How left wing is this forum?

[Saul Goodman]

I sympathize, but thinking you can easily separate religion from someone's culture, country of origin, ethnicity, and family is a mistake, so being cautious and mostly respectful in criticism of religion is something I've found to generally be much more productive.

You're not thinking long term. All religions should be ridiculed. It'll bring about their demise a little faster.

 

[LDC]

You're not thinking long term. All religions should be ridiculed. It'll bring about their demise a little faster.

Depends on the context a bit, but generally I find ridiculing people's beliefs doesn't usually end up with the discussion going in a productive direction, and surprised you find it does. Unless you really mean you just like watching some risque stand-up comic slagging off religion, in which case... meh.

 

[mojo pixy]

It's probably simplistic, broad brush statements like the last one in this post that provoke that reaction to be fair. That's my final word on it though, arguments about religion are about as interesting and productive as Jamie's school dinners.

I could do analysis, give examples, but nobody cares so why bother. It surprised me, is all I was saying.

I agree arguments about religion are as pointless and annoying as religion itself tbh.

 

[mojo pixy]

I sympathize, but thinking you can easily separate religion from someone's culture, country of origin, ethnicity, and family is a mistake, so being cautious and mostly respectful in criticism of religion is something I've found to generally be much more productive.

Religion can be separated but faith people don't like it happening so we indulge them. And if we don't they just kick off. So it goes on.

Anyway fuckit. I've had enough of being the weirdo who cares about the harm religion is doing to our world because everyone's like oh leave it, so I'll leave it. I've got dinner to make and plants to water.

 

[seventh bullet]

There's a difference between being critical of religion and going full Sam Harris.

The power the orthodox Church wields in Russia right now suggests the Soviet policy wasn't especially effective.

Banning religion doesn't kill it off, it makes it stronger.

Religion generally was not outright banned, some indeed encouraged as part of nationalities policy as we see with the Muslim peoples. Also running alongside strong atheist propaganda and education. There were much harsher measures against Orthodox Christianity (seen as intimately linked with the Tsarist autocracy) with its lands confiscated and it's priests persecuted by the authorities, but it depends on when. The Soviet government also dealt with anti-Semitism depending on the conditions.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Depends on the context a bit, but generally I find ridiculing people's beliefs doesn't usually end up with the discussion going in a productive direction, and surprised you find it does. Unless you really mean you just like watching some risque stand-up comic slagging off religion, in which case... meh.

I don't find it productive in the slightest, short-term. But for the long-term benefit of the planet, all religions should be ridiculed at any and every opportunity, and if god botherers don't like it, let them take up knitting and stop talking to imaginary sky people. Imaginary friends shouldn't be a thing after 4 or 5 years of age. Or, as the comic states, if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.

 

[seventh bullet]

There's also just not being a dick.

 

[Saul Goodman]

There's also just not being a dick.

I wouldn't go so far as to call them dicks, but they certainly need to get a grasp on reality.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

The state not giving religion an inch generally turns pretty ugly. Women up in court for wearing the veil, or having it yanked off in public by police. Bombing they knuckle dragging Muslims seems surprisingly palatable for some if you tell them it’s in the name of secularity. I suppose you have to be able to see abuse, fascism in the name of religion or anything else etc for what it is, which is more complicated than simply trying to eradicate religion.

 

[brogdale]

I don't find it productive in the slightest, short-term. But for the long-term benefit of the planet, all religions should be ridiculed at any and every opportunity, and if god botherers don't like it, let them take up knitting and stop talking to imaginary sky people. Imaginary friends shouldn't be a thing after 4 or 5 years of age. Or, as the comic states, if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.

Not sure that ridicule is the most effective stance, long-term or otherwise. IMO it's more effective to consistently identify supernatural belief systems as just that. It seems needlessly confrontational to adopt a relentless position of ridicule when confronting what are, obviously, deeply held beliefs. Maybe it's just my ignosticism coming through, though?

 

[mojo pixy]

There's also just not being a dick.

I seriously don't think religion has earned the right to ask the non-religious ('aposates', 'blasphemers') not to be dicks. We have learned our most dickish moves from people of faith over the ages.

 

[seventh bullet]

I don't see how productive it would be to mock my Muslim co-worker, for example. Nor do I see him as responsible for the things you mention.

 

[mojo pixy]

Mocking people personally isn't actually the point. Nor is demolishing churches, temples, mosques etc. The point is disestablishing religion, facilitating its evolution into a purely personal thing with no wider state or social support, and then taking it from there

 

[Serge Forward]

I'm all for the end of organised religion, I don't see how taking the piss out of people with religious views or state banning of religion gets us there.

