This idea was suggested by Mozz in the Cambden thread, shortly after he suggested restricting certain citizen's right to choose where to live.
http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1211882321/166#166I am opposed to 'ALL' religious schools, and only think that they should be allowed NOWHERE, EVER.
School should be school, church should be church, if you want to brainwash kids with your crazy rat arsed religious mumbo jumbo, then do it on the weekend, on your own time, with your own money.This suggestion is an attack on the separation of church and state and religious freedom. It is hypocritical in the sense that it is a form of militant, fundamentalist atheism that is no less dangerous than the more familiar forms of religious fundamentalism that atheists constantly cry foul over.
Separation of church and state does not just rule out state sanctioning of religion or religion taking over the state, it also rules out state attacks on religion. It is just as important to protect the church from the state as it is to protect the state from the church. They are separate institutions with different roles to play in society that must be kept at arm’s length from each other.
Whether a child receives a religious education is a matter for the child and their parent. The state has no role at all to play in this and should not try to interfere in the rights of people to practice their religion. It is also not the state’s role to enforce a single type of education on the public. It is reasonable for the state to set a minimum curriculum so that children are not deprived of basic knowledge, but it must not rule out extra education, be it in music, sport, religion, art, drama etc. The state has no role in dictating which days of the week parents provide religious education and whether this education is provided at home, at a church, at a private school, in a public park or wherever they choose. Denying parents the right to send their children to a private school where they will receive a religious education is no better than denying parents the right to send their child to a school that does not teach religion. It is just as dangerous for our society.
Communist regimes typically go down this path in their quest for total control over people’s opinions. A church is dangerous to an oppressive government that denies people basic rights because it provides a powerful institution through which people can demand their freedom. In order to deny people some basic human rights, a much broader range of rights must be denied, including freedom of religion. Whether it be democratic, economic, or religious rights, the abolition of any basic human right inevitable leads to the erosion of all rights.
Fundamentalist atheists would have people put in jail for teaching religion on the wrong day of the week. They would have the government decide whether religious beliefs are appropriate for people to pass onto their children and start interfering with parents who teach their children the wrong views. Just because atheism is the ‘new kid on the block’ in terms of organized belief movements does not mean that it is benign and that extremists do not pose a threat to society.
Atheists often try to play a ‘sheep in wool’s clothing’ by pretending to be someone who has no strong opinion regarding the existence of God. A person who lacks such a belief or strong opinion is agnostic. An atheist has a strong opinion and their view is no more rational, objective or evidence based than that of a religious person. They are just as prone to zealotry as religious people, but lack any kind of institution to keep that zealotry in check. Communism is the closest thing we currently have to an atheist institution. Atheist fundamentalists have no qualms about using force to impose their views on others as soon as they can gain control of government, whether it be via a majority denying rights to a minority in a democracy, or via a ruthless dictatorship. As with any fundamentalist, the ends justifies the means.
It is not a person’s views or beliefs that matter, but how far they are prepared to go to use force to deny people the right to share alternative views. Fundamentalists tend to fear such alternative opinions as dangerous and will try to paint everyone who shares that view with the same brush, for example by equating them with other extremists and refusing to distinguish an extremist from the other side and a benign alternative world view. To them, anyone who shares the alternative view is ‘the enemy’ and is a threat to them which must be countered by any means available. Fundamentalists will not be appeased if you give into their initial demands. The more you give, the more they take, until what were made to seem like reasonable restrictions turn into the complete erosion of your rights.
There is more than one type of fundamentalist out there, and they are all dangerous. The one thing they have in common is that they all constantly point to other fundamentalists to justify their position and to try to get you too scared to pay attention to their own extremism.
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