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Sounds fair to me, we need less religion everywhere.
What I don’t get is the right wing pushing this and the left wing being against it, while the hero of the far left said ‘Religion is the opium of the masses.’
The rest of the quote is: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Take from that what you will.
I also don’t know that most people who identify as or are called left wing would call Marx their hero.
Take from that what you will.
The only things anyone with a brain can take from it is that religion is a cancer, masquerading as a source of strength and hope when it in fact supresses those qualities, leading to an alienated population.
Opium is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions.
The answer to this by you is: Ban opium!
My answer would be: Fight oppression!
The fight is not about drugs, it is about self-determination, dignity, freedom. It is the fight against capitalism. And today the search is on how to prevent the socialist society from turning into an autocracy.
Children have questions, e.g.: Where is grandma now? Until we have a satisfactory answer to this, religion will exist. But in a free world it will no longer be addictive.
And everyone can put on or take off whatever they want. We should start with this immediately.
False dichotomy, you can do both, and in fact by doing both strengthen both positions.
Of course you can do both, ban opium AND fight oppression.
But only fighting oppression will help ending oppression. While banning religion will make people becoming very angry and fighting you. Counterproductive.
The problem is that you have to treat religion equally and for a lot of European countries that would mean pushing Christian symbols out of public offices as well. Most Nordic countries, Greece and Malta have crosses on their flags for example. Many countries like Germany have parties, which are explicitly Christian. The Bundeswehr uses the Iron Cross as a symbol, which is in direct heritage from a crusader order.
The problem for those countries is that baning Islamic symbols is very often just racist rethoric to hit Islam, rather then a proper separation of state and religion.
It would be religionist, not racist. Islam is followed by many different races. But I get where you’re coming from. I’m all for getting rid of all the religious symbolism etc.
I am interested, what exactly constitutes a “religious symbol” for you?
The right wing is pushing specifically for the banning of things like the hijab or other religious head coverings usually worn by women. They justify it by saying that these head coverings are a symbol of oppression against women, and have no place in a free society.
Thing is though, how free is a society if it feels it has to dictate what women can and can’t wear?
That’s the catch 22 isn’t it… “You’re not free to dictate that women must wear a hijab, because we are dictating they can’t wear one.”
However, this is only legislating public workplaces not everywhere, so it’s less dictatey than Islam.
There have been plenty of efforts and attempts to ban hijabs completely, in different European countries at different times. The debate started probably around the time the first Islamicimmigrants came to Europe.
There’s a rather considerable current of leftism that is libertarian. Over-regulation of what a person can do, especially with something as, well, personal as appearance, is at odds with left-libertarian values.
Left-authoritarianism is of course compatible with such regulations.
An argument I’ve heard against it is that it’s overly harmful against non-western religions, specifically Islam. A pretty common tenet in Islam is some kind of head covering for woman. Banning that is a pretty sweeping reform. Christianity and Catholicism don’t have anything like that, and if you really wanted to wear a cross you could just hide a necklace under your shirt. And Judaism, most non -orthodox Jews don’t wear a yamaka 24/7. So in the end (typical) white religions aren’t affected while minorities are.
Personally for me I don’t care about wearing a religious symbol as long as you’re not pushing your agenda. I don’t care if my boss has a Bible on his desk any more than if he had a copy of dragon Ball z.
Nuns and priests would not be allowed to wear their religious clothes either, so I’m okay with that.
It is not the secular state’s fault that one religion chooses to be more backwards than the others by requiring religious clothing from all women, and is thus more affected by a ban on religious symbols.
Adapt to modernity or get the fuck out
And you expect that to be enforced?
Given that in one German state it was mandatory by state law to have a cross in every public building, from a party that is very overt about banning hijabs, i strongly doubt that.
The reality will be that this will target muslims everywhere and maxbe a few stry christians. But the vast majority of christian strongholds, like Germanys catholic south will simply not enforce it against christians.
So, we should just accept backwards superstition and archaic societal ideals because Bavaria is made up of Christian reactionaries?
Enforce it from Berlin then. Deploy personnel to monitor the application. If Bavaria tries to play favorites, big fines for each case.
As a german I am tired of conservative obstructionism, especially when it’s Bavaria, the german state embodiment of selfish and short sighted backwardness.
So, we should just accept backwards superstition and archaic societal ideals because Bavaria is made up of Christian reactionaries?
Enforce it from Berlin then. Deploy personnel to monitor the application. If Bavaria tries to play favorites, big fines for each case.
While i agree with your sentiment the reality is that christian fundamentalists (in appearance, in behaviour they are devilish unchristian) are still powerful in German politics and we see a resurgence in their popularity among the voters. The majority of the German people is happy with persecution of muslims and doesnt care about favoritism towards christians.
