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[Virex]

Unfortunately, I don't think it will ever come to be, because men are jealous and wrathful and when presented with a view that's obviously better then the one they hold, their natural reaction is not to adapt it but to reject and even suppress it (note that the inverse is not necessarily true).

I hate appeals to supposed features of human nature, especially when on the subject of prejudice.  Men (which I assume you meant as the human race) are not jealous and wrathful any more than women are bad at math.  I've been debating on the internet from what is widely seen as a wide-eyed idealist platform for roughly 14 years, and "that's impossible because people are -insert negative personality trait here-" is always the first shot fired at anything seen as too lofty.  It never ceases to amaze me how that claim comes most often from people who are otherwise rigorous about backing up claims with data and attacking biases, and who rarely give a nod to the fact that they are describing a set of entities that happens to include themselves.

It should be noted that I dislike appeals to the supposed goodness of people, for they always feel like an easy cop-out to not take hard decision. "If we would just talk some more, everything will become better, no need for legislation or anything that would take hard work". If only the world worked that way...

Both stances however, are a personal belief, since nobody has really been able to test these ideas yet. However, I base my ideas upon the high probability that the Halo effect, false consensus effect and intergroup bias are inherently to the human mind and that there will therefor always be a significant part of the human population that persists in it's flawed ways if left to their own devices, no matter what the outside world tries to tell them. While it is true that most of the population does not have that problem, a small but persuasive group can yet have a large effect upon the general consensus, meaning that misogynism will keep seeping into the civilized world. (see fundamental Christians in the US for a prime example)

Virex: you explicitly DID bring up the Muslims in Spain and the Cathars. The reason they were not present is that they were exterminated as vermin.

I did, to show that it is indeed possible. I also immediately added that we should not employ the same means.

And the early soviet union also forbid religion, pushing it underground for decades, murdered many, and the Russian orthodox faith still exists. Now look at the war on drugs and see how well that has gone. Banning religion is fundamentally wrong and pointless unless you plan on exterminating everyone. With reading and books common, even that becomes incredibly difficult. In the internet age of invisible cryptographic partitions and global instantaneous communication it is utterly impossible.

I really can't believe I am actually defending religion.

On the other hand, slavery has effectively been removed from most of the western world and marginalized in a large part of the rest of the world. What it took for that to happen was a turnover in the way people think, along with legislation to mop up the remainders. That is exactly what I'm aiming at. Society has to first and foremost be changed fundamentally and in this progress legislation is only a small step, but I believe it's an important one to seal the fate of the old ways for once and for all. I'm dreaming of a world where the people who believe religion gives them the freedom to confine their wife to the kitchen are treated for the slave drivers they are. It's not an easy path, but I believe it is possible.

Also, forcing misogynism underground in the same way that slavery or drug trade has been forced underground will be a great victory, almost on par with actual exterminating it. Because if it's forced underground, then calling people out on it will actually become effective. In such a case it would finally be not done to talk to friends or relatives about your wife in the same way one would talk about a couch. It would finally be so that insulting all females would cost a politician votes instead of gaining them. I yearn for a world where people who think this way are treated as pariah's instead of the center of popular culture and politics.

[SalmonGod]

Both stances are a personal belief, since nobody has realy been able to test these ideas yet. However, I base my ideas upon the high probability that the Halo effect, false consensus effect and intergroup bias are inherently to the human mind and that there will therefor always be a significant part of the human population that persists in it's flawed ways if left to their own devices, no matter what the outside world tries to tell them. While it is true that most of the population does not have that problem, a small but persuasive group can yet have a large effect upon the general consensus, meaning that misogynism will keep seeping into the civilized world. (see fundamental Christians in the US for a prime example)

Thanks.  I don't have nearly so much problem with this.  I do concede that there are tricks to the way the mind works that any hope for social progress needs to figure out how to work around or incorporate into its goals.

I do disagree with your ideas about the persuasiveness of small groups who cling to irrational believes.  Unless they believe in something that is difficult to disprove, then they're usually seen as just that.  Fundamentalist Christians in the U.S. are a shrinking group but still very large.  It's their numbers, the high status and wealth of many of their members, and that their beliefs were once institutional standards that haven't yet been completely dismantled that makes them influential.  I've never seen any indication that their views are at all persuasive to anyone outside of their group. 

It should be noted that I dislike appeals to the supposed goodness of people, for they always feel like an easy cop-out to not take hard decision. "If we would just talk some more, everything will become better, no need for legislation or anything that would take hard work". If only the world worked that way...

I don't think people are inherently good or bad, though I believe our potential in either direction is infinite.  I do believe we begin with a hint of compassion, due to the fact that we are born dependent on others, and thus awareness of the connectedness of our well-beings begins at an early age.  Of course, even this isn't universal, as some children are abused or neglected from birth, and others are physically damaged such that they're incapable of compassion.

