The central tenet of every religious tradition is that all others are repositories of error. Intolerance is thus intrinsic to every creed. Of course, criticizing a person’s faith is considered taboo. But in our world, technology has a way of making fresh moral imperatives. Our technical advances in the art of war have rendered our religious beliefs inimical to our survival. We can not ignore the fact that people believe in martyrdom, or the truth of the book of Revelation, when they are armed with weapons of mass destruction. Faith-based religion must go the way of bad ideas like alchemy, which fascinated people for over a thousand years but has no longer any purchase.
From geocentrism to creationism reliously sponsored falsehoods held sway and were ultimately consigned to ash heap of ideas, and ultimately the entire religious enterprise must be discarded.
Can’t throw out religion. The only time you know for certain where the religious are is when they are in Church. You want to get rid of that? You would send them out into the streets to create more mischief? No thanks
That really isn’t the central tenet to most religions thought. In Hinduism, for example, all religions are treated as expressions of truth. Buddhism follows its parent religion in this belief. Baha’i also says this to be true. Other religions, like the religion of Imperial Rome recognized other faiths as being correct insofar as they were the same faith and different cultures merely recognized the gods differently. Joseph Campbell argued that the Abrahamic religions were unique in their elevation of the tribal god to the position of head god, thereby rendering all other gods “demons” and wrong.
It will happen, I know it shall, one step at a time.
But the ones who come to destroy one religion, will replace it with another one. It’s part of the psychological totalitarianism, and an example of this happening is when the “communists” burnt down various temples and imprisoned others who were actively religious. To a subtler and lesser degree some of the atheists wish to bring down one religion then replace it with a mix of their capitalism and darwinism, of which excludes all exo-material values, and in many ways was the idealism of the communists.
The goal is either to misguide or to destroy “the soul”, as it is treated like meat and money.
how can you want to get rid of something like Religion? Why not get rid of something worth getting rid of, like pedophiles or mass murderers or drug merchants or something?
To my mind, people who spurt off in this manner have a limited perception of the world and choose to see things in an over simplified way. Not that I have no criticism of religion, but surely people know of worse things worth getting rid of ?
Yes, getting rid of hate, intolerance, and deceit would be a giant step toward remedying many of our social ills, regardless the source. I still haven’t made up my mind whether the current state of religious extremism is long-term good or bad.In a way, the extremism has certainly brought the issues forward and many who would have otherwise ignored or remained non-committal are now asking the hard uncomfortable questions. On the other hand, the violence nurtured by the extremism is bringing much death and suffering.
I don’t see opposition to religion as a problem. The world state of affairs plainly shows that religion is a contributor to our social ills. How one extricates the socially beneficial attributes of religion from the malovance being perpetrated in the name of religion isn’t clear, although the dogged determinization to pursue “tradition” and dogma by religious authority suggests that reformation is unlikely.
Of course I’m only looking at the social benefits/negatives side of this. Religion doesn’t need to be eradicated. It is, and will slowly push itself to the margins of social organization. It is a dominate force right now, but it is burning it’s credibilty at a furious rate.
To come down hard on established religions for being intolerant is alright, and in some ways, I agree.
However, to say that all religions must be annihilated for that reason takes the opposite tack entirely. Might any person saying that not be entirely intolerant of religion and those who are religious?
In any code of personal honor, one must be willing to follow the rules that they themselves set forth, so being intolerant of someone because they are intolerant is an inherently contradictory standpoint.
I always have the feeling that the argumentation against religion per se is a form of plastering that we wouldn’t want in other areas of life. In fact, I would say that it is exactly the problem in religion that we want to be rid of. When fanatics daub religion with their particular brand of intolerance I can’t see the answer being another brand of intolerance. What you really need is to define the problem at hand and address that, not use the same methods. It may be that a certain climate is present in certain areas of the world, but by spreading a counter movement with the same intolerance doesn’t solve the problem.
Often the intolerance we see in religion is a weak answer to the intolerance of world politics and the attempt to force ethnic groups to give up their way of life and form of religion. Religion, like any other social occurrence, develops at its own speed. Attempts to speed this up only have the opposite effect – like other phenomenon in society too. My question would be, whether the extremism in religion is in fact a result of a kind of cultural intolerance, which western countries thought to be “progressâ€. Therefore, the intolerance of religion only mirrors the intolerance of secular movement in society which is trying to push it out.