So, we should just accept backwards superstition and archaic societal ideals
No, we should fight that. With words. With arguments. And not by banning clothing.
Clothing is just a symbol and the meaning changes all the time and from context to context. People who want to ban clothing are just in favor of putting pressure on other people, on forcing others to be like them. It’s despicable.
I was a teenager with very long hair in the seventies. I loved my hair, it told the world that I was a free spirit. And it was a very powerful asshole-detector. Every now and then some backwarded adult would come up to tell me I would have been sent to concentration camp under Hitler. And it was quite obvious that they wished Hitler to come back and do so again. Just for me wearing long hair.
I don’t think you believe, but I am convinced that there are quite a number of young Muslimas here in Berlin who chose to wear a headscarf to uni while their mother says “Please, don’t risk your career!”
And they say: “Mother, this scarf tells them where I’m from. And if they keep me from having a career it’s not because of the scarf, it’s because they hate who I am.”
“All this pseudo-liberal, pseudo-tolerant, pseudo-feminist, pseudo-open-minded assholes, I would never detect them without that scarf! Now leave me alone, I’ve got a heritage to defend.”
You’re much closer to Söder than to a humanist.
How could I tell apart an islamic and an atheist headscarf? My mother often wore one in the 1960s and 70s, as was the fashion back then.
I mean, it’s more about code of vestment. Let’s say the code of certain workplace say that you have to have your face fully visible, you can’t wear anything that obstructs your face, if religious symbols were allowed you can justify yourself with “religious obligation”, the “atheist headscarf” was banned from the start
Headscarves don’t obstruct the face they only cover the hair and the neck. Virtually no type of work is obstructed by this.
Let’s take it this to the extreme; if a workplace starts demanding everyone to work in a bikini would this be acceptable?
if a workplace starts demanding everyone to work in a bikini would this be acceptable?
If the workplace is a bikini modelling agency or a beach bar probably yes. Most of those are not run by governments though.
France recently banned the Abaya from schools which is just a long dress.
If only short dresses are allowed in schools because “we need to ban religion” then following this exact logic they could just ban all dresses next.
Following that just make all girls go to school in bikinis because “religious people wear clothes”.
In Africa there’s tribes with women who aren’t even wearing anything on their chest because that’s where those women believe the line should be. From a secular point of view would you also accept it if teenage girls started going to school without clothes?
It is dishonest to claim the Abaya is “just a long dress” or the headscarf is just an accessory. Maybe it can be worn someday in the future like that. But right now it is a religious symbol and people wear it because of specific cultural and religious beliefs. It’s that what the law is targeting.
And maybe also in the future people can go naked wherever they like. But right now, we are not there yet but we already understand that it is not right to indoctrinate people into believing women have to go to great lengths to hide their bodies and if they don’t do that they are less “chaste”.
Just hope the 60s and 70s don’t come back, I guess? Or not care?
Edit: Okay, I really need to stop posting things right after waking up. I’m sorry; I hadn’t read the article. Hadn’t realized it focused on those. I suppose my answer still kinda works, though. Partially sarcastically, maybe. Bring back 60s/70s fashions to troll the clothes-banners and expect them to chill? I’m having a really hard time caring about other people’s clothes at the moment and don’t see why people think they have a right to dress others.
I prefer the “not care”.
Sure let’s just ban religion. Ask the millions of people that died under Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and other leaders that banned religion. Or all of the people that died during the French Revolution. Yes I know that the Church had the Inquisition and the Crusades, during which millions died. The Bible is already considered “hate speech” in many countries. How long before being Christian, Muslim or whatever means you can’t hold a job or buy a house?
Revelation 13:16-17 The Mark of the Beast
16And the second beast required all people small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, 17so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark—the name of the beast or the number of its name.
Meds now
In Italy I was a member of UAAR (The Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics) and we supported the legal costs of people battling against crucifixes in the workplace, compulsory prayers and even acoustic pollution caused by the church bells. This was in the late '90s to early '00s.
acoustic pollution caused by the church bells.
I really, really wish religious people would finally switch to clocks and phone notifications for their niche events like everyone else. Many people also have an odd romantic notion of this noise pollution. Sort of like the idiots who think loud motorbikes or sports cars make them look cool.
Good. Religion is like a penis, you don’t pull it out in public or at work.
Why though? What danger does a person that is visibly religious pose to the public?
Please start with banning crosses as wall decoration in bavarian public authorities
Would be too funny to see Markus Söder’s face if this would actually happen. “DeClInE oF tHe OcCiDeNt” or something like that.
