That’s a really huge lie that most fundies accept uncritically because it flatters their sense of self-importance.
The Puritans were a bunch of crackpots that I doubt modern fundamentalists would approve of or get along with. The Founding Fathers were a bunch of Deists (closeted atheists, really) and Thomas Jefferson took a scissors to the New Testament to remove the parts he didn’t like, including any miracles Jesus was supposed to have performed.
The only resonance between the Founders and modern authoritarian Christians is that they were elitists or at least believed the elites should be in control as the most dignified and worthy representatives of the citizenry, and that blacks were, at best, 3/5 of a person and illegal as anything but chattel slaves.
And those things aren’t really what the NT authors at least nominally taught (it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven; god will judge you for failing to be nice to strangers and foreigners; Jesus hung out with all sorts of “sinners” – prostitutes and tax collectors, properly in the same category, lol. The only person righteous enough to bind up the wounds of a man laying by the roadside was a Samaritan – the equivalent, for that time, of what Trump is making out Somalis to be or what Vance was making out of Haitians during the campaign.
In my life, I have heard many people saying that atheists should not hold public office, that we should not have any job that puts us in a position of trust, that we should not marry and/or officiate weddings, that we are child abusers, and so forth.
Even in the military, people are “punished” for being atheists.
At my current nursing job, there are any number of people who believe that atheists shouldn’t be nurses, because atheists lack the level of morality that nursing requires.
Here again it depends on what kind of devil-worship you are talking about, but both the Satanic Temple and the Church of Satan do not believe in a personal devil. In fact the Satanic Temple is really an outright parody religion and exists almost more to troll authoritarian Christians than anything else. Both are more about freedom of thought and action than about worshipping anything literally.
Am I the only one seeing the irony of made up subjective beliefs, setting rules about what can be made up? If one considers the subjective experience alone sufficient for belief, how then can one deny any subjective experience anyone cares to express?
Help me out here?
Person X “I saw a mermaid last night, I know it was a mermaid.”
Since a fact is something that is known (or proven) to be true, this is a fact, right?
Lol no, not that I’m aware of. Students of comparative religion are almost definitionally studying organized religions and those two are the only forms of Satan-oriented religion that are organized and have written principles and a larger than microscopic following, so far as I know. Some folks assume Wicca would involve satanism but they have male / female divinities that take many forms, sometimes a horned forest god that’s a bit devil-like, but the emphasis on the primacy of personal experience keeps things fluid and out of focus. I am not sure if what is depicted in movies about secret Satanic cults summoning demons with pentagrams has any basis in actual human practice. It may be more a product of fear-mongering by Christians who like to fancy that their religion keeps humanity from devolving into stuff like that.
In my PoV and FoR, nothing religion should be taught in any public funded schools, REGARDLESS. If churches want their own schools, FINE, but they should NEVER receive any federal accreditation. Even universities like Notre Dame, Brigham Young, Liberty, too many others to list all, should have all accreditation rescinded and revoked.
Additionally, I would have laws impossible to enforce that prohibit ALL religious studies by any persons under the age of 21. Religion should NEVER be taught to any children. However, that is the specific reason theists DO target children. They do not have enough life experience to be able to refute the lies of religion. For all religion is LIES. How? If you cannot prove IT true with objective hard empirical evidence, then IT is False, regardless of theist argumentum imploro dei hiatus fallacy.
How can you CLAIM something is true if you cannot prove it true?
And to answer the OP question, YES! ALL theists are out to get all unbelievers to believe their bullshit and brain diarrhea. I have yet to meet any theist who can keep their mouth shut about their beliefs and wanting to force those beliefs on others.
However, since I moved to the Four Corners region (boondocks), there are almost NO theists around. Almost every person in me small town are Unbelievers. Even the farmers and rangers are unbelievers. One told me, literally verbatim, “I got damned tired of all the bullshit those pulpit prevaricators spewed from their lips. I always thought that was what the anus was for.” Me? I busted out ROGLMAOWF.
There are other ways than the preachy way. Here (Norway), kids in elementary and middle school have a subject about religion, worldview, and ethics. The goal of the subject is to approach religions (main focus on christianity, but also islam, judaism, hinduism, etc.) and worldviews like humansim objectively and critically. There is some opposition against this subject, and one can always discuss the importance of it and its content, but in my view the subject informs the kids about the reality “out there”. Which I think has some merit in helping the kids understand the views of others. Also, I have no problems with my own kids having this subject.
All an institution of higher learning has to do to be accredited is to teach evolution and other aspects of science that disagree with some authoritarian interpretations of religion. I suppose that leaves the option to teach it in passive-aggressive ways, or salted over with “alternative views” of the religion.
I attended a Bible Institute that was not accredited and proud of it. It traded credits only with a couple of other unaccreddited institutions. A whole year of my life I’ll never get back.
Given the massive influence of religious ideation on society and culture and art, it makes sense for children to have a basic (but critical) understanding of it. They will be at a disadvantage otherwise.
Children should be taught, just not indoctrinated.
It could be. This is what I call a sliding scale type of thing. Definitive definition would be very tricky. But one definition could be: “any teaching that proposes false doctrines uncritically and with purpose of absolute exclusion of all else.”
Not perfect, but best I can think of at drop of hat.
That’s the problem with being categorical and dogmatical. You will sooner or later end up with absurd cases. As for Santa Claus, there are arguments for and against, but one can argue that it is mostly just innocent fun that one grows out of naturally. So if we take it one step further, how do you exclude faery tales and other pieces of fiction that some people end up actually believing is the truth? Should we ban Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Star Trek because some people take it a bit too seriously and a few steps too far? Or do you have other solutions?
I suppose you have in mind, e.g. in the case of Star Trek, dressing up like an Andorian to attend a convention, or applying yourself to learn Kligonese, etc. But I seriously doubt Trekkies would start a war to defend against Star Wars proponents, or would reject their own child for failure to remember the terms of the Organian Peace Treaty.
The religious take religion very seriously, not as just all in fun, and they do so while prohibiting other forms of fun. I think it’s a bit different category as to what’s being objected to.
I would set the bar at the point of “forceful perpetuation”. When threat of harm comes into the mix, such as “You will die and burn in 7734 forever.”, that is when it becomes indoctrination instead of informational teaching.
I will need to ponder more, but I set the mark as utilizing threat, then it no longer is teaching.
Is the Santa Claus myth not “forceful perpetuation”?
“You better not cry, you better not pout, you better not shout, I’m telling you why: Santa Claus is coming to town.”
Sounds coercive to me. I’d argue that it’s a symbolic version of the divine panopticon, and hell is replaced by something more relatable to children: being offered shiny new toys only to learn they aren’t worthy of them like OTHER boys and girls.
Heck, Santa Claus evolved from St. Nicholas, a Christian saint, and the latter are often depicted as having somewhat godlike powers plus having earned god’s ear in ways mere mortals have not.
Another manifestation is the “because I said so” parenting style – we can debate whether that is just taken too far by some, or should never be done to begin with, but the idea that you cannot but obey and have no other choices, bwuh-ha-ha, just sounds sadistic to me.
What I tried to do with my kids was say well you are free to do whatever but these are the consequences (natural or imposed) that will flow from that, are you prepared to accept them? And if those consequences were imposed by me, I made sure they were proportionate to the kinds of natural and social consequences they would face in similar situations as adults. The idea being, to help them develop impulse control that would help them be more functional adults someday.