What is currently held sacred is not sacred for any reason other than it was thought sacred yesterday. There are undoubtedly truths, apart from any creed, which would enjoin us to overcome fear and divisions and simply love other human beings. Should a secular creed fostering such behavior be discovered, the Bible and Koran would be consigned to the study of antiquity. Some argue that religion, by lending meaning to human life, permits communities to cohere. Historically this is true. But in its effect on the modern world, religious ideology is dangerously retrograde. There is much that is behind us that we would hope to keep behind us: the divine right of kings, feudalism, slavery, political executions, child labor, human sacrifice, the stoning of heretics, cannibalism – the list is endless. The proportion of abuses for which religion could be held responsible is indefinite.
Yes, I am guilty of intolerance towards the barbarously intolarant legacy and ongoing sanction of religion. If I “seem quite religious then?”, I am “religious” in the metaphorical sense in support of a universal secular creed that unites humans around rational, benign principals.
An accountant has an easier time documenting abuses than virtues, as visibility is the nature of an abuse. Can we really say that what is less easily documented doesn’t exist? Are we in the godlike position to make that claim? What are the real consequences of holding ‘the eradication of religion’ as an ideal - not the final utopian vision of a ‘rational’ society, but the day-to-day consequences in a highly volatile, pluralistic, opinionated, fundamentalist world?
Yes. Intolerence. And that is the over-arching problem. Culturally, I see no way to separate religion from all of the other social influences. Religion uses and is used by every other form of social control. Again, I don’t think that religion has to be eradicated as some sort of “movement” against. What I see is a social institution that is rapidly losing credibility as it is tarred by it’s extremists. In it’s inability to reform itself, it is marginalizing it’s own foundations. Nothing need be done to eradicate religion, we just stand back and watch it destroy itself.
Is religion being used as the scapegoat for all other cultural and political ills? Yes, to a large extent. But religion has worn the cultural and political cloak for so long that it has become part of the institution. Like a matasticized cancer, there seems to be no way to surgically separate the bad from the good. Of course this is true of all social institutions as well. The world is ripe for revolution. The old ways simply aren’t working. It may be that religion is becoming the poster child for all that is “wrong” with our societies, and that it is unjustifiably paying the price for other problems, but perception is always the working reality.
In a sense, religion is rapidly becoming the symbol of the “schoolyard bully”. That there is confrontation is to be expected. Challenging the beliefs of a suicide bomber is pretty obvious. Being intolerant of a religious belief that the use of condoms to prevent AIDS is a “sin” is just as obvious. These are perhaps the extreme examples, but such on-the-ground actions aren’t the product of other social pressures. They are policies that come straight from the root of religion, and that is where the intolerance of religion creates the intolerance of the secular mind.
Jesus asked us to turn the other cheek, but I question whether he meant we should willingly allow ourselves to be blown to smithereens by a “true believer”. Telling people they have committed a sin by using a condom for protection from AIDS is an incredulous invitation to committ suicide. That people should rebel against any system or organization that could promote such policies shouldn’t be a big surprise.
It finally comes down to coercion. At this point in time, the coercion generated by religion is blatant and in many cases, deadly. Intolerance of intolerance? What else is there when personal survival hangs in the balance?
I share your concern that the good, the inspiration, the wisdom, is lost under the thick paint of extremism, but I think we fall back on the small group who speak softly and live in the spirit of, and shun the extremism - of all social institutions.
It does not aspire to the utopian to seek to dissolve divisive beliefs among the various cultures that make up the world’s population. With globalization and the constant and rapid exchange of beliefs, the day when a concensus on foundational bases that unify rather than divide people is foreseeable, albeit far off. Even if part of the world frees itself of dogma and guides its cdonduct by benignly secular principles, that would be a major advance for humankind.
Right. Many of the colonists came to America to get away from religious persecution so I guess we’ve come full circle. With Thanksgiving coming up in a couple days it should be easy to find religious people and commence opposing and eradicating. We have nations like North Korea, China and Indonesia to serve as models of how to do it. The first thing we should do is repeal the first amendment to the U.S constitution. Otherwise I don’t think we’ll get too far at least not legally.
