Horatio Parker

Perhaps banning books upon pain of death is not ruthless. Advisory?

We could've saved time if you had been clear about your objection to "ruthless".
If by that you're suggesting that I claimed that Gnosticism had a higher priority than other heresies, you'll have to point that out because I don't recall saying any such thing. I said that I could see that a symbolic approach to scripture could invite suppression, but I said nothing about the relative degree of heresy.
Just above you called it a "secular agreement". Which was it?

Because of what "we" read. And I wouldn't say any of your remarks are controversial. Niggling and obtuse, but not controversial.

DCHindley

Even large scale and long time suppression of religious ideas, especially entrenched ones, is rarely successful. Look at the way the authorities of the former USSR tried to destroy Christianity by teaching atheism in the schools and severely limiting the ability of the recognized churches to proselytize or distribute literature. As soon as the USSR fell apart, millions of people flocked to Russian Orthodox and other churches to celebrate. These folks would never have done that previously out of fear of loosing their jobs or privileges.

It is true that Jewish Hasmonean princes required circumcision and adoption of Jewish law on the Idumeans and Itureans living in the region of Galilee. Even so, Idumeans seem to have adopted the Jewish faith rather wholeheartedly. This may be due more to shared culture than forced suppression of some sort of native Idumean pagan religion. The Itureans also seemed to have shared traditions with the Jews. It has been proposed that the Book of Watchers in 1 Enoch may have originated there. The only real change would be observance of the Mosaic Law of the Judeans.

DCH

dmm

Bold part is mine. You can't teach atheism. It is the unbelief in gods. That's it. Maybe Stalin wanted communism taught in schools, but that is not atheism, rather it is just a different way for an economy. The USSR did limit religion, but not because all the leaders were atheists. It's because the churches had power over the people and they didn't want anything that would compromise theirs.

DCHindley

I would think that forcibly suppressing any religion means replacing it by an approved set of beliefs. The approved set of religious beliefs was athiesm, which can and is often formulated as a kind of dogma. Hundreds of such dogmatic statements are posted in FRDB forums every week, maybe every day!

What is the point of suppressing something if you don't perceive of it as a threat? Fight fire with fire.

DCH

dmm

Atheism isn't a religion though. I thought you would have known that. Atheism also is not a dogma. There is not a hierarchy of people who command others what to believe, not believe, eat, how to think, who to marry or associate with, etc. Organized religion does have a dogma that does command people to act certain ways. Catholicism is the best example of dogma. They command almost every aspect of worship, life and death to the letter. The Pope makes edicts every once in a while about what Catholics need to believe next.

Could you show me a few of those "dogmatic statements"?

Jimmy Higgins

Typically that'd be the Dictator. Crushing religion would be about gaining the power from religion, give the people no alternatives, their god is Dear Leader.
In the sense of no, not really, I suppose. The biggest error is the whole plural on beliefs for atheism. Atheism is the belief that there are no gods... that's it. No other beliefs. You can pretty much go anywhere from there.
Or HOURS! OMG!!!