I like it good idea. Which pitch do you find more convincing? [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhAKzYr4-wg&feature=player_embedded"]The Gruen Transfer - The Pitch: Banning All Religion - YouTube[/ame]
From and advertising perspective I felt the first was the better pitch simply because the central premise of the second was erroneous, which instantly made me discount the message. The first almost lost me with the "flat earth" but recovered nicely Both were fairly standard reactionary efforts though, again taking the stance of religion pretty much being one of the montheistic specials.
No more reactionary than the laws we get down in Australia. One person does something - within a week we have "tough new laws" to deal with a supposedly huge problem. If religion was treated the same way as guns or teenage drivers Australian politicians would be eager to ban it after a couple of terror or child abuse cases.
I'm pretty sure that religion was banned in the USSR, and in china too. It didn't succeed in getting rid of it of course, it just drove it underground.
Atheism is a religion too. By the way, they tried to ban religions in Communist China, Communist Russia, Communist Cuba, Communist North Korea, Nazi Germany, shall I go on? Lots of horrible things were done to millions of people and religion didn't disappear. In the world today, there is only one part of one religion that is really a problem. Why don't we address that sector and try to change their minds about blowing the world up?
WHOA! What? Seriously? How is atheism a religion? Hapuka - you might be pleased to know there's a good number of atheists that are vehemently opposed to the idea of banning religion - myself included. On principle, very often strongly held, lots of us have a firm opposition to anyone telling any other person what they can and can't believe in that area. I'll argue against religion and beliefs that I consider to be in error, and I'll use reason to try to persuade people around to what I consider to be true but I'd never dream of telling someone what they can or can't believe. There are a good number of atheists who feel the same way.
No it isn't. Try again please. One of the main reasons some atheists actively oppose religion (as opposed to just "not believing" and getting on with their lives) is because many religious people and groups insist on trying to force their way of life or beliefs on the population as a whole, including people that don't follow their religion. Or trying to change government policy based on their religion. As such I don't think you'll find many (any?) atheists that would want to ban religion because being told what to do, think or how to behave is exactly what motivates them to oppose religion in the first place. It's a stupid idea. What atheists want is the freedom to live without the adverse effects of other people's fairy stories and bed-time comforts.
You're kidding yourself if you think that atheism isn't a religious belief and that atheists "don't" try to force that belief on others. Anytime they scream about someone who is a public official saying a prayer or wearing a cross, that is exactly what they are doing.
It's not. Atheism is a lack of belief in deities or other supernatural governing powers, the complete absence of religion, in fact. Just because someone argues for a viewpoint doesn't make it a religion.
Nope. That's normally because it's banned by constitution/law/whatever. I'm interested in your idea that "there is only one part of one religion that is a problem." Care to elaborate? Mitch
ban religion? I'm opposed Because i don't want to tell others how they should live their lives or what to believe in.
Yes it is. Or it can be. Most people think atheism is not a religion but in the most correct of ways it is. In fact it is a description of a type religion in the same way you can have monotheistic and polytheistic religions. Atheism is the belief that there is no diety or 'god' or whatever. For example certain form of Buddhism to NOT believe that Buddha was a 'God' (deity) as such and just a man who did some awesome stuff. This means that this form of Buddhism is in fact an atheistic religion. There is a difference between atheism and lack of religious belief of any kind. And they often get confused or people just don't know or bother to differentiate them. Have a read about nontheism, irreligion, antireligion, areligion etc etc
All religions are viewpoints about the nature of the world, how it was created and how it really works. The fact that yours involves no deity does not make it any different than the belief that there is one.
