How to kill religion ???

[DeathofSpeech]

HITLER!!!

Well, Hitler was dangerous precisely because he presented a lot of arguments that were at least on the surface, rational.
It only required that the German people abandon the ideals of a secular state, and dehumanize one minority at a time.

Take a nation broken by financial collapse, toss in a little fear for the security of their families, create an objectifiable target for their anger and insecurity, and then propose that government was corrupted in favor of protecting those who rot the nation from within and jeopardize security, rights and freedoms and people will be more than happy to abandon those freedoms willingly in the cause of preventing them from being exploited by the "enemy."

The "Ground Zero Mosque" debacle has become a cause celebre for fundies who insist that our government must be based in christian values as a defense against it being subverted by the values of some other group. Precisely the argument used by the likes of Emmanuel Hirsh, upon which Hitler based his rantings in Mein Kampf.
Not only did he see jews as a threat, but perceived secular christians as being the weak link that allowed the jews to bring all of Germany's post WW I ills down upon it.
The solution in his opinion was simple. The "true" pious christians would replace the government, and the state would become synonymous with true christian faith.
Those who threatened Germany from within were stripped of citizenship and humanity and became a disposal problem.

Then when this provided no relief to the economy and made matters worse, the threat was expanded to those who conspired with the enemy from outside of Germany.
...and the Nazis began "restoring" Germany by "reclaiming" surrounding land.

It all makes perfectly rational sense once you buy into the initial argument that humanity has variable valuation and rights apply accordingly.

 

[lrkun]

HITLER!!!

Well, Hitler was dangerous precisely because he presented a lot of arguments that were at least on the surface, rational.
It only required that the German people abandon the ideals of a secular state, and dehumanize one minority at a time.

Take a nation broken by financial collapse, toss in a little fear for the security of their families, create an objectifiable target for their anger and insecurity, and then propose that government was corrupted in favor of protecting those who rot the nation from within and jeopardize security, rights and freedoms and people will be more than happy to abandon those freedoms willingly in the cause of preventing them from being exploited by the "enemy."

The "Ground Zero Mosque" debacle has become a cause celebre for fundies who insist that our government must be based in christian values as a defense against it being subverted by the values of some other group. Precisely the argument used by the likes of Emmanuel Hirsh, upon which Hitler based his rantings in Mein Kampf.
Not only did he see jews as a threat, but perceived secular christians as being the weak link that allowed the jews to bring all of Germany's post WW I ills down upon it.
The solution in his opinion was simple. The "true" pious christians would replace the government, and the state would become synonymous with true christian faith.
Those who threatened Germany from within were stripped of citizenship and humanity and became a disposal problem.

Then when this provided no relief to the economy and made matters worse, the threat was expanded to those who conspired with the enemy from outside of Germany.
...and the Nazis began "restoring" Germany by "reclaiming" surrounding land.

It all makes perfectly rational sense once you buy into the initial argument that humanity has variable valuation and rights apply accordingly.

If that happens, the work of the forefathers of US was for nothing.

 

[Teabean]

Ah, something else just came to mind.

Why is it that you and I cannot seem to regularly convince any given religious person that they are being irrational and drawing the wrong conclusions?

The possible reasons are legion, but I suspect that it's simply because the religious minded have been primed to deny reason and thought as some sort of evil temptation.

But it's a very clever loop that gets set up; Believe in god, god says don't question; believe in god; god says don't question... So when you or I come along and say, "You should question that and you'll find your belief in god shaken", it is not surprising that their knee jerk reaction is, "Ignore" or "Label as evil" (I liken it to trying to uninstall two pieces of Malware who's function is to reinstall the other. If you can only tackle them one at a time, then the only way to do it is to figure out how to stop the reinstallation process first)

So to approach them with the seemingly Christian message (our first stage inoculation) of, "Believe in god", "God wants you to question" (or even easier, "God doesn't mind if you question") sets up a very different mindset to the next fellow that comes along and encourages them to think critically. We have entered the loop (however insidiously we may have done so, I don't really care so long as we don't break any laws or violate any rights) and shifted it away from the "Don't think" side onto the "think" side, while maintaining that god exists. Once they have the "question and think" part down, it's just another small redirection to "god doesn't mind if you don't believe, he'd understand he didn't leave enough evidence here" to, "god wants you to trust your own judgment, it's what your free will is for, so if you decide not to believe, that's fine, god will discuss it with you later. He cares more about showing your work than getting the right answer anyways" Or whatever.

