figure out what properties a belief system should have in order to make it fully immune from rational scrutiny, and why that should be so, and then try to find out what fits it. This should avoid any special pleading problems that arise from endless back-and-forth example-counter-example exchanges. You may think that you have already done this, but I think you've been too circular, effectively saying that things exempt from rational scrutiny should be religious, religious are religious, so religions should be exempt from rational scrutiny.