I mean he did argue that they aren’t a religious symbol before. He later contradicted himself and said that they are but I would not be surprised if he made that stupid argument again.
I think they are already illegal by the Grundgesetz and Bavaria is just Bavaria and do whatever they want.
illegal by the Grundgesetz
Hm, what Article would that be?
Unfortunately the separation of state and church is not very thorough in Germany.And then there is Article 4
Article 4 [Freedom of faith and conscience]
(1) Freedom of faith and of conscience and freedom to profess a religious or philosophical creed shall be inviolable.
(2) The undisturbed practice of religion shall be guaranteed.
That’s how I know this law will absolutely be used to target specific religions unless the fundamentalist Christians take it too far.
How about crosses in public institutions? Asking for a (bavarian) friend.
Yes please ban those too
can they ban you for wearing a necklace with a cross? or a scarf around your head? This is madness, what bad does it do to other people, this is like banning lgbtq people from kissing outside cause it makes others uncomfortable.
This isn’t about banning people from wearing their religious merchandise in public. This is banning religious objects from workplaces. More precisely just public workplaces. Of course a secular state should also have secular workplaces. And the way labour rights are personal life can be completely banned from your workplace. Why would religion be treated differently?
Is that the workplace you want? Devoid of personal lives but mere drones who congregate to labour and then disperse into their personal lives where finally they are free to express themselves how they want?
No I want democratic workplaces. But also workplaces without religion nonetheless.
I think it gets pretty hypocritical, singling out religion like that. In the workplace, I can have memorabilia of my favorite sports team even though someone else hates it (unless perhaps it’s a Catholic School team that has a cross in its logo?). I can have the flag of a hostile foreign country because I’m proud of my heritige. I can have a picture of me kissing my wife even though it would normally be just outside the common no-tolerance Harassment policy. Unless it was taken at the wedding, or in/near a religious monument. I can wear gauge earrings, or just a little star… as long as it’s not a Star of David. Ditto with pendants, even new-agey wooowooo pendants, as long as it’s not a pentagram. There’s no path there that isn’t hypocritical.
Freedom of religion and freedom from religion go hand-in-hand, and it’s not always an easy relationship to figure out. Forced private secularism is its own anti-freedom problem, even when discussing the employee at a government workplace. It’s not really secular if I’m forbidden from wearing something for solely religious reasons. Even if the religious reason is that the thing I want to wear is religious.
I’d say there is a difference between politics and regular hobbies at the workplace. Religion is a very political issue, one about your worldview and beliefs.
No they can not ban you, but they can ban your cross.
If you can’t live without your cross, that is on you.
thing is most peoplenIknoew, when they wear a cross or smt, it’s not even a big deal for them, theyre just just wearing, doesn’t mean they are going to siddenly start talking to you about religion.
Shit tier take, with no nuance and a dashing of embedded prejudice.
what bad does it do to other people
Religion is a cancer, the quicker we kill it, the better society will be. In other words, religion does a lot of bad by being propagated.
Athiesm is a cancer, the quicker we kill it, the better society will be. In other words, Athiesm does a lot of bad by being propagated.
Listen to yourself. You’re no better than an Islamic terrorist wanting to slaughter infidels.
You need to learn to distinguish between belief and people holding that belief, but maybe you are getting that wrong on purpose.
No. I’m thinking logically. The only way to kill the belief would be to kill the people who hold it.
Have you heard of the concept of changing your mind or even changing your world view? Or even just the concept of preventing the people who currently hold the belief from passing it on to the next generation?
So does that mean you can change your world view too? 😂
Sure, give me some evidence that the world doesn’t work the way I think it does and I can change it.
Shit tier take, with no nuance and a dashing of embedded prejudice.
Religion is a cancer, the quicker we kill it, the better society will be.
Bruuh. I am not saying you are wrong, but you are criticizising what you are doing yourself by a much stronger margin.
What defines public work place? If the church get tax breaks for being non-profit aren’t they consider public?
I mean the answer is really not that complicated. If the checks are being paid by the government then it’s a public work place. It’s a pretty clearly defined thing.
Might be interesting with the hospitals run by the church but paid for 95% by the state here in Germany. Those have ridiculous religious exceptions to anti-discrimination law already.
Religion is so 00 B.C. Oldschool, but also it gives some poor people hope some times.
I wouldn’t say it gives them hope, I would say it preys on poor and otherwise desperate people and makes their lives worse, often for the benefit of the ones higher up in the religious organizations but even where those truly believe too it often leads poor people to bad decision making.
Good, fuck religion. The earlier we get rid of that shit, the earlier we can unify as a species.
Please explain how banning religious symbols is getting rid of religion.
It’s not, but it’s a step towards that. By removing the religious symbols you make people think about it less, even just subconsciously.
