Medwind wrote:Vivolkha wrote:While I oppose religion in nearly all cases, eliminating religion altogether requires some very brutal methods (see below) - for me, this is more of an ideal than a possible goal, at least on the mid term.
Many Communist regimes attempted to destroy religion but by the 1980s they had kind of given up, instead attempting to minimize their influence and undermine their doctrine. Official harassment and discrimination against religious believers was rife, as you pointed out. Side note, check the religious controls and other repressive religious legislation of the PRC today.
For a more hardline approach at destroying religion, see Communist Albania under Enver Hoxha, the only Eastern Bloc country that did outlaw religion and try to eliminate it completely, at a time where many other Communist countries were content with just keeping it under strict control.
Why do you want to destroy religion?
Well, here are several of my points.
Religion is unnecessary. Initially, religion attempted to explain how the world originated and works as well as establish a set of morality rules. In the modern world, science has routinely contradicted religious teachings on the origin of the world and laws of the Universe. Several proven/likely theories (Big Bang, evolution, non-geocentrism) have then been comically retrofitted into religious teachings even if it directly contradicts them (I'll go on this later). Furthermore,
morality can exist without religion. We are human beings, we are social animals - we require the attention and care of others to survive. That alone justifies the creation of a set of rules that separate "good" from "bad" (admittedly this is heavily oversimplified).
Religion is arbitrary. It hangs on a deliberately unprovable set of beliefs because otherwise it would be long discredited. And from this arbitrary set of believes it derives arbitrary rules. Other positive rules in religious morality ("do unto others as you would have them do unto you") are subject to my previous point and do not even require religion in the first place to exist per se. Arbitrary religious rules
can be harmful to health and at times
directly contradict human biology. For eample, the tradition of
purdah is harmful to women's health. In Christianity, sexually deprived priests have occasionally turned to abusing children. While religion depends on a series of unprovable beliefs, these points and the one on science signal that
many beliefs behind religion are outright false and hence the rules derived from them are largely arbitrary.
Religion is an obstacle to progress. For one, there are always people that deny
proven scientific facts on favor of those arbitrary religious beliefs (
in its efforts to dismantle secularism in Turkey, Erdoğan has eliminated evolution from curriculums).
Indonesia is home to the most climate change deniers in the world due to an overt focus on religious education. Developed societies tend to shift to rational thought, an approach that has brought LGBT rights and women equality to the table (both of which contradict major religions, by the way) and, not coincidentally, secularized quickly in the sense that the percentage of religious believers dropped drastically (with the notable exception of the United States, which continues to be very religious by Western standards).
Also,
major religions are the ultimate form of control, as it
threatens people with the literally worst possible punishment: eternal suffering in hell.
Why does religion survive, then? For one, because it relies on beliefs that can not really be proven nor discredited effectively (though note above that the balance is tipped towards the latter). But the main reason is because it offers human beings (false) hope against what, for most of us, is our biggest fear: death. It is only natural that an intelligent life form is scared of its permanent death and disappearence, else it would not survive (what is the point of fleeing predators?). And religion offers easy answers to very difficult questions related on this topic.
I won't point out the relationship between religion and violence/terrorism because the same can be done with a wide range of ideologies and beliefs, some of which strongly oppose religion (Communism).
Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2019 5:06 am
