Wouldn’t you have to eliminate the pagans as well as the have their own religious beliefs.
Also my position.
I’ve never been able to accept the argument that everything would be just dandy if religion ceased to exist. Pretty sure that idea falls under the broad category of magical thinking .
My position is that religion is a result, not a cause .That all human needs existed before religion. That without exception, religions reflect the society which invents them and the individuals which practice them.
If religions were abolished, those doing the abolishing would need to be very sure they have a practical replacement. Of course they have had whenever such as been attempted. Universally, that something seems to have been a personality cult. I refer specifically to Stalinist Russia, Maoist China and North Korea under three successive Kim dictators.
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You forgot Trumpist USA (which would sort of make it a polytheistic pantheon; God, Jesus, and Trump, with members of the NRA as the clerical caste).
Edit: Sarcasm…
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Are you saying trump was worse than idi amin or pol pot as they weren’t mentioned
I’m not. My fault for not marking it with a humour/sarcasm indicator.
Edit: besides, @boomer47’s point, as far as I understand, was not a ranking of bad dictatorships, but rather a list of known personality cults, of which one can argue Trump is the subject of.
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Sorry but if that’s the case you can add in Tony Blair, Margaret thatcher, Al sharpton, Bill and Hillary clinton, Al gore, John kerry, George w Bush and Boris Johnson
Sorry, but they don’t even come close in the near-deification of the person. And besides, it was meant as a joke, so let’s leave it there.
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I’d say it’s impossible to eradicate a belief anyway. You only really fight an idea with another idea, religions and the way they evolve, fracture and divide amply demonstrate this.
In The Life of Brian, there was a scene where the crowd were following Brian as the Messiah, worshipping a holy gourd he allegedly touched, he hadn’t of course. In the chase he lost one of his sandals, then sneaked away. One of the group picked up the sandal, proclaimed it holy and said they it would lead them to the Messiah, the followers of the holy gourd went one way, and the follower of the holy sandal another. It’s a simple illustration of how capricious supposedly massive differences in religion can be to any objective observer.
Funny as hell as well.
Let’s keep religions and their ideas in plain sight, and fight any pernicious ideas they try to pretend are moral. The way to fight any idea is with a different and better idea. So @Socialdarwin’s paganism is a non starter for me.
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Not to worry, you can get training from my ex wife.
That’s comparing apples and oranges, as Trump was constrained by laws in a democracy. An imperfect domacracy of course, as they must be, but a totally different animal to a totalitarian state.
Whether Trump was a totally different animal to those dictators we will never know, thank fuck. I’d also argue there is no such thing as a good or benevolent dictator, but if I had to choose one it wouldn’t be a power hungry narcissist like Trump.
Seconded. Life of Brian was at first banned in Norway due it being classified as blasphemous. As a result, the movie was marketed in Sweden as “So funny it was banned in Norway”.
Yes. Worshippers will worship. And people will find substitutes for religion, like personality cults, or otther made up shit. Better to stick to trust the gradual secularization of society.
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I’m struggling to disagree that most of them make poor leaders and especially in a dictatorship. Though I’m only aware of one of them attempting the overthrow of a democratic election in a coup de’tat of course.
People who want to lead often make poor leaders, and seldom worry about the hoi polloi in my experience.
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Got to agree with your last statement it’s something I agree with wholeheartedly.
Quite right Towelie. It was the very point I expected SocialDarwin might pick up on, but he doesn’t seem to think paganism is any sort of religion. As he said he just has an issue with Abrahamic religions. He was trusting to some sort of alliance with atheists, hoping on a “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” agenda.
Mind you in a truly egalitarian religious purge the Flat-Earthers, Homeopaths and Astrologers might also find themselves targets.
But personally I’d rather let sleeping dogs lie and teach their pups new tricks.
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Not that we have any idea what @Socialdarwin’s beliefs involve, beyond a belief in a deity. As despite many weeks of asking, he has remained reticent to the last. Hardly inspiring confidence in his relentless attempts to ingratiate atheists into his vague goals, to “fight” abrahamic religions. All of which he refused to offer any specifics on.
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Your goal is fighting Abrahamic oppression, but atheism does not necessarily entail fighting Abrahamic oppression. Many of us see doing so as a good thing, and because we live in a predominantly Abrahamic society, we often do fight Abrahamic oppression, but it is not our goal, and is only incidental to whatever goals some of us have set. We aren’t fighting Abrahamic oppression but rather we’re fighting theistic oppression. And not all atheists have goals regarding theism. theists, or religion, you know, that’s you projecting.
Those of us who do have goals regarding theism, theists, or religion, tend to see fighting theism, theists, and religion as our goal. Abrahamic oppression is not the problem, theism and theists are the problem. As a pagan, to us you’re just another delusional theist.
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And some of us are just trying to look over the wall of ignorance that has been our cage.
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@The_Towelie_ban So if I come to your house, I should see a giant picture of Donald Trump, with flowers arranged, and it being offered incents, candles and maybe your soul, on the altar, yes?
@Pupienus It seems to me, that @Socialdarwin believes in some sort of God, which HYPOCRITICALLY makes him no better than the theists that he himself wishes to fight against, his wanting to fight the Abrahamic religions makes no sense. As I said before, which @Cognostic further and nicely elaborated on, the God that @Socialdarwin believes in, is no different than that of the religions that he wants to fight. And by the way, how do you fight religion? A direct frontal assault is NEVER a good idea. Minus militant atheism, atheists simply just want to be left alone to live their lives.