[Nadaka]

I have much MUCH MUCH larger and more personal issues against religion than men using it to justify misogyny. None of you have have any idea what "Fundamentalist Christians" really are. I do, first hand. I survived and I got out. You really do not want to go there with me.

I would do anything ethical to rid the world of religion, but it is both impossible and wrong to force everyone to see things your way even if your way is better.

[freeformschooler]

Nadaka do you believe religion inherently creates evil? I vaguely remember you saying something like that once in the last thread we had about religion. While I can't anywhere near sympathize with your experiences, and I'm basically the opposite of fundamentalist, I'm religious (sort of) and so is my dad, and the only thing we want from our religion is for it to learn from it and help us improve the world and others (but not by attempting to spread it or force it on others or whatever like the baptists I grew up with).

[Nadaka]

Actually, I do. It isn't the only source of evil, and most religious people are not evil. But there is something fundamental about faith and dogma that sometimes creates an opening for something malignant, corrupt and infectious to fester unchallenged by reason or morality.

In order to force others away from that, I would have to cast off my ethics, my belief that people have a basic right to free will. To me the mind is sacred, if I abandon the idea of free will, of free expression, of the mind. I would have abandoned my respect for the single most imortant thing that makes us human. I would have to become a monster.

My belief in the freedom to choose religion was hard to come by, but it is the right thing.

[Vector]

None of you have have any idea what "Fundamentalist Christians" really are.

Don't make such assumptions =)

I'm not saying I know, but I wouldn't be surprised if another person here did.  And, as the granddaughter of a Missouri Synod Lutheran minister, I think I can get at least an inkling.

[Andir]

Banning a religion would be unproductive. Erasing an aspect is almost easy.

Not all religious people are misogynist, when all religious text are.
For the old testament, you can rape a women provided that you pay the father and marry her afterward. Women are supposed to stay silent before the men...
How many Christians still do it?
How many of them stone women who had sex before marriage?
Some of them. Not the majority. Do not overestimate the power of holly books : religion are before everything the reflect of society.

But simply considering that any member of a minority have the right to get in the public space without being verbally abused seems right to me. 

You can't force religion out of people by banning it.

Sure you can, why do you think there were no Muslims in Spain for a millennium? Or why there are no longer any Cathars? The question is rather, do we want it? Considering the kind of effort needed I'm inclined to say no, but I do think that we need to change religion in a radical way, a way that it will not adopt on it's own. And I believe it certainly is possible, if only enough people wanted to.

So ... who volunteer to make a few hundred pals? I'm talking about pointy pieces of wood used for impalement, not friends.
There is no more Cathars because Catholic genocided them, alongside a lot of catholics who simply lived there.
It's not a ban, it was widespread persecution and slaughter.

I know this is going back... but do you think that those things you mention (stoning, etc.) would have gone away by themselves if people were not allowed to speak against religion and the act?

Edit: let me put it this way... if hate speech was banned, nobody could contest the acts you described.

[SalmonGod]

I felt that much conviction about religion for a while.  I've had plenty of experience with fundamentalists.  Hell, the pastor at my grandfather's funeral tailored the majority of his speech just to threaten my immediate family, being the only non-religious people present, instead of commemorating our deceased loved one.  That pissed me off.  I've had both classmates and family try to convince me that D&D is devil worship.  I know how crazy it gets.

But really I don't think religion is to blame for much of anything.  I think it's a convenient excuse for people to feel like they belong to a group that makes them better than others, and by extension to hate anyone outside of that group.  If we removed that excuse, there are plenty of others available, and more can be invented.  This is a matter of integrity, which no one can be forced to have... only encouraged.

I only have two major problems with religion itself.

1.  I think the Abrahamic religions have one major design flaw that makes them especially dangerous -- the belief that anyone who doesn't meet criteria is going to suffer for eternity in their afterlife.  This makes conversion a moral imperative.  A christian who doesn't do everything in their power to force their religion on others is either very relaxed in their beliefs, or just doesn't care.  It's written to be viral.

2.  Brainwashing of children.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Anyone who's seen my opinions on religion before can probably guess how I see its uniquely ideological capacity to create evil in our world.

It's written to be viral.

Of course it's written to be viral, it would have died out otherwise (How ironically like evolution.). Why do you think tiny cults use even more powerful entrapment tactics? They need to compete with existing religions in a memetic environment.

2.  Brainwashing of children.

This comes up because children are in a stage where they still engage in Magical Thinking, and so the concept of a deity is easy to impress upon them in the same way the concept of Santa Claus is easy to impress upon them. Then society pressures them not to give it up when they leave the Magical Thinking stage and it sticks, maybe for the rest of their life.

On the subject of hate speech legislation, it is just another way to have government sponsored "truth", no better than trying to make religiously based legislation. Not the same path to oppression as theocracy, but it has the same ending.

[freeformschooler]

2.  Brainwashing of children.

First of all Nadaka, that was a good answer. I have a lot more respect for you now, after that, than when I perceived you as just throwing a rage fit about religion. Makes sense to me.

