JusticeMachine

Do you think that if we ignore religion, it will go away?

Sometimes I think if we keep argueing against religious beliefs, that it only fuels the flame for people to believe in it, for no other reason than to go against the grain or to annoy people.

Kinda the same thing as to why your kind wants to pierce his nipples and get a tatoo of satan on his forhead.

Oxymoron

No. To make it go away we need in the short term some kind of counterweight to the lunatics out there who would snuff out freedom of thought and expression; in the long term, an education system that encourages children to think for themselves and question their beliefs and motivations (as opposed to churning out fodder for employment in a consumerist society).

JusticeMachine

Then it's true that religion is wrong?

The Admiral

And Atheism wont go away if the christers ignore it either.

I think the religionists made a serious tactical error when they sponsored the Newdow/Knechtle debate. They should have continued to ignore us. Even though I think that Newdow did not do a good job, thousands of Christians who were only peripherily aware of Atheism and some who were totally unaware of it now understand that we are here and in considerable force. On that basis we come out the clear winner.

The Admiral

faustuz

In Iran nobody argues against religion, yet it doesn’t seem to be going away.

Oxymoron

Ah, "right" and "wrong", such pejorative terms.

No doubt, religion fulfils a function for people. To remove it would leave a functional void, we would need to fill that void with something else that does a similar job without all the bullshit and repression and sectarianism.

Autonemesis

Well, that leaves out Star Trek conventions...

JusticeMachine

Would you define right and wrong depending on what you are trying to accomplish?

For instance, if I were going to try to accomplish being celibate, under that context it would be wrong to have sex.

Where as if I were trying to accomplish being a pornstar, it would be wrong not to have sex.

CaptainDave

In the LONG RUN, Religion is dead. At least the organized, dogmatic, hatefull religions like Christianity, Islam and Judeoism.

The world is changing rapidly. Education for the masses is spreading. The internet is connecting more and more of the world's population each day. Science, knowledge and reason will inevitably eclipse the darkness of superstition, ignorance and fear.

The nutjob leaders of the religious community realize this. That's why we see such a surge of fundamentalism today. They're desperate. They know this is their last stand. They're like wounded animals.

This is why we CANNOT AFFORD to ignore them in the short run. They'll die for sure but they could take a lot of us with them if we let them.

hinduwoman

If we just ignore it it will give fundamentalists an opportunity to spread their propaganda. We can ignore it only when people have become very lukewarm about it.