 

[danny la rouge]

The point is disestablishing religion, facilitating its evolution into a purely personal thing with no wider state or social support

If that had been your starting point you’d have had more takers. That position is pretty much uncontroversial.

 

[mojo pixy]

Disestablisment is the starting point, and personally all I'd demand. I'd vote for almost anyone who had it in their manifesto.

And taking the piss out of people is mean and counterproductive, but treating delusional beliefs with a degree of mockery, why not? We do it with other beliefs, all the time. But not religion. That's beyond the pale, for some reason.

 

[mojo pixy]

If that had been your starting point you’d have had more takers. That position is pretty much uncontroversial.

It's always my starting point, in all seriousness.

My actual starting point here, was surprise that religion gets so much tacit support / indulgence / sympathy from a bunch of commies

 

[Humberto]

Its just as likely others will spring up to replace it in some form though. Perhaps In quasi-religious forms of politics. I'm not saying people haven't the intelligence to make progress as a society, rather that, create a vacuum and something will fill it.

 

[mojo pixy]

Conspiracism

 

[brogdale]

If that had been your starting point you’d have had more takers. That position is pretty much uncontroversial.

Though conflating state & 'social support' is not unproblematic. As an anarchist I'm find myself (ironically) drawn to strangely authoritarian positions about state support for supernatural beliefs

I really can't be doing with state support for schools that admit (& exclude) children on the basis of their parents' professed supernatural beliefs. But 'social support'? Hmm...I'm really not sure about that.

 

[brogdale]

It's always my starting point, in all seriousness.

My actual starting point here, was surprise that religion gets so much tacit support / indulgence / sympathy from a bunch of commies

Remember that the 'commies' killed the anarchists before they got round to stringing up the priests with the entrails of....

 

[Serge Forward]

We do it with other beliefs, all the time. But not religion. That's beyond the pale, for some reason.

It's also bad practice to take the piss out of people you work with or live alongside because they have different non-religious views. If I did that, I'd be taking the piss out of everyone all the time (apart from those in the very small political group I belong to), we wouldn't have won any of the gains we recently won from management at work, my neighbours would hate me and my wife would leave me.

 

[danny la rouge]

It's always my starting point, in all seriousness.

My actual starting point here, was surprise that religion gets so much tacit support / indulgence / sympathy from a bunch of commies

I’m an atheist myself. But I do happen to think there’s something in the human mind that fits with religion. I don’t think you need a supernatural belief to get all the things that religion delivers (I think “spirituality” is just a way of describing a perfectly this-world set of human experiences), but the sense of belonging and community that is one of the chief benefits isn’t easily found elsewhere in modern “western” society.

When I was younger I used to argue with religious people, but it’s not especially clever to do that. If someone asks me what my religious beliefs are I’ll tell them. But I’ve no interest in converting anyone to atheism. Not sure it’s even possible anyway.

I’ve recently become interested in Secular Buddhism. I find its ideas and practices personally useful. But I won’t be taking to the streets with placards.

 

[danny la rouge]

If that seems really vague and disjointed it’s because I’ve got a migraine coming on.

 

[SpackleFrog]

I'm all for tolerance but religion is like fascism

Maybe people just don't wanna tolerate idiocy like this.

 

[SpackleFrog]

Disestablisment is the starting point, and personally all I'd demand. I'd vote for almost anyone who had it in their manifesto.

Worrying.

 

[brogdale]

If that seems really vague and disjointed it’s because I’ve got a migraine coming on.

Sorry to hear.
My family has sufferers and I'm always sympathetic to those prone to its debilitating effects.
btw it didn't across as you feared.
Once read an interesting book about neolithic religious beliefs that placed 'shamen' as migraine sufferers. Something about altered states and visual disturbance and all those funny squiggles in the caves.
My only excuse for such disjointed rambling is Bishop's Finger

 

[DexterTCN]

Worrying.

So your position could be described as one of antidisestablishmentarianism?

 

[mojo pixy]

It's also bad practice to take the piss out of people you work with or live alongside because they have different non-religious views.

Just to be clear, I don't take the piss out of almost anyone, for almost anything, unless they're an actual friend. I've never supported, endorsed or applauded mocking religious people for their beliefs.

I can't say this enough because I feel I'm being shoehorned into a position I don't support.

 

[Serge Forward]

Okay. Shoehorn withdrawn. Fnarrr.