“If you are a minority, specifically one that has to pray 5 times throughout the day, you don’t get university anymore.”
- Fr*nce.
Lemmy “leftists” out here defending religion at any cost
I don’t hate random people believing in their religion, I hate people using religion as an excuse to force laws that oppress minorities.
Interesting to see so many comments defending religion, especially one particular religion. Anyway, IMO religion should be always a private matter. If you don’t like certain rules or laws, nobody is preventing you to leave and be happy somewhere else. So, if a Christian is not happy in a Muslim country due to restrictions, the person can move to a Christian or secular country. If a Muslim is not happy in a basically Christian or secular country, there are many Muslim countries, which will allow him or her to follow the rules of the religion. So, everybody is happy. Hence, what is the deal here?
“Just give up your home, job, and family and likely become a refugee if you don’t agree with the prevailing religion. What’s the big deal?”
Your opinion is a bit of a paradox, isn’t it? If religion was always a private matter you wouldn’t be able to go to any country and tell what religion that country is.
Part of the problem is that a few religions tell their followers that they own specific land, so they are competing to have exclusivity of that land instead of just going somewhere else.
The expansion of civilisations has always encroached on religions as well. You basically have to choose a point in time to say “starting now religions are allowed to exist in the countries they are already in.” Should the aboriginal Australians just go somewhere else if they don’t like the multicultural/multi-religiousness of modern Australia? What about native Americans if they don’t like capitalist Jesus?
I think the key issue is secularization. Many European countries went through long historical periods where religion dominated politics and public life, followed by centuries of conflict, reform, and eventually stronger separation between religion and state. Modern secular democracies in Europe are partly the result of learning from that history.
Not all religious traditions or societies went through the same process. In some places, religion still plays a central role in law, politics, and daily life, hence it is treated not just as personal belief, but as the basis for governing society.
That does not mean religion itself is uniquely bad or that every religious society behaves the same way. There are also belief systems deeply tied to culture, philosophy, or nature - for example Aborigines or certain Buddhist traditions - that historically were less focused on universal expansion or religious conquest.
The point is not „religion should disappear”, but that societies require separation between religious authority and state power. BTW, Jesus wasn’t a capitalist. If you would be like Jesus, you would be broke today.
Edit: removed redundant text from previous version.
Good. Delusions have no place in academia.
They’re not teaching prayer, they’re accommodating it.
You’re suggesting Canadian Universities should show religious people less respect than American prisons.
Who tf does this help
Secularism? As long as it’s applied across the board - including Christians and others - this seems sensible.
It would be sensible. But what’s the benefit?
Generally speaking? I suspect most of our issues currently and previously are either caused by religions or are using religions in a form or another. Look at USA / Israel if that’s not obvious. Even Buddhists have been killing over religion. Sects in Japan have done horrible things…
I could remove 1 trait of humanity I would seriously consider removing the soft spot for the love of mysticisms.
And thus limiting religious practices is sensible and has the benefit to decrease exposure to non involved persons.
Great harm had been done in the name it religion but you’re overlooking the good that’s been done.
I don’t think the good comes anywhere close to balancing the evils justified by religion.
Religions do call for a lot of violence don’t get me wrong. I’d even make the claim that most evil acts that we attribute to religion tend to have it as a pretense. The crusades for instance each had a main goal that was there independent of religion.
But then you have the good that religions mandate. Sikhism with IRS community meals for instance. Zakat in Islam is another good example.
Antisemitism doesn’t happen without religion. Think about everything downstream of the Judaism/Christianity/Islam splits. Think about the impact of The Church being the de facto cultural force in Europe for a millennium. Think about how much harder it is to whip a population into supporting your expensive conquest without a Divine Right or Moral Imperative. Sikhism exists because of how shitty life was under Islam and Hinduism in the region, their current “mostly chill” status does not negate the past suffering.
And in a broader sense, consider how much fraud exists because people are willing to accept claims not backed by evidence. The normalization of magical thinking is probably as harmful as the actual power wielded by entities like the Catholic Church.
The population?
It stops public praying as a virtue. When praying is only done in private you can’t judge people being a worse Christian etc for not participating.
So you’ll have a more secular society with more room for people to practice their religion as they see fit. Not doing things just because it’s expected of you.