As for the above point: let me share an experience. I'm not sure I've shared it before on here. When I was young, I went to a fundamentalist southern baptist church, and participated in kindergarten there (this story is not the one about how my dad learned to hate fundamentalists in general for a while). I started going there very soon after leaving the hospital several cities away where they were treating my strep-to-the-brain, which gave me lasting Tourette's Syndrome. At this time, my tics were so incredibly bad that they were a defining part of me.

I remember distinctly the day when my kindergarten teacher and a bunch of other "officials" in the church got together, approached my parents and told them they wanted to exorcise the demon out of me. Yes, a genuine exorcism, because I had Tourette's, which was itself because I got strep to the brain. This was in the nineties, and the head and some subordinates of the [redacted] southern baptist church was telling my parents that we should perform an exorcism on their extremely young boy.

After this, we all just decided we didn't want to be a part of that any more. Maybe that's not a story about how fundamentalist Christians are bad, but rather how fundamentalist Christianity led a bunch of idiots to find evil where there was none, and attempt to force a bizarre ritual down the throats of an innocent child and his parents.

I grew up just fine and now my disorder is hardly noticeable. I just thought I'd share that. Looking back, it's very funny to me.

edit: I just hope I'm not the main perpetrator here when Vector comes down with her rerailohammer because I most certainly have joined the crowd pushing this train of its tracks.

[SalmonGod]

There have been a few exorcism attempts in Indiana over the last several years leading to deaths and/or arrests.  That sort of crazyness is pretty common around here.  There were people in Fillmore, where I grew up from 8-16, who would kill animals because of religious paranoia, such as black cats or bunnies with red eyes.

Also, my wife was raised southern baptist.  Her grandparents (who adopted her at age 6) threatened to literally beat the hell out of her if she didn't get baptised immediately.  I've visited the church she went to as a child.  I was surprised to find a poster with a large list of major religions and summaries of their beliefs up on the wall.  Apparently they weren't too crazy, and actually tried to educate fairly.  It's just her grandparents who were the crazy ones.  The first time I met them, my wife begged me to pretend to be religious if the subject came up.  Luckily, it never has.

[Vector]

edit: I just hope I'm not the main perpetrator here when Vector comes down with her rerailohammer because I most certainly have joined the crowd pushing this train of its tracks.

I think this is an important conversation we need to have, and I figure that eventually I'll dig up another interesting news article or essay and it will rerail (or someone else will!).  This is also a place in which we can share our experiences.  That's really important, too.

The thing is that we seem to currently be asking how to address the problematics of organized religion, which I consider extremely valuable.  If this turns into a conversation on how all religion is bad, period or how on earth can anyone rationally be religious, or science is just better and the two are mutually exclusive, dudes, you will be asked quite strongly to take it out of the thread.  We're here to consider solutions and to think deeply, not to sit around butting heads or create an intolerant space.

Thanks much, dudes.

[sonerohi]

I think a huge leap forward in organized religion would be to stop press-ganging people into it. I've alternated between atheist and agnostic my whole life, but my parents try to raise me Protestant, my aunt wants me to be Jewish, and I've attended Catholic school my whole life. No one has ever asked me about religion without being pushy about it. Everyone always tells me their religion is true happiness and true salvation, but I've always been happy enough and don't need saving. I can't, at the moment, make a logical expression on why the religion pushing is a bad thing, but it just feels like it makes problems. Like, the people who get shoved in aren't finding their values and then finding a god that professes those values. Instead, they are being told that whatever their values are, if you worship x god, he will support them. And then those people, who get their religion all warped up and terrible, go over to their friends and say "Hey guys, x god lets me shoot at aircraft! X god is the best!" and their friends go in with stupid ideas.

[PsyberianHusky]

edit: I just hope I'm not the main perpetrator here when Vector comes down with her rerailohammer because I most certainly have joined the crowd pushing this train of its tracks.

The thing is that we seem to currently be asking how to address the problematics of organized religion, which I consider extremely valuable.  If this turns into a conversation on how all religion is bad, period or how on earth can anyone rationally be religious, or science is just better and the two are mutually exclusive, dudes, you will be asked quite strongly to take it out of the thread.  We're here to consider solutions and to think deeply, not to sit around butting heads or create an intolerant space.

Are we having this conversation?
I honestly think religion is an inherent part of the human condition, for the post part people do not wake up an say "I am going to chose a region so I can be intolerant." I firmly believe that religion is a valid method of rationalizing things, and people should be allowed to believe whatever they want.

[freeformschooler]

I honestly think religion is an inherent part of the human condition, for the post part people do not wake up an say "I am going to chose a region so I can be intolerant." I firmly believe that religion is a valid method of rationalizing things, and people should be allowed to believe whatever they want.

I think mostly people here are talking about when religion is used to attempt to rationalize things that are mostly considered irrational.