Jonluw said:
Estelindis said:
While you are entitled to your opinion, I question the practicality and morality of what you suggest. To "do away" with something does not mean to simply let it die out, but to actively exterminate it. I assume you're aware that this breach of human rights would be actively opposed by many, including a significant number of atheists and agnostics who believe in the right of every human being to follow their own path?
You wouldn't have to do away with it forcefully. I'm not insinuating we should lead some agressive campaign against all religion.
One way would be to encourage critical thinking and rationality. Wait, why aren't we doing that already?
Causing a shift in society to stick to facts and well proven theories when anything important is concerned needn't be done through methods which infringe on human rights.
There's a certain lack of openness to some other points of view in your words of which you may not be aware. I am a Christian and I do my best to think critically and rationally. Many other Christians do too. We would certainly want to encourage using one's mind to its full potential; it is, after all, a gift from God. I'm sure many people of other faiths have similar feelings. After all, many great logical thinkers throughout the ages have had strong religious faith. Accordingly, I firmly disagree that that encouraging critical thinking would automatically lead to a decline in the love and worship of God or the divine (or however one's particular faith would put it).
In fact, nothing less than breaching my human rights could convince me to give up my faith. I certainly hope that even that wouldn't make me recant, but it's difficult to know how one would hold up under serious persecution, pain, or the threat of death unless one actually experiences something like that, and we're not always as brave as we'd wish to be. So yes: if you wanted to eliminate my faith, for instance, breaching my rights would be required.
However, I don't get the impression that you have any such wishes. Either you didn't think that people like me might exist (maybe you still don't; "she hilariously thinks she tries to be rational!" you may laugh, if one could laugh such a mouthful), or you didn't follow your thought of getting rid of religion through to its logical conclusion. Or maybe you just meant that wrongful practices committed by religious people should cease, in which case I agree - though I apply it to everyone, not just religious people. ;-)
Criminal actions such as the one mention in the OP could be lessened by better education and more rational thinking (as could wrongful actions with all kinds of motives). I hope that does happen! But we are missing an important piece of the puzzle: love. Our fellow escapist was right to say that religion isn't just for academics to discuss. God wants us to use our minds, but He also wants us to use our hearts. We need not just a more rational world but also a kinder world. And, in some ways, we need to prefer love - certainly, in the face of the kind of utilitarianism some people would call rational (a rationality based only on numbers), we need to maintain that the few, the poor, and the weak should not be sacrificed for the many, the wealthy, and the strong. So perhaps, in this sense, religion is irrational: it values love, which cannot be measured by any scientific unit. Still, we all know what love is and how valuable it is (or we do if we haven't suffered awful abuse or emotional deprivation), so I like to think this is an irrationality that we share.
