Freedom FROM or OF religion

Argue for and against Christianity

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nobspeople
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Freedom FROM or OF religion

Post #1

Post by nobspeople »

Thanks to TRANSPONDER for the suggestion of starting another thread.
:applaud:
'Freedom of religion does not mean freedom From religion'
Is this true? If true, should it be? If it's not, why isn't it true?
For discussion:
Should those that choose NOT to participate in religion be forced to live by the rules of one certain religion?
Have a great, potentially godless, day!

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Re: Freedom FROM or OF religion

Post #2

Post by TRANSPONDER »

nobspeople wrote: Tue Dec 28, 2021 2:25 pm Thanks to TRANSPONDER for the suggestion of starting another thread.
:applaud:
'Freedom of religion does not mean freedom From religion'
Is this true? If true, should it be? If it's not, why isn't it true?
For discussion:
Should those that choose NOT to participate in religion be forced to live by the rules of one certain religion?

The only point that popped into my head was this. The idea in the saying above is that you can have a religion, so long as you don't have No religion. That is, we can be tolerant about various kinds of theism, but we can't have tolerance of atheism. "No, I don't think that atheists should be considered citizens or patriots. This is one nation under God" one of the top ten most infamous quotes by any US president.

But religion is not the same thing as theism, isn't it? A Deist/sortagoddist/"Agnostic" is evidently one who believes in a 'God', Cosmic Mind or Creator but not in any organised religion. Is that acceptable to the 'any religion but not No religion' types? While it's fine to say 'Oh...I do sorta think there is a god behind it all..' isn't the point for organised theism to align the populace in the right direction? After all 'no morality without God'.

And don't they say that atheism is a 'Religion' (1) anyway? Heck, they say that atheism is a church, with Dogma, Preachers and a Holy Book ("Origin of species"). So atheism is ok, isn't it? Heck (again, they say that Science is a religion ("scientism"). So rejection of God, religion and Creationism of all kinds is a perfectly acceptable religion, especially as some years ago Atheism was given the same rights in Law as any other religion.

(1) Darwinism with the dogma of Evilooshun. Which is not to be confused with evolution. e.g Belivers think that the Big Bang is part of evolution -theory. And in the broader and more general usage, it is.
evolution - the explanation of the diversity of organisms.
Evilooshun - an atheistic god -denying Belief that everything popped out of nothing for no reason, just by chance.

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Re: Freedom FROM or OF religion

Post #3

Post by Athetotheist »

[Replying to nobspeople in post #1]
Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion.
Yes it does.

The quote above is popular among Fundamentalist Christians. If one of them has a child in a public school and that child has, say, a Hindu teacher and that teacher introduces yoga and meditation exercises in class, is that Fundamentalist Christian going to apply the principle in the quote above to that situation? I doubt it. And if the Christian's child has a right to be free from the Hindu teacher's religion, then the Hindu's child has the same right to be free from the Christian teacher's religion.

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Re: Freedom FROM or OF religion

Post #4

Post by Athetotheist »

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #2]
again, they say that Science is a religion ("scientism")
Science and "scientism" should not be confused. Scientism is the belief that science offers absolute irrefutable truths and is, in that sense, very much like a dogmatic religion, whereas science is always open to self-correction (the only scientific discipline which offers absolute proofs is mathematics).
Evilooshun - an atheistic god -denying Belief that everything popped out of nothing for no reason, just by chance.
I don't believe that everything popped out of nothing for no reason just by chance, but I don't consider myself an "Evilooshun-ist".

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Re: Freedom FROM or OF religion

Post #5

Post by bjs1 »

[Replying to nobspeople in post #1]

Freedom of religion has almost always included the freedom not to participate in any religion. Very few people have ever meant anything else by that phrase. I understand that we can twist words around to make them mean anything we want – so we could somehow call atheism a religion or other such nonsense – but I have little patience for such things.
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
-Charles Darwin

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Re: Freedom FROM or OF religion

Post #6

Post by nobspeople »

bjs1 wrote: Wed Dec 29, 2021 11:19 am [Replying to nobspeople in post #1]

Freedom of religion has almost always included the freedom not to participate in any religion. Very few people have ever meant anything else by that phrase. I understand that we can twist words around to make them mean anything we want – so we could somehow call atheism a religion or other such nonsense – but I have little patience for such things.

So the quote is not true and it should not be true.
So 'Freedom of religion does not mean freedom From religion' mean 'Freedom of religion does mean freedom From religion'?
Just to clarify.
Have a great, potentially godless, day!

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Re: Freedom FROM or OF religion

Post #7

Post by TRANSPONDER »

Athetotheist wrote: Wed Dec 29, 2021 9:12 am [Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #2]
again, they say that Science is a religion ("scientism")
Science and "scientism" should not be confused. Scientism is the belief that science offers absolute irrefutable truths and is, in that sense, very much like a dogmatic religion, whereas science is always open to self-correction (the only scientific discipline which offers absolute proofs is mathematics).
Evilooshun - an atheistic god -denying Belief that everything popped out of nothing for no reason, just by chance.
I don't believe that everything popped out of nothing for no reason just by chance, but I don't consider myself an "Evilooshun-ist".

