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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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?
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.
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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.