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Here's a few instances:
Every day at school from the date I ceased believing (about age 10) I was forced to pretend to believe in Catholicism. Had I stated my beliefs I would have been expelled.

At many faith based schools, the same holds true today.
Talk to your parents, they are the ones who made you go there.

At the William Booth Institute (a rehab facility) in Sydney, run by the Salvation Army, compulsory attendance at religious services/prayer meetings is enforced rigourously. The penalty for non-attendance is exclusion from the facility. I'm told this practice is not uncommon among faith-run rehabilitation services here and internationally. The underlying principle here - there can be no recovery from addiction (a health issue) without spiritual belief - is an obscene delusion.
If a religious organization is running a rehab center, then they have the right to determine the rules. If you have a problem with that, you are free to choose a rehab center run by atheists.

This compulsion to believe is even worse when the vulnerability of children/recovering addicts is taken into account. It is abusive in every sense of the word.
???

Historically there are innumerable instances of "convert or die", the forcible conversion of Jews and Moors in Spain following the Christian re-conquest being one well known example.
Yes, lots of bad shit happened in the past. But we are discussing the present.

Whilst it is not a universal phenomenon, the tendency for many people of many faiths to force their views on non-believers is real and incontrovertible.
And the tendency for many people of no faith to ridicule believers is real in incontrovertible. What's your point?

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

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ORIGINAL: tazzygirl


I have yet to see anyone demand any atheist to believe in god... in the supernatural... in spirituality... in anything.

Here's a few instances:
Every day at school from the date I ceased believing (about age 10) I was forced to pretend to believe in Catholicism. Had I stated my beliefs I would have been expelled.

At many faith based schools, the same holds true today.

At the William Booth Institute (a rehab facility) in Sydney, run by the Salvation Army, compulsory attendance at religious services/prayer meetings is enforced rigourously. The penalty for non-attendance is exclusion from the facility. I'm told this practice is not uncommon among faith-run rehabilitation services here and internationally. The underlying principle here - there can be no recovery from addiction (a health issue) without spiritual belief - is an obscene delusion.

This compulsion to believe is even worse when the vulnerability of children/recovering addicts is taken into account. It is abusive in every sense of the word.

Historically there are innumerable instances of "convert or die", the forcible conversion of Jews and Moors in Spain following the Christian re-conquest being one well known example.

Whilst it is not a universal phenomenon, the tendency for many people of many faiths to force their views on non-believers is real and incontrovertible.

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ORIGINAL: Aneirin
[...] is it true God gave the planet to the humans to do with as they wish ?[...]

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ORIGINAL: Genesis 1:26-30
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image,  in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.  28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
  29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

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tweakabelle
This compulsion to believe is even worse when the vulnerability of children/recovering addicts is taken into account. It is abusive in every sense of the word.

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thishereboi ???

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tweakabelle
Whilst it is not a universal phenomenon, the tendency for many people of many faiths to force their views on non-believers is real and incontrovertible.

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thishereboi
And the tendency for many people of no faith to ridicule believers is real in incontrovertible. What's your point?

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You're surely not seriously suggesting that there's an equivalence between forcing a religion on someone and ridiculing a religious belief are you? Hopefully you aren't that stupid, so what's your point?

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

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tweakabelle
This compulsion to believe is even worse when the vulnerability of children/recovering addicts is taken into account. It is abusive in every sense of the word.

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thishereboi ???

I'm taking your question marks to mean you can't understand why I regard forcing religion on children and recovering addicts as abusive.

No they meant that I didn't understand which children and addicts you were refering to. Now I went to church as a child and so did all of my friends, I never say any of it as abusive. I have also had dealings with many sides of substance abuse and have never seen the abuse you talk about.

Here's one reason:
'madrassas' are run by fundamentalist Islamists in many countries. They basically teach the children under their care the Koran/Islam and not much else. Madrassas are widely blamed for turning children into suicide bombers, especially in Pakistan. They have been described as suicide bomber factories.
I haven't studied islamic religion and can't say what they teach their kids in other countries. I can say it's really none of my business.

