• Welcome to The Cave of Dragonflies forums, where the smallest bugs live alongside the strongest dragons.

    Guests are not able to post messages or even read certain areas of the forums. Now, that's boring, don't you think? Registration, on the other hand, is simple, completely free of charge, and does not require you to give out any personal information at all. As soon as you register, you can take part in some of the happy fun things at the forums such as posting messages, voting in polls, sending private messages to people and being told that this is where we drink tea and eat cod.

    Of course I'm not forcing you to do anything if you don't want to, but seriously, what have you got to lose? Five seconds of your life?

Would you ban religion if you had the power to?

Would you?

  • Yes

    Votes: 8 13.6%

  • No

    Votes: 51 86.4%
  • Total voters
    59
E

Ether's Bane

future Singaporean
Pronoun
he
As you know, this is a highly atheistic forum, and in the "If religion never existed" thread, the consensus was that it would have a generally positive impact. Which brings up these questions:

1) If you had the power to, would you ban religion worldwide?
2) Why or why not?
 
"if religion never existed" and "if religion was banned" are two very different scenarios. Are we talking about the banning of practice, or the banning of belief (impossible) here? Because telling people they can't do certain mostly harmless things and then actually enforcing it seems... pointless, short-sighted and cruel (how /would/ it be enforced? if caught praying, get sent to jail? how would this work). Also, not really going to change much but make religious people's lives really hard. Religion is used for bad ends, true! But, uh, the motivation and capacity for that is still going to be there.

Also, religion is a fundamental part of pretty much every culture in the world, and of history. How would a suddenly totally irreligious world even function?
 
I completely agree with Cirrus. I might be an atheist, but banning people from believing in something they already believe in isn't going to solve anything. Anyone who answers 'yes' to this question is very short-sighted.
 
Why would I ban religion? I'd far rather people decide that atheism is the better option themselves than force it upon anyone. After all, you can't force someone to believe (or lack belief in) something. It would be ineffective and runs contrary to my beliefs, anyway.
 
Voted yes very loosely. "Banning", as in simply outlawing it won't really do much of anything except make people upset. Ideally, I would like to see religion disappear in its entirety -- but this comes along with peoples' beliefs and not just the organisations, doctrine, etc. which is a lot more than a simple "ban".
 
I would unquestionably prefer a world without religion. However, trying to achieve that goal through legislation and force:
a) wouldn't work
b) would be completely unethical
You shouldn't be forced to change your beliefs, no matter how wrong they are. After all, that's the sort of thing atheists criticise radical Muslims/Christians/etc. over. Instead, I think we should encourage things such as improvements in education and quality of life which lead to a natural decline in religious belief.
 
Without religion, we'd just find something else to argue and pointlessly kill each other over.

And trying to ban religion would just give the religious people a reason to be violent (a good reason, even--for once, it's not all in their head... they actually are being oppressed!), so if someone did try to ban religion they'd just end up causing exactly the kind of thing they're trying to prevent.
 
Voting yes because what I would do would preferentially lead to the elimination of religion.

I would stop any government funding to any religion or any charity sponsored by a religion.

I would prevent any meddling in government due to religion, but allow the government to affect religion.

I obviously wouldn't burn Bibles or vandalise mosques, but I'd take all significance out of any religion in regards to government- Cities no longer require a cathedral etc.

People wouldn't be able to opt out of duties due to religion.

Basically just things that isolate religion into a private function the way it's supposed to be.
 
I think religion shouldn't be banned, but it shouldn't influence society as a whole. I am for stopping public funding for religious schooling, and I am for entirely secular political parties. But people should be able to believe what they want in their own homes privately. This isn't Orwell, we don't do thoughtcrime.
 
I obviously wouldn't burn Bibles or vandalise mosques, but I'd take all significance out of any religion in regards to government- Cities no longer require a cathedral etc.
Click to expand...
This hasn't been relevant for decades. :|
In the twentieth century, it was explicitly recognised that the status of city in England and Wales would no longer be bound to the presence of a cathedral, and grants made since have been awarded to communities on a variety of criteria, including population size.
Click to expand...
 
Considering that banning religion would be a one stop shop to revolution, never. Plus, it just doesn't sit right with me. I want the freedom to believe what I wan to believe, so why should I take it away from someone else?
 
No. At this point it's stupid to do so. Now had religion never existed, that's a different story; but banning it or making it illegal is stupid. Banning things makes them more popular, or people will still find ways to get it or do it. Prohibition is a good example.

You also can't control what people believe.
 
Well, no. Though I'm not a fan of people rubbing huge bouts of religion in the faces of everyone they come across (or using it as an excuse to hurt people like Lord of the Fireflies said), people should be able to believe in what they want to. If it was banned, wouldn't that mean people get arrested or punished just for beliefs? It sounds like a strange decision to ban it, since for the most part what a person thinks doesn't hurt anybody.
 
Basically agree with everyone else who voted no.

My problem with religion is not that it's an incorrect view of the world, it's that it's often forcefully imposed upon people by its followers and used as a justification for hurting others. I'm all for people having the freedom to do as they please so long as it's not at the expense of others. If theists as a whole ever understand that not everyone needs to follow their religion and it's not their job to carry out what they think is their god's will, to live and let live, I'd be fine with religion.

There is also the fact not all religions even apply to my reasons for not liking most religions. If one banned religion, the ones that are pretty harmless to begin with would also be wrapped up in it.
 
No, because in my mind the main problem with organized religion is the "we're right, everyone else is wrong" mentality. If I could "ban" religion of any kind, how would I be any different? Staring into the abyss etc
 
I don't think you should ban religion because it's someone's right to what they believe in. I actually think following a religion is somewhat good for you if you actually stick to it and lead an orderly lifestyle.
 
Banning religion would be ridiculously counterproductive to any kind of progress. It's restricting (or rather, trying to restrict) what people can think. To be quite frank I don't see how someone could think it's a good idea. o.o
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom