European man here. I always voted left wings so left that I have to be careful so they are not actually communist.
So, I keep voting them, don’t get me wrong, all things consider they still the lesser evil IMHO. But I absolutely hate the double standards. I like how they tend to be openly anti-catholic, but is very frustrating how they defend the religions of minorities even if those religions are so backwards that if they happened to get to the power the country would go back on everything else they defend like 400 years…
defending minorities is not the same as defending their religion. And criticising religion or making fun of it or even ridiculing it is not losing respect for people that follow it, unless they are radicals. (I myself have been doing catholic priest pedophile jokes all my life in Spain without caring who was around with 0 problems)
They should be clear on the message: “welcome minorities but in this country religion is secondary and we are rooting for a secular society, so you have to accept people criticising yours HARD or even making fun of it, same way we do with ours, otherwise GTFO”
The whole “respect all religions” doesn’t work with religions that teach to hate or condition how people that don’t follow it have to behave (which are all of them, specially the big ones).
I think this is the biggest criticism I have of the left because it doesn’t make any sense to “celebrate” religions from an inclusive point of view. The whole being tolerant with the intolerant.
Respecting religious beliefs has got to be the silliest thing that leftists support. I understand tolerating people’s favorite hobbies, as long as they don’t hurt others, but why would some hobbies be sacrosanct? It makes no sense.
“that’s islamophobic, sweatie”
There is a difference between anti-clericalism and atheism.
Atheism is how you don’t believe in any god or you don’t follow any religion.
Anti-clericalism is, to put it bluntly, the hate of all religions. Anti-clericalism is a religion in itself. It’s a belief that all religions are bad and must be fought.
Laicity is when you allow anyone to follow it’s cult freely. The limit is when the cult would go against the law. Laicity also means the law is blind to religions in themselves. The law can recognized that religions are specific kind of organisation with specific needs, but it cannot see the details. The law applies for everyone, even religions. We don’t need religion specific laws because that would be a threat to the freedom of beliefs.
Fascists are trying to turn laicity into a weapon for anti-clericalism. This merely to fight Muslim in the name of racism. They don’t care about any of this, they merely hate Muslims. They’re their scapegoat and laicity is their trojan horse to turn a democracy into a dictature.
Which is why laicity must be defended. Protecting laicity is protecting democracy against fascism.
Protecting laicity is not defending the Muslim theocracies or authoritarianism. It is the opposite. These countries are shit because they’re no laïc. Our countries will become fascist too if we abandon laicity.
You’re confusing anti-clericalism and Anti-Religion
One is being against religious institutions while the other is being against religion itself
It’s the same. Or rather, there’s no point in making a difference between the two in the context of this discussion.
Except there is
I don’t believe there is any god. I also think that organized religion is bad. I don’t care if it’s Abrahamic, or Hindu, or Sikh, they are all bad.
Sure they hide behind good ideas. But, it’s like if I started a business called save the cats. We meet every Thursday, and I collect donations. Then some people get suspicious and start investigating us and they find out that only 10% of the money I collect is going to save cats. The rest is buying me stuff, but also I’m fucking children, and telling my followers that gays are subhuman.
In other words. It doesn’t matter what you claim to be. It’s what you do that matters. When you get right down to it organized religions are about holding the human race back. They are about hurting other humans for a litany of reasons. Any thing from you don’t believe what I believe to you’re gay, or a different color.
If it makes you feel better to hold on to some hope that there is an afterlife. By all means be my guest, but keep that between you and your god. Leave me and the rest of the world out of your situation. I don’t need saving, and I sure as hell don’t need you or anyone else deciding what’s best for mine or anyone else’s body.
I am atheist. I’m just not anti-clerical. And I can see what religion can bring.
If you think religion is responsible for the bad things humans do, you are gravely mistaken. Fascism doesn’t need any religion to harm people. And usually when a religion is doing bad things, it’s because the country turned fascist and the religion is the pretense.
So, real talk here. We both don’t believe that any god exists right? So that means that you and I believe that every religion was invented from the brain of a human. If religion is an invention of humans. Then religion itself is responsible for nothing. It’s like a hammer, without an arm to wield it. It’s just a tool.
But, it’s a tool that has been used to manipulate people into doing the wrong things for far too long. Yes, religion is nothing but a tool. But even the simple hammer can build or destroy depending which hand wields it.
How much destruction is an acceptable amount before we decide that we don’t need hammers anymore. We have figured out other answers to a lot of the questions that hammer used to solve. Maybe it’s time to walk away from the hammer.
Just because other things are harmful without religion. Doesn’t mean religion isn’t also possibly the most destructive human invention ever. Just think about all the people killed in the name of someone else’s god. People have been killing for their gods since before recorded history. From the Aztecs to more recently the whole of the Middle East. From the crusades to the tons of people who died in the name of gods long forgotten.
You’re right people will kill. It’s what we do. But we could have one less reason if we got rid of religion.
What you’re saying is wrong. It’s the Lumières rewriting of history. The Lumières were trying to push a new ideal of humanism and science and philosophy, so religion was their enemy ideology. So they built this narrative that religion was responsible for the dark ages of the middle age and the wars of the 17th century.
But the context of their time was very different than ours, for one, and it wasn’t a history work they were doing, it was propaganda.
Religion was first used exactly like the Lumières wanted to do with science, philosophy and humanism. It was a way to remember history, to teach morale, and to give an ideal and a moral compass for the society. And it did a very good work of it.
During the middle age, it was a big factor in pacifying Europe. Without christianism, the lords and kings would be fighting much more than they did, and with much more cruelty, but christianism did gave them a reason to limit themselves and to avoid wars. Christianism also served as a backup administration to support the society when the lord or king was failing to do it (which was quite often).
Now it did got haywire. Not because of religion itself, but because of the power the clerics were losing, and because of the power the big kings and emperors were acquiring. France and England didn’t fight for centuries because of religion. And the so called wars of religion of the 17th century weren’t as much a cause of religion as they were political manipulations. The bloodbaths weren’t because of religions but because the armies were mostly mercenaries, and the tools and techniques for war were becoming much more effective, and the armies much larger, and the agriculture could feed most people despite the destructions.
The competition with humanism made things worse. Suddenly religion was no more than stories. This wasn’t good for the power of the clergy. Facing its fall, the Church became fascist. That’s what any organisation facing its doom will usually do.
Even today, Islam is not responsible for the murders and stuff. Fascists in charge in those countries are responsible. Religion merely gives them a setting and a narrative for their cruelty. But they’re very much corrupting the religion in order to do that.
In the same way, today in the west, fascist are wielding anti-clericalism painted with the colours of laicity, and blaming this evil religion of Islam of all sins and troubles we have. That’s a religion in itself: a set of beliefs and a narrative. There is no cult yet, but it quickly comes, like it was with Hitler or Staline. The rituals also come. The clergy too. Like the nazi salute and the SS and the uniforms. Schools teach kids like the Church used to tech kids.
Capitalism is also a religion. It praises money, and justify everything if it’s done to acquire money.
The troubles with Islam and the middle east has two roots today, that have nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with imperialism. The USA and Europe need the resources in Africa and the middle east. China and Russia want them too. The wars are too bloody and costly nowadays, so influencing the local governments so they make war for you is the preferred way. Religion or ideology will solidify your position in the area by buying you the support of the population.
Fascism I the west kine of cooperated with the fascists of the middle east to make a cultural clash between the liberalism of the west vs radical Islam. It suits both. Like it’s told in 1984 (the book) fascism needs an enemy and wars to live, so they create them to sustain themselves. Liberal democracies didn’t care about fascism, they were defending their imperialist holdings. But it fuels fascism everywhere.
I’m no expert on geopolitics, but that’s the gross development I understand of recent history.
Religion is an ideology. Everyone has a ideology, even atheist. The question is whether your ideology has been corrupted by fascism or not. Fascism kills. Not religions. That’s why going on a crusade against religions is not only useless, but also counterproductive. It will do more harm than good.
What we need is to convert the religious people and their religions into humanists. They can have faith in whatever they want as long as their religion is humanist and respectful of science.
A fun thing happened a few weeks ago btw: the pope went in France and gave a mess. Fascists of the country were all in into going to listen to the pope to show how proud they were of their culture and history and how they weren’t Muslim allies. It turned out that the pope gave them a big fuck you with a lesson in humanism by telling how Europe had a responsibility to help poorer countries and to great the immigrant, and that it should try to prevent all the deaths in the Mediterranean Sea. And then the fascists were broken, trying to find any excuse on TV to justify racism and murdering immigrants despite what the pope said.
If a religion helps me to fight fascism, I’ll accept it. That’s not to say they are perfect, far from it. But we need to take any victory we get, and convert them to our side rather than to turn them into enemies, because enemies will only radicalise themselves into everything we don’t want.
Our religion is humanism. Our precepts are science and philosophy, tolerance and universalism. People can believe whatever they want if they respect those precepts. You don’t need to call it a religion, it doesn’t matter.
Bro,
I started to type out a long list of things refuting what you’re talking about. You go from conspiracy stories. To talk about the pope and fascists. Like, are you ok buddy?
Every single thing you wrote goes from just plain wrong to honestly fucking insane. You’re talking about religion in Europe over the course of a few hundred years. I’m talking religion since modern man stepped on the scene (possibly before) and world wide.
Also, for every “fascist” upset at the pope right now. There are hundreds if not thousands of fascists living under the SBC or Southern Baptist Convention here in the good ole USA.
They breed way more fascists than they remove.
But whatever man. You continue to believe what you want. After all that is your right.
