Destroying a Religion

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Have no claim too knowing what you're on about. Theres obviously SOME sect out there that you dont like, and would like to see banned.

Didnt say you didnt like those particular relgions- but there is bigotry of one sect against others and bigotry of athiests against religion in general, and bigotry by the rellgious against the secular, and so on. The government shouldnt be a tool of any one's bigotry.

Seculars like me and fervids fundies might well join forces to ban Scientology, and that might seem like a respectable thing to do to most, but then wed all be stepping onto a slippery slope- maybe.

False.
I am not in favor of banning any religion.
Persecution (I repeat) generally strengthens religions.

Why would you think that? I did not see that at all.

So far I can tell, you and YippySkippy are basically agreed on the issue of religion banning, just making different points about it.

If your analogy is what I think it is - publicly asserting that this particular religion 'is' peace, that those who do violence in the name of the book are vile hypocrites, and going to war with the hypocrites while defending the safety of others. That may not necessarily cause the religion to unravel but would the general faith falter enough for the fundies to lose most of their potential soldiers if their vengeful God doesn't come through and the infadel always runs right over them? Likely.

According to This Article (<-- Link), the best tool for destroying religion is a free and open Internet.

(Thank you, Vexcaliber!)

Happy Dance! Happy Dance! Happy Happy Happy Dance!

I agree with Fnord.
Lack of information and lack of education both cause myriad societal problems.
Perhaps more opportunities for people to receive a secular education, combined with state-sponsored internet cafes, could reduce membership in extreme religious groups?

Depends on the religion.

Christianity thrives mostly because of the claims that it makes. Certain pseudo-Christian sects defend themselves against their opponents through more passive-aggressive means to give the illusion of persecution while heavily indoctrinating born-ins and new converts. Those WOULD be strengthened through persecution on account of confirmation bias. I think MOST of mainstream Christianity thrives BECAUSE of lack of persecution. Try a thought experiment, if you can: Imagine one person for each mega-church congregant stormed a worship service and and put a gun to the head of each present. The entire congregation would be instructed to leave and renounce their faith or be executed if they stay. Personally, I think sure, you'd have a lot of dead Christians, but the actual number of dead Christians would be far less than the number that walked out (a true Christian is not concerned with death, anyway; but anyone who is seeking God but not yet of any genuine faith would be better off walking out, anyway).

Faced with torture or death, you'd find, I'm sure, that there really are fewer Christians than those who claim to be Christian. But I think a persecuted church produces a stronger faith. People tend to think a lot differently when they know their life is on the line, and I'd think it would be a lot tougher to "deconvert" someone through coercion or any other means when they have enough assuredness in their faith that who/what they believe in is worth more than life. Christians believe that life comes through faith. Anyone who truly believes that won't have a problem dying for Christ. I'm glad that it's easy to be a Christian, but part of me also wishes that being a Christian wasn't so convenient.

As to killing off an entire religion, religious persecution is not enough. As long as there are some surviving elements of former religions, they will find a way to thrive, maybe even explode in numbers, under persecution. If persecution is a known feature of the religion itself, it's more likely to self-propagate as a reaction to external forces, such as government persecution, unsponsored civil persecution, sectarian conflict, and so on. The Bible (ironically) gives a pretty clear picture of how this works: Ancient Yahweh worship by the covenant people (Israelites) meant total devotion to keeping the laws and the sacrifices. Absolutely no tolerance of other religions was permitted. During the first part of the conquest campaign, they set out to entirely eradicate any remaining pagan cultures and largely succeeded. Where they failed was in not following through and avoiding all contact with people they couldn't get to at first. Had these religions been totally eliminated, the Israelites would not have had the problems they had so soon. Even worse is that the kings tolerated these behaviors, allowed foreign influence to shape Israelite religion (rejecting or adding to Yahweh worship), and even "made up" religious elements "just in case." Any time a religion is "easier" or tolerated/encouraged, it's bound to thrive. But again, that forces minorities to dig in and build tenacity.

This is not unknown to us in the present day, either. Consider the Branch Davidians. Sure, they're still around. But the religion built around David Koresh as a messianic figure was completely destroyed by government forces. This might have happened unintentionally, but it did happen. Religions can implode, of course, as with People's Temple and Heaven's Gate.

