Aswad
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Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
Wow. I can't say that I've noticed an abundance of that - but, then, I don't have any sensitivities of a religious kind.
Around where I live, I noticed it even when I was an atheist myself.
Actually, it was particularly noticeable at the time, since I was hanging around more of them (and their boards), which showed me just how religion-invariant human prejudice and stupidity actually is. For instance, the Humanist society in Norway spends more time on bible studies and harping on Christians and Muslims than on ethics, charity and humanitarian matters, and I suspect (but don't know, as I've no interest in having a closer look) they probably spend more money on it, too. They've certainly spent quite a bit of money on the publication of anti-religious works that do nothing but mock (not even criticize) religion and religious people, but I've yet to see them do any reprints of Kant, Kierkegaard, etc., sponsor secular education, or in any other way really live better.
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Perhaps this 'harshness' (want of a better word) from atheists here goes hand-in-hand with (what I see as) the harsh flavour of American religiousness in particular.
"It is better to have a thousand idiots attacking your views, than one idiot defending them." - Voltaire (thanks, Kirata).
When fundamentalists appear, they polarize, creating opposed fundamentalism. It's a thing.
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In Britain, religion is, I think, something of a more taboo subject: the general feeling of 'so long as you don't ram it down my throat I'm fine with you' prevails.
Excepting self-identified atheists, that's the general feeling in Norway, as well.
By contrast, among atheists here, as far as I can tell, the general feeling is "6 billion people should be locked up in insane asylums, forcibly sterilized in case they escape, and denied basic human rights because they're too stupid to deserve them", and some are rather vocal about such things. Banning religion is a huge thing for them, and several have openly admitted to discrimination (e.g. stating they'd never hire anyone wearing a cross, because such a person must be insane, violent and mentally unstable).
Which is kind of ironic, since we have virtually no religious fundamentalism or extremism here, except for the jihadists (and they're more concerned with politics than religion). The bulk of our extremists are secular political extremists on the far left and the far right, mostly on the far left, though the far right has gained momentum after the Oslo/Utøya attacks last year (or, more precisely, after the way we as a state responded; as a people, we responded well, at first).
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Politics and religion aren't intermarried to anywhere near the same extent; when they are, the results aren't usually such stridently authoritarian policy proposals.
Yeah, same here.
The Christian Conservative Party, for instance, supports LGBT rights, and though they oppose elective abortion, they do support it in cases of rape (including marital rape and social rape), when the mother's health is at risk, or when the foetus may not be viable, all of which are anchored in their more comprehensive right to life doctrine (e.g. opposition to the death penalty and support for making foreign aid conditional on abolishing the death penalty). The latter is also supported by sex education, family planning, access to contraception (free), extensive welfare measures, and so forth. They also emphasize minority rights, education, research, antidiscrimination laws, women's rights issues and so forth. One of their rising stars is openly lesbian.
That's as fundie as it gets in politics around here, and hardly comparable to what one sees in the USA.
Note also that we see them as fundie, and that the next generation is completely different; we'll probably see them supporting LGBT adoption in a few years (currently, they don't), for instance, seeing as their notion of conservativism isn't based on a fixed point in the long distant past, but rather slow change (i.e. giving people time to get used to new ideas).
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Come to think of it, I recall being quite surprised when I first visited these forums even to see a forum headed 'Politics and Religion'. I'd never seen them put together in such a way before.
I guess the commonality is values.
IWYW,
— Aswad.
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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RE: Now God intended rape to happen. - 
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