The Politics Thread

[Wandering Yid]

Anyway, didn't Bernie do well last night!

One of the basic tenets of any democracy is freedom of choice, that includes personal beliefs. So, yes it does stand up under that scrutiny.

No, I don't feel it should be banned from schools. It should perhaps be taught alongside the evolutionary theory. Let pupils decide which they place their faith in.

I don't personally think its okay to let children believe that its rational and reasonable to completely ignore 99.9% of scientific discovery, purely because a 2000 year old work of fiction states something different. The two cannot be given equal weighting.

For the same reason it would trouble me if in 2000 years time people were using Harry Potter as a historical record of our time.

 

[Wandering Yid]

One of the basic tenets of any democracy is freedom of choice, that includes personal beliefs. So, yes it does stand up under that scrutiny.

No, I don't feel it should be banned from schools. It should perhaps be taught alongside the evolutionary theory. Let pupils decide which they place their faith in.

Democracy is freedom to elect one's leaders. Given that our head of state is also the head of the Church of England, and is unelected and unaccountable, not only are we undemocratic but religion also imposes on public life. Not to mention the fact that our House of Lords contains members who are purely there because they hold high religious office.

Freedom of religious practice is a human right outlined by the European Convention, but even that carries the caveat that religions should not be allowed to affect public matters. I would argue our system is in conflict with the European Convention on Human Rights.

 

[NSIS]

Anyway, didn't Bernie do well last night!


I don't personally think its okay to let children believe that its rational and reasonable to completely ignore 99.9% of scientific discovery, purely because a 2000 year old work of fiction states something different. The two cannot be given equal weighting.

For the same reason it would trouble me if in 2000 years time people were using Harry Potter as a historical record of our time.

How a school weights the balance should be a decision for that school, it's governors, and the parents of the pupils who attend the school.

Fiction, we may have mostly all concluded it to be. Although I know there are very strongly different views amongst our own supporters, but that should be a decision that each arrives at by personal choice.

I was taught religion at school, I expect you were. We have formed our own opinions, today's young are capable of that too. I'm not suggesting that it should be taught with the same vigour that it was in my day, but to try and ignore it, or pretend it doesn't exist, would be a mistake,

 

[NSIS]

Democracy is freedom to elect one's leaders. Given that our head of state is also the head of the Church of England, and is unelected and unaccountable, not only are we undemocratic but religion also imposes on public life. Not to mention the fact that our House of Lords contains members who are purely there because they hold high religious office.

Freedom of religious practice is a human right outlined by the European Convention, but even that carries the caveat that religions should not be allowed to affect public matters. I would argue our system is in conflict with the European Convention on Human Rights.

Ok, a kind of personal democracy then. I probably should have said that freedom of choice is one of the tenets of any democratic state.

I accept what you've said, and some of those things should be put right. However, the suggestion was that religion should be effectively banned altogether.

Let's look at where religion has been banned. Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Albania, North Korea, etc. All totalitarian states. And in most of those places banning it hasn't worked at all.

Is that the road we want to go down?

 

[bigsmithy9]

haven't been to Albania but did go to Kosovo (Gjakova) which is next door.These people in the south have churches and I actually walked into a mosque as they were in the middle of their prayers.Those Kosovans are of Albanian descent,I was told.

If you believe,you believe.If you don't,you don't.Leave the believers alone.

 

[NSIS]

haven't been to Albania but did go to Kosovo (Gjakova) which is next door.These people in the south have churches and I actually walked into a mosque as they were in the middle of their prayers.Those Kosovans are of Albanian descent,I was told.

If you believe,you believe.If you don't,you don't.Leave the believers alone.

Unfortunately, Smithy, some people don't want to do that. They think they know what's good for us all, and are determined to impose it upon us!

I should add that I'm not a believer. If you are, I respect that, no problem.

 

[Spurf]

How a school weights the balance should be a decision for that school, it's governors, and the parents of the pupils who attend the school.

Fiction, we may have mostly all concluded it to be. Although I know there are very strongly different views amongst our own supporters, but that should be a decision that each arrives at by personal choice.

I was taught religion at school, I expect you were. We have formed our own opinions, today's young are capable of that too. I'm not suggesting that it should be taught with the same vigour that it was in my day, but to try and ignore it, or pretend it doesn't exist, would be a mistake,

On the surface your argument is entirely reasonable and friendly and fair, live and let live, as you say. That's worked for us after all. You are comfortably smug in Spain and I am very comfortable in Scotland. We have made up our minds on religion even though we were taught at a young age from people who were committed to their religion.
You are in effect arguing for the status quo, in enlightened Europe at least.
The trouble is that position ignores what has happened historically with religion and even more important what is happening now.
Question: All the major religions put a great deal of effort into 'teaching' children their religions, why do you think they do that?

Question: Is it not fair and reasonable to restrict the teaching of religion to adults?

Alcohol, Smoking, and Sex are restricted by age, yet their effects are no where near as profound as religion to groups of humans although it's true they can all profoundly effect individuals.

We must be fair and impartial says the BBC while supporting the status quo.

The world is a dangerous and blood torn place with millions leading very short brutal lives. Much of the strife is religion based. This is not a subject that you can be cuddly and nice about and just accept that everything is fine and does not need changing. The status quo hasn't and doesn't work for the bulk of mankind, it needs changing. The first step must be to remove it from it's entanglement with the state.

 

[The Huddlefro]

Democracy is freedom to elect one's leaders. Given that our head of state is also the head of the Church of England, and is unelected and unaccountable, not only are we undemocratic but religion also imposes on public life. Not to mention the fact that our House of Lords contains members who are purely there because they hold high religious office.

Freedom of religious practice is a human right outlined by the European Convention, but even that carries the caveat that religions should not be allowed to affect public matters. I would argue our system is in conflict with the European Convention on Human Rights.

Yours is an interesting point. I would argue that although the monarch of England has powers, if they were in fact to exercise them in a way that wasn't broadly sanctioned by the public there would be a revolution. A curious case of practicalities of the situation trumping that which is written.

More broadly on religion, I would agree that religion of all flavours on a mass scale causes a lot of problems. On a micro, personal level though there are plenty of examples of people whose beliefs caused them to do an awful lot of good in the wