Oh man, reading your comment just gave me 90s vibes. That was the peak when atheism was quite controversial. Nowadays, it is a bit weird if someone does practice a religion. Religious beliefs are not an innate trait, but a choice, at least in the West. We should be actively discouraging people from being religious in the same way we discourage misogyny, racism, etc. I’m very uncomfortable with some of the comments in this thread that suggest that discouraging the wearing of religious symbols is some form of crypto-racism. Religion is a completely different category and we need to be able to criticize it harshly and relentlessly without the suggestion that it is a type of racism.
I grew up with the four Horsemen of the apocalypse, Dennett, Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris. Voices of reason that still linger, even though two of them passed away.
Oh man, reading your comment just gave me 90s vibes. That was the peak when atheism was quite controversial. Nowadays, it is a bit weird if someone does practice a religion. Religious beliefs are not an innate trait, but a choice, at least in the West. We should be actively discouraging people from being religious in the same way we discourage misogyny, racism, etc. I’m very uncomfortable with some of the comments in this thread that suggest that discouraging the wearing of religious symbols is some form of crypto-racism. Religion is a completely different category and we need to be able to criticize it harshly and relentlessly without the suggestion that it is a type of racism.
I grew up with the four Horsemen of the apocalypse, Dennett, Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris. Voices of reason that still linger, even though two of them passed away.