They can also divide. A good friend of mine recently left her church because they've consistently run off pastors and worship leaders. There is a new Christian there who happens to be married to a deacon and sees her role as the moral police of the church. She has single-handedly cost a person her job, ousted the founder of an addiction recovery group, and nearly cost a choir director his career. Christianity emphasizes corporate solidarity, so threatening the unity of a given congregation is one step in destroying it. But if this is someone's purpose, the backfire is that a split church might become two churches that both attract large numbers of members. Getting rid of something like Christianity is going to take completely eradicating ALL its adherents and offshoots. Given that Christianity has survived underground before and still does in many places, it's an impossible task.

The cure for faith is knowledge.

The cure for religion is learning.

We may not be able to destroy religion, but we can certainly make knowledge of the physical universe more widely available.

I think it says so in Cosmos 7:13 - "Sagan spaketh, saying..."

I am NOT to say "thou fool"

Without knowledge there can be no faith, only self delusion. And without faith I suspect knowledge is impossible, only Wee Coryl's flitting after the will o' the wisp.

Passing lightly over the quite adequately understood role religion plays in stimulating learning, and the well documented psition of learning in the development of religion, IF you could use the schools to brainwash people into spitback atheists it would last only until they were out of the classroom.

You can legislate morality and you can Pavlov platitudes, but you cannot eradicate human instincts.

And for all I dislike his personality, Sagan was oin a cosmic scale wiser that you. There is evidence he understood something and did not just salute the leader.

Any ideas that don't involve mass murder, Rho?

When I speak of education as a possible answer, I am not talking about trying to convert people to atheism.
Just to be clear.
I am talking about reading, writing, and math. I am talking about science and literature and music. I am NOT talking about religion/anti-religion classes.

Does the reading include stories wherein the characters use magic or are involved in non-traditional or mixed-cultural relationships?
Does the writing involve free expression of one's own sexuality?
Does the math define Pi as anything other that the integer value of 3?
Does the science involve evolution?
Does the literature involve "Brave New World", "1984", or anything written by Balzac, Wilde, or Coleridge?
Does the music involve "Rock & Roll"?

If you answered 'Yes' to any of these questions, than your curriculum would be considered hostile to religion - any religion - simply because it would involve ideas, practices, and values that are not shared by all religions, especially the most conservative ones.

Again, where do I sign up?

Training in clear thinking and discussion may help slow harm to society. Not clear on how basic skills training would impact religious belief, enrollments in organizations, or negative impact on society.

Well, I did say a SECULAR education.
In short, a curriculum without an agenda to promote or denegrate religion.
Similar to the way public school in America is supposed to function.

That's all I got. I am a Christian, of course, but that doesn't mean I can't look objectively from the outside-in. Every single time you hear about a religion being actively destroyed, it's always some kind of catastrophic destruction either from a government agency or from within.

There IS one alternative, though. The way to destroy a single religion is without immediately destroying its adherents with it is, well, through another religion. The ancient Greeks, for instance, were already religious and were familiar with Hebrew religion. Certain requirements for converts were, um, unpleasant, and the Christians were able to convince the Greeks that Christianity made more sense for Gentiles and removed any ceremonial requirements for conversion. Christianity initially spread rapidly among the Greeks. Constantine, of course, made it a state religion so, like it or not, sooner or later everyone would be required to call themselves Christians whether they actually believed in it or not. While that went a long way towards spreading Christianity, I think it also did a lot of harm in that it bred a lot of complacency--not to mention concentrating political and military power into a single religious group. And then, of course you know what happens: First the Greeks abandon polytheism, then the Romans. Next thing you know, you have Crusades, Inquisitions, and witch burnings. Total and complete elimination of all other religions.

Until people get sick of it, of course, and gradually the dominant religion gets replaced by reactionary groups. Then they get all pious and paranoid and hold inquisitions and witch burnings of their own.

I'm not saying atrocities are by any means justified, nor do I agree with those practices of the past. But, seriously, the most dangerous thing for any single religion is another religion. Islam has been bent on killing Christians and Jews for centuries, and given the new complacency of the Christian mainstream together with "tolerant" attitudes, the post-Christian world is poised for destruction from external religious threats.

Not to sound paranoid, of course. I don't think Christianity is ever going to die out. But, supposing it did, having been supplanted by Islam, even Islam would eventually be plagued by the same problems and some other religion would ultimately replace it.

Saying: billyuns and billyuns.

ruveyn