I agree. Science is a discipline. Scientism is - as you say - a claim that science has a Dogma rather than the reliable results of investigation. As I said - those who claim science is Dogmatic are refuted by the accusation that 'science is always changing its' mind'. Which means that science is willing to change (or revise) current models of reality in the light of new information. But these don't alter the Core Doctrines ;) shall we say. We may find out that Pluto is not a planet but an extra planetary object, but we won't discover tat the earth rather than the sun is the centre of the solar system. Nor, no matter what we find out about sub atomic particles, will we have to drop the idea that atoms and molecules are the building -blocks of what we call 'matter'. Despite relativity, quantum, indeterminacy and even a (possible) holographic universe, Newtonian physics are still valid and used as the basis of physics.

Scientism, at best is a projection of Theist thinking onto the Opposition and is rather amusing as (like the accusation of atheism being a religion) is religion Faith and Dogma is so great, why it is tossed out as an accusation?
Well we know why. It is a rival and wrong religion. So I say that even if science (and atheism) is a religion, Church and Dogma, it is better in line with evidence and reason than other religions.

'There are many religions; there is only one science'.

Of course the Universe (or Universe) had an origin, just as Kalam says, and it was for Reasons and while not random chance, it was not planned, or I see no reason to suppose that it was. The accusatory pseudo -definition of 'evilooshum' (which I have heard used by Creationists) is aimed at the concept (that Creationism has in mind) that ignores known physical processes and sees results as random happenstance, which is not what science says, though it has not shown (and Theism has not convincingly shown) that there is an intent and plan behind it.
Indeed, that Faith - based misconception skews theist thinking from the start as it assumes an intended objective and rightly calculates that obtaining that objective by accident is astronomical odds against But (like a hole not being designed to fit a puddle, but the water adapting to the hole) results coming out however they happen to come out is odds 1-1.

It is (as is usually the case) the a priori assumption of a planning Mind that skews all their arguments, logic and calculations from the start, so all their arguments are flawed from the get -go.

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Re: Freedom FROM or OF religion

Post #8

Post by TRANSPONDER »

Athetotheist wrote: Wed Dec 29, 2021 8:54 am [Replying to nobspeople in post #1]
Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion.
Yes it does.

The quote above is popular among Fundamentalist Christians. If one of them has a child in a public school and that child has, say, a Hindu teacher and that teacher introduces yoga and meditation exercises in class, is that Fundamentalist Christian going to apply the principle in the quote above to that situation? I doubt it. And if the Christian's child has a right to be free from the Hindu teacher's religion, then the Hindu's child has the same right to be free from the Christian teacher's religion.

You identify the problem of catering to religious requirements in schools. It only works if One religion is the one taught in a school and that is why religion of any kind is not a curriculum item in school (or should not be) and religion is not supposed to be in schools. That is the only workable solution to the problem - no religion in school.

That is course is why Faith schools are set up - so the kids can be safely indoctrinated with one particular religion. In a non -Faith school no religion should come into it and if it does (for any reason) any other religion has the right to require that It be represented in class in the same way. To refuse to do that means - effectively - that the state school has become a Faith school.

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Re: Freedom FROM or OF religion

Post #9

Post by historia »

nobspeople wrote: Tue Dec 28, 2021 2:25 pm
Thanks to TRANSPONDER for the suggestion of starting another thread.
TRANSPONDER wrote: Tue Dec 28, 2021 2:11 pm
Freedom of religion does not mean freedom From religion
Athetotheist wrote: Wed Dec 29, 2021 8:54 am
The quote above is popular among Fundamentalist Christians.
So, one of my pet peevs is when participants here start a thread by briefly summarizing some idea that they disagree with and then inviting others to critique it. It seems to me the likelihood that we all just end up strawmanning the idea is quite high.

Instead, I think it's better to always quote someone who actually holds the idea -- and, better still, to link to an article where that person is arguing in favor of the idea -- so we can actually understand what, exactly, the idea entails.

Perhaps nobspeople, TRANSPONDER or Athetotheist can provide the rest of us such a link?

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Re: Freedom FROM or OF religion

Post #10

Post by historia »

Athetotheist wrote: Wed Dec 29, 2021 9:12 am
Scientism is the belief that science offers absolute irrefutable truths
TRANSPONDER wrote: Wed Dec 29, 2021 12:12 pm
Scientism is - as you say - a claim that science has a Dogma
This is neither here nor there in the thread, but I don't think that's quite what the word scientism entails.

The Wikipedia article on scientism is more in line with my understanding:
Wikipedia wrote:
Scientism is the view that science is the best or only objective means by which society should determine normative and epistemological values . . . [it is] an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities.)
In that way, it's not the belief that science offers "irrefutable truths," but the belief that (true) knowledge only consists of those things that can be verified through the scientific method, and in that way is closely tied to logical positivism.

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