Like biological evolution or industrial design, incremental small steps usually have a higher success rate than major, sudden alterations, and I can think of few changes more jarring to an individual's worldview than coming to terms with the fact that there's, evidently, no god watching out for them. This is also the reason why I thought that the closer we could make an inoculation to the faith of the indoctrinated, the easier it would be to peel followers off of it. The idea is similar to gateway drugs, only in reverse. We don't need to hit them with the hard reason and logic immediately, and we'll actually have better success giving them the soft stuff first (it looks and smells exactly like your old faith only the wafers are tastier and we won't pry into your sex life, all we ask in return is that you feel okay about asking questions).

 

[DeathofSpeech]

Ah, something else just came to mind.

Why is it that you and I cannot seem to regularly convince any given religious person that they are being irrational and drawing the wrong conclusions?

Sorry, I don't share that observation.

I have a measurable success rate.
It is by no means high but it doesn't need to be.

 

[Story]

The biggest problem with getting people to stop believing is anti-theism.

The problem with us is that we're too frustrated with the same tired old arguments and we tend to show no mercy to the average debating Christian. We see too many holes in their arguments to even be able to start addressing their points.

I would urge everyone to stop dismantling their arguments, we know it doesn't work to convince them, what we need to get them to do first is acknowledge that we have an opinion equally valid to their own. Instead of showing them how superior our system is, we need to acknowledge their system as an understandable conclusion without patronizing them.

And after you've done that, you need to lure them into your system of belief. Using logic doesn't work, we are not intrinsically inclined to believe things because they're logically correct, we usually believe them because it's emotionally beneficial to do so. Once we believe in the God delusion, anything is possible, science is mostly irrelevant. We have to enable them to escape that.

Doxastic logic is primarily emotional.

Some of us simply have strong emotional convictions to the truth. I emotionally want to know what the truth is, I believe this propensity is due to the fact that I used to get in trouble often as a child for things I didn't do and my parents seemed more interested in punishing someone than they were with the truth, this made me value the truth more so than my own social life and I believe it is this that caused me to become atheist.

There may be exceptions to this rule, but reading up on conversion stories, I find that most people de-convert either because they weren't originally attached to religion, it didn't conform to the moral zeitgeist (which is an emotional reason) or they had a stark value for what was true over than what felt good to do.

Not everyone values or even believes there is anything that is true other than what they feel.

So in order to actually kill religion, we must focus of feelings and not thoughts.

 

[lrkun]

You can only kill religion, if you deal first with man's wish for escapism.

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.
Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right

The best way is to make man see and face reality.

 

[DeathofSpeech]

You can only kill religion, if you deal first with man's wish for escapism.

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.
Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right

The best way is to make man see and face reality.

Yes, because that strategy has worked so well in the past. :roll:

 

[Teabean]

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.
Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right

I think Marx was more saying that to be rid of religion is to be rid of the conditions which make religion desirable or necessary (injustice, suffering, inexplicability, etc.). Unfortunately, the most successful religions tend to make their own growth conditions (perceived injustice, suffering, inexplicability, etc. works just as well as the real thing), so I'm not sure if it really holds once religions take root.

 

[Yfelsung]

I think a big problem we run into is that we TRY to convert those already lost.

Let's face it, most believers will die believers. We will not change them, we will not fix them, they are broken at a fundamental level. When you argue with these people, it is not THEY you should worry about, it is the audience of your debate.

The theist becomes a target but it's the splash damage you're looking for. You could tear the theist's points out their own asshole and they'd still stand firm, but someone witnessing the debate may be more open to knowledge.

In the end, annihilate your opponent. Tear everything down, question every point; you're not trying to be friendly to them, you're using them as a tool.

We harm religion most by not allowing them to replenish their numbers. As long as less than 1 theist is gained for every 1 lost, we slowly win. As long as we can marginalize their debates and opinions with our own attacks to prevent them from spreading their ideals, we slowly win.

So don't think about converting the opponent, think about converting their friends and family. Go for the throat of their argument and rip it out with your teeth. Leave them bruised, bloody, and beaten (figuratively).

You must tear something down before you can rebuild it.

 

[lrkun]

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.
Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right

I think Marx was more saying that to be rid of religion is to be rid of the conditions which make religion desirable or necessary (injustice, suffering, inexplicability, etc.). Unfortunately, the most successful religions tend to make their own growth conditions (perceived injustice, suffering, inexplicability, etc. works just as well as the real thing), so I'm not sure if it really holds once religions take root.

You are in the right track. However, if you apply the quote, one effect would be is that man must strive to get rid of illusory conditions which allow religion to prolifirate. This applies even if religion already exists.

 

[Teabean]

You are in the right track. However, if you apply the quote, one effect would be is that man must strive to get rid of illusory conditions which allow religion to prolifirate. This applies even if religion already exists.

Ah, yes, I think I see how that works. Illusory conditions (or the a religion itself) may be considered to be one of the conditions which creates a need for illusion. That's an interesting way to think of Marx's quote.

 

[Exmortis]

The simplest way is in this case also the stupidest way, because when you leave any trace, any single precocious individual of proper motivation who cannot be traced or stamped out, his ideas will bring back the old idea in a more virulent form then ever there was before.

I said it was the simpilist way. Besides it is quite obvious that this approuch isn't a permanent... solution. When it comes to removing concepts it usually never is. All it takes is one malleable individual to be exposed to a physical product or piece of information that is connected to the original idea. Complete erradication is the simpilist way to 'kill' an idea. I fear that the form of... suppression that the leader of this thread suggested wouldn't have the desired effect. No,any attempted to ban, block or bar any popular ideology would be viewed as a prejudiced action and would recieve substantial resistance. Even if you did manage to pass it... the result would probably be somewhere in the area of violent retaliations, smuggling... and hey you turned religion into an illigal material.


I dunno... is there a third option... besides letting religion continue to fester?

 

[mirandansa]

A couple of questions...

How do you distinguish dogmatism from religion? Is being religious to be dogmatic?

How do you understand the demarcation problem? Are religion and science clearly different?

 

[DeathofSpeech]

dunno... is there a third option... besides letting religion continue to fester?

AngieAntiTheist
WoodsofJordan
edwardtarte"¬Ã¢â‚¬Å½
HappyCabbie"¬Ã¢â‚¬Å½
lacigreen"¬Ã¢â‚¬Å½
NonStampCollector"¬Ã¢â‚¬Å½
ItsTheSuperFly"¬Ã¢â‚¬Å½
...not going to even try to list them all, they are too numerous.
...me

Leave the library door unlocked and show a theist where they can find books other than their holy book.
Pose questions that require they face a paradox within their doctrine.
Above all, confront the doctrine, not the person.

Then accept that some will remain mired and some will actually investigate.
They may be few, but each then becomes the target of theists and each theist confronting them then becomes exposed to the arguments.
Rational meme.

No mass reprogramming will ever work because it validates the closed circular arguments of scripture.
No act of genocide or forcible re-education will ever work in any sort of society that a free-thinker would ever want to live in.
We must first preserve the right to choice of belief, because it insures the right to make no choice.
If our ideals do not survive the conflict, we can win every exchange and still lose that which we value most. Therefore we must defend the right to believe just as we defend the right to have no belief.