If that was the case we wouldn’t have christians running around nowadays. Mainly cultures and empires throughout history have tried to ban some form of religious symbology, but it doesn’t ever work, and typically just makes the conflict worse.
Well, Christianity is in a swift decline outside of places where they do have enough power left to enforce social conformity. By my estimate in another 50 years Christianity will be a small niche in many countries along with the other major religions in the global North (is that a thing, basically western doesn’t work because of South America).
Right, but that’s more from people recognizing the internal contradictions within the religion. Not because we don’t have as much iconography around as op suggested.
Honestly, I think it is mostly that the majority of people don’t care (and never did) and the people who do care lost the ability to push everyone who doesn’t care into it with social pressure.
Which is his point. Christianity is on the decline because society has let those people assimilate on their own. They did not ban Christianity.
Once you start banning or suppressing an ideology, the people will actually strengthen their beliefs because they have no way to assimilate with their beliefs into a society anymore.
But they don’t do that. They don’t leave religion with their beliefs. If anything the vast majority still in the religion on paper doesn’t even have those beliefs any more.
“unify as a species” aka “only unify under my belief, Athiesm”. That’s what Islamists thought and so did the crusaders. How is your belief any more important?
It’s not a belief at all
Ah yes the universe came from nothing and time started by itself. Don’t question it people or this man sends you to jail.
You clearly misunderstand what it is to be an atheist. The whole point is to question it. As new evidence (yes, it’s based on evidence) surfaces, we change our “beliefs” accordingly.
Atheism is not belief in the big bang, atheism is belief in whatever scientific theory is currently best supported by evidence.
Atheism means that you say you are 100% certain there is no god. A-Theism. It’s the word.
The problem is that there is still no clear evidence for the origins for time and the universe. You cannot start claiming god doesn’t exist without having clear evidence for it
Well if you insist on pedantry, “atheism” doesn’t mean a belief that gods don’t exist, it’s a lack of belief in gods. Think “asexual”: it’s not an aversion to sex, just a lack of sex drive. You are describing antitheism, and many self-described atheists are actually antitheists.
You cannot start claiming god doesn’t exist without having clear evidence for it
Incorrect, you are the one with the spectacular claim and the burden of proof lies on you. Prove that gods exist.
Agnoticism is the word you are looking for. or “being agnostic”.
A person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (such as God) is unknown and probably unknowable
This entire comment chain is focused on banning religion and being 100% certain that god doesn’t exist.
If you want to ban religion and claim god doesn’t exist then the burden of evidence to disprove god lies with you. But you can start by creating something from nothing or reversing time.
It’s scientifically close to impossible to prove the non-existence of something. Even green elephants.
As for time and space… I don’t see the slightest evidence of “god did it”. For me, the chance of finding a green Elephant seems way higher. Because it seems at least possible.
Green elephants are not a requirement for our existence.
The beginning of space and time are.
For that something outside of space-time must exist that created space-time.
Unless you are denying that we exist I am asking you to present another possible way that our universe has been created. Because according to thermodynamics energy cannot be created or destroyed.
Yet our universe does seem to contain energy so where did the energy come from? If you say energy can come out of nothing you’re disagreeing with everything we know about physics.
You believe that there is no god or gods, and that people shouldn’t believe in them either. That is a belief.
Stating that there’s no evidence for god is not any kind of belief. Now stating that there’s one even though the lack of evidence, that requires belief
Of course it is, and it’s an irrational belief if you’re unable to define God.
I’m a theist but i’m probably an atheist with your definition of the Creator/Light/Highness/‘absolute Existence’/…, which is probably some long-bearded man with superpowers that you can touch like in Marvel movies, or something like that, yes ?
it’s an irrational belief if you’re unable to define God.
There is literally an infinite number of things that do not exist. We do not need to define them to not believe in their existence.
In fact it is up to theists to define what they mean by God but conveniently it means a different thing every time it comes up, depending on what is needed to make the lunatic arguments that religious people come up with for God’s existence (e.g. ontological argument, Pascal’s Wager,…) work and to explain why there is never any evidence of God’s intervention in anything and to explain why somehow people should still care and structure their entire lives around the belief. Classic Motte and Bailey arguments by changing the definition around depending on how strongly their belief is being attacked.
I don’t believe there is are gods, or unicorns, or green elephants. “Don’t believe” = “no belief”.
And personally I couldn’t care less what other people believe, as long as they keep it to themselves and don’t bother anybody.
I don’t believe that a God doesn’t exist, so therefore no belief either. Who says you get to be the default?
Occam’s Razor.
That will never happen. If religion is erased from the equation, ideology or culture will take it’s place and cause friction