As you apparently don't have a problem with forcing religion upon children whose minds are not formed enough to resist it, or on recovering addicts who are in no position either emotionally or physically to form views in such matters, I'm sure you won't have a problem with this particular practice.
I am against anyone who teaches a child to hate for any reason. Clear enough for ya?

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tweakabelle
Whilst it is not a universal phenomenon, the tendency for many people of many faiths to force their views on non-believers is real and incontrovertible.

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thishereboi
And the tendency for many people of no faith to ridicule believers is real in incontrovertible. What's your point?

You're surely not seriously suggesting that there's an equivalence between forcing a religion on someone and ridiculing a religious belief are you? Hopefully you aren't that stupid, so what's your point?
Tazzy covered this already

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Another thing some might want to attend to is to understand the prefix 'a' (or 'an' in front of vowels) which indicates something like 'non' (as contrasted to 'anti' or 'contra') which in the case of a-theism means effectively 'non-belief

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Yes, we can invoke a philosophical construct to call a non-belief a belief, but then strictly speaking, math is a belief system also. In any case the diversion is not helpful.

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In public school I never had an atheistic 'belief' forced upon me.

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In public places I've never had ostentatious atheistic-specific attire presented to me, unless we consider all non-ostentatious religious attire to be ostentatiously atheistic attire

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ORIGINAL: thishereboi

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

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tweakabelle
This compulsion to believe is even worse when the vulnerability of children/recovering addicts is taken into account. It is abusive in every sense of the word.

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thishereboi ???

I'm taking your question marks to mean you can't understand why I regard forcing religion on children and recovering addicts as abusive.

No they meant that I didn't understand which children and addicts you were refering to. Now I went to church as a child and so did all of my friends, I never say any of it as abusive. I have also had dealings with many sides of substance abuse and have never seen the abuse you talk about.

Let me make myself crystal clear. It is abusive to force a belief such as religion on a child or recovering addict, or indeed, any one who is not in a position to make fully informed free choices of their own. If you cannot grasp this basic point about personal integrity and autonomy, try replacing "a belief such as religion" with "sex" in the previous sentence. Yes, it can be seen as a kind of mind rape. Your inability to identify it as abusive, and your casual acceptance of such practices suggests to me that whatever moral code you subscribe to is seriously deficient.

Here's one reason:
'madrassas' are run by fundamentalist Islamists in many countries. They basically teach the children under their care the Koran/Islam and not much else. Madrassas are widely blamed for turning children into suicide bombers, especially in Pakistan. They have been described as suicide bomber factories.
I haven't studied islamic religion and can't say what they teach their kids in other countries. I can say it's really none of my business.

Transparent evasion. Have you no better response than this pathetic effort?
As you apparently don't have a problem with forcing religion upon children whose minds are not formed enough to resist it, or on recovering addicts who are in no position either emotionally or physically to form views in such matters, I'm sure you won't have a problem with this particular practice.
I am against anyone who teaches a child to hate for any reason. Clear enough for ya?

Again. Transparent evasion. Have you no better response than this pathetic effort?

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tweakabelle
Whilst it is not a universal phenomenon, the tendency for many people of many faiths to force their views on non-believers is real and incontrovertible.

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thishereboi
And the tendency for many people of no faith to ridicule believers is real in incontrovertible. What's your point?

You're surely not seriously suggesting that there's an equivalence between forcing a religion on someone and ridiculing a religious belief are you? Hopefully you aren't that stupid, so what's your point?
Tazzy covered this already

Tazzy responded with an evasion and an attempt to twist the subject. If she ever addresses the point directly, I might pay attention to what she has to say.

The question was pointedly directed to you. Of course you don't have to respond, but a series of silences and evasions adds up to an awful lot of nothing. In this instance, silence would be apt and eloquent - revealing you have nothing to say, nothing intelligent to contribute and adding weight to the criticisms made at the outset.

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Tazzy responded with an evasion and an attempt to twist the subject. If she ever addresses the point directly, I might pay attention to what she has to say.

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ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk

I would hope that your open minded enough to see that for many people it isn't a choice. That to be "religious" is the only way that they can assure salvation.