It is not even necessary to seek them out... the most extreme will come knocking at your door the moment you publish anything they see as a confrontation.
They will of course come unprepared... so one must expose them to new ideas... new questions... inescapable contradictions in scripture, and most importantly that there are rational perspectives which are far more satisfying in terms of utility which do not require either a god, nor do they require an abandonment of morality or genuine humanity to embrace.

That is the pivotal concern for most theists, that giving up god makes them less human or less moral.

Over the past 10 years or so, atheism has grown from about 10% of the US general population, to 16%-17%.
This has not required re-education en masse. It has only required loss of interest in a belief that is not viable as a contemporary explanation in the face of science.
It has also not required that the basic liberal arts and humanities be ignored. Quite the opposite. It is the embrace of humanity, all its mis-steps, and follies, and the abiding worth of other people as a meme which has infiltrated into secular thinking.

The only thing that this process requires, and the only strategy that religion itself will suffer without violent open conflict, is the unequivocal protection of choice of what to believe.
Protecting the right to believe any batshit crazy thing we individually want to believe and at the same time making any contemporaneously relevant explanation available, also protected by the same right, will cause the gradual attrition of ancient copies of National Inquirer to become non-viable... Interest in them will be reduced... Social acceptance that such things are not required will increase... and religion will become a quaint superstition still protected by the right to believe crazy batshit.

If the people of the world can be prevented from destroying each other in the meantime, then globally, we retain the ideal of free thought and free expression and spread those around simply by example.

War is not required.
Violent conflict is not required.
Force is not required.
Coercion is not required.
In fact... all of these, abdicate the very freedom from religion we seek to enjoy.
We can't impose lack of belief without destroying the freedom that is corollary to it.

We must value for others, those rights we ourselves would enjoy.

 

[Resident Dead Man]

Sadly, ignoring it won't make it go away....

 

[Story]

Sadly, ignoring it won't make it go away....

But fighting it, might cause it to grow.

 

[lrkun]

Sadly, ignoring it won't make it go away....

But fighting it, might cause it to grow.

There are other alternatives to fighting. Factors like the individual's choice or the collective's choice is worth considering. I suggest that we must pinpoint the conditions which strive to bring about belief in the imaginary.

 

[TheGreekDollmaker]

:lol: Religion will fade on its own when it no longer relevant to people's lives. It isn't going to happen in our lifetimes, so stop worrying and stop saying we should 'kill' it - it makes you sound stupid.

This is basecly my throught on this.

You cannot kill religion especially since its a major part of the calture.
And why kill it?

Didnt a philosopher once said that Killing an idea is like killing a man.
To kill religion i.e. to forcefully remove it from the calture is impossible.

Look im an atheist too but i believe that religion will fade out slowly once people realise that its unnessesery in this day and age.
Education here is the key.The reason why people continue to be followers is because when they were kids they were dictated that jesus
is the savior and Christianity is the only true religion and all that smack by their parents and by the school.

I agree that maybe we should remove religious studies until kids have reached teenager status but we cannot do anything if their parents continue to preach it to them.

The major thing we can do here is try to educate people to be sceptics.To base their knowlage on logic and evidence rather than blind faith.To question what they hear and ask for evidence or atleast to think beforet heir believe.

The world is certainly going in that direction,slowly but still going.

 

[Resident Dead Man]

Most likely religion will live on.The thought of stamping it out makes me smile. But its a part of many cultures and is embedded deeper than ticks on a hound. That said it is a dangerous thing, it promotes false faith and false sense of security that many believe in.

 

[SirYeen]

To make myself clear.

I don't think we should prosecute religious people.
I don't think we should ban religious books. (I actually strongly oppose this)
I don't think we should give a onesided view of how bad religion is.

I do think religion is bad. But to evolve past it we should make people study it in schools. It was part of our culture so tbh it's only normal we learn about it in schools. However we shouldn't see it as "the truth" or anything close. We should see all sides (the theists,atheists and antitheists) and we should see all sides sufficiently (so no 90% theists 9% atheists and 1 % antitheism).
In another thread some guy said that in norway you start with norse mythology. This is actually a great way to start during religion classes.