Possibly the most unsettling aspect about religion for me, is how it seeks to forcibly impose it's beliefs onto little children.

All around the world, respective cultures with their respective deities, and their respective belief in being the exclusive truth, nominate children from birth, as belonging to their faith.
They are forced to accept ludicrous teachings well before the age where they can possibly reason for themselves, in the hope that this fantasy becomes so deeply entrenched in their psyche that it will over ride any rational analysis of the validity of what they have been taught, but simply retain it as unquestionable truth, which is what they are told since birth.

Surely the christian seeing a child sent to a madrassa to learn nothing but the koran, would see the unfairness to the child in that circumstance.

Is it so hard for them to even contemplate being happy to primarily seek to see all children given the chance to learn to think rationally, and to be able to reason for themselves, before attempting to force they make a spiritual decision that surely should be everyone's right to make for themselves, rather than something you just inherit from your family and culture.

If christians do not face this question soon, they could well find themselves in cultures where their beliefs are simply being outbred by another.

Modern secular societies really need to make the first move, and start by separating schools and education in general,  from all religious proselytising of any kind.

If it is left up to who can breed the fastest becomes the world's dominant religion, then god help us all.

Freedom of religion is not a freedom that should  supplant an individuals freedom, and I think it is an abuse of all children's freedom that have a dogma taught to them as inviolable truth, when it should never be allowed to be portrayed as anything other than a personal, spiritual choice.
Religions deny children that freedom of choice, they absolutely try to eradicate any questioning of their dogma, some obviously far more than others, who may even kill you for questioning it, but the principle remains, children are people too, they have rights as well, and they should have the right to grow up to make their own choices.
Our role as parents and a society should be to best equip them with the capacity to reason, and to function as empathic individuals.

Well they are being taught it at home, at church, and at school.
Now the first two we cannot do a whole lot about, but the third we most definitely can.
We should ban all religious teaching in school, and substitute rational thinking and modern ethics subjects in it's place.

At least that way the kids will at least have some frame of reference for how the world works that does not rely on an imposed belief in magical creatures controlling everything.

Just how evil the teachings they receive will be dependant on the degree of fundamentalism that their church and parents follow.

Many teachings will be quite benign, while many others will be repugnant, but all will be based on the lie that they know god.

Perhaps you can explain why religion should be offered any of the concessions it currently demands from society?

Why should we give religion any more rights than the local footy club?

mozzaok wrote on Apr 13^th, 2010 at 5:13pm:



Apart from tax exemption for donations, what other concessions do you have in mind?
The tax exemoption is based on charity. A sporting association is not a charity. A church, apart from everything else, is a charity organisation. You, too, can set up a charity organisation. You will have to do some charity work though.

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Cheap cop out boys, you all know that charity is no church's primary goal.
If they wish to set up duly registered and regulated charitable institutions then they can, and those separate institutions can get the benefits of that status, but I am talking about the religious organisations themselves, why should they get ANY special consideration?

As an atheist dont care for religion and I agree with mozz about what he has written, but I dont lump Buddhism in with the others, I've found Buddhism to be an honest caring gentle belief, unlike Christianity and Islam which are just hell bent on discrediting the other at every opportunity. and even though I'm an atheist I do try to follow the principles of the basic buddhist belief system.
Most of the christian speeches I hear from particularly American evangelists are just as extreme as the extremist Muslims.

Hlysnan wrote on Apr 14^th, 2010 at 1:08pm:

So you don't know much about Buddhism hey? or Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka is considered to be the third most religious country in the world, which is interesting as a lot of people like the bible basher goose who used to post here(what was his name?) say its not even a religion.
You'd also have to look at the 7.5% of Muslims and 7.5% of Christians to see where the problem stems from. But the main source of dispute that you would read about is the Tamils, oh yes the Tamils,who are predominatly Hindu, with Hindu making up 16% of the Sri Lankin population.