Like if there’s prayer room at a school. More people will use it because they don’t want to be seen as a bad Muslim. Even if they wouldn’t normally pray at those times.
It creates pressures and expectations.
Peer pressure will exist regardless though. This provides as space for people to pray in private.
Why not make the prayer rooms individual rooms? Would that not solve the edge case you describe?
There is no logic to this person’s stance, they just want to do harm to the other. They wrap that in a veil of impartial rational reasoning to quell the cognitive dissonance.
If this law was phrased as anti-loitering to keep homeless people off sidewalks or banning private rooms for nursing mothers they would be up in arms. It’s functionally the same, but since it targets their preferred adversary they nod in approval.
This isn’t even secularism. Secularism would ban anyone from doing these activities in an official capacity, or public funds from being used for these purposes.
Banning individuals from religious expression is not secularism. That’s the state imposing religious persuasion (or lackthereof).
Fine by me. Let’s call that extended secularism with aim of ending religions.
So in other words, forcing your worldview on others because you don’t agree with theirs?
That’s no better than forced conversions…
Is it though ? I’m advocating literally to prevent organised institutions forcing their fantasies onto others. That’s literally the opposite. In addition I would expect « worldviews » to be rooted in reality and science rather than in mysticism. So yeah maybe this would be for the best.
I would expect « worldviews » to be rooted in reality and science rather than in mysticism.
That is your personal belief. You are advocating to force it onto others who do not share it. How is that different from forced conversion?
À belief isn’t rooted in reality. It is a concept close to religions, relying on faith rather than evidence. Are you close to religion yourself maybe?
I’m calling from being responsible and to stop the cancer that are religions. The good it once brought is now inferior to the atrocities it sustains so it is time to call for its end.
That is the stands I take. Nothing related to beliefs.
Let’s recap.
Literally, what I said was this:
This isn’t even secularism. Secularism would ban anyone from doing these activities in an official capacity, or public funds from being used for these purposes.
Banning individuals from religious expression is not secularism. That’s the state imposing religious persuasion (or lackthereof).
And you said this:
Fine by me. Let’s call that extended secularism with aim of ending religions.
And now you’re trying to backtrack by claiming this:
I’m advocating literally to prevent organised institutions forcing their fantasies onto others.
No, I distinguished quite plainly between public institutions and individuals in my first comment. You dug in your heels that we shouldn’t just ban public institutions from forcing one set of beliefs on others, but that we should also force individuals to give up their own beliefs (thus, “ending religions,” in your words).
The thing is, any attempt to systemically force people as individuals to give up their beliefs, is literally “institutions forcing their beliefs on others.” So, no, you’re just doing mental gymnastics to rationalize your own prejudice.
Also,
In addition I would expect « worldviews » to be rooted in reality and science rather than in mysticism.
Would you? Well, where do we draw the line? You realize science hasn’t plumbed the depths of understanding the universe yet, right? Some things are still theoretical. Can we call those things “reality and science,” or are they mere belief until proven beyond reasonable doubt?
For instance, is quantum gravity theory just religious mumbo jumbo? What about string theory? What about unified field theory? Hell, what about the big bang theory, the big crunch theory, and any speculation about dark matter and dark energy, or the origins of life and consciousness?
Who gets to determine what constitutes “science and reality,” and what constitutes “religion and belief,” particularly in these edge cases where there is no general consensus? The publishers of the journals? The peer review board? The dean of faculty for the science department at such-and-such big-name university? The administration of that university, who get to determine who keeps their job as dean of faculty? The board-of-trustees?
Academic freedom is already coming under fire in this political environment, and gatekeeping has always been a problem in academia besides. Do you really want to promote state-mandated and enforced worldviews based on some vaguely defined “reality”? Reality has always been a consensus, and nothing more.
How much further would it go? The social sciences? The humanities? All the subjects where “reality” can’t be simply boiled down to a set of quantifiable data?
Because this would go a lot further than just banning religions. And even if that was all it would do, I would still be against it, even though I’m not religious, because forcing people to adopt my worldview is no better than when religious people do the same thing.
Your need to justify your own beliefs are blinding you. A wall of text arguing semantics… you agree with the far right in USA that is rooting their system in Christianity? Or you agree that because of birthright via your mother you are superior to me?
I’m also pretty confident that doubts and theories in science are unrelated to mysticism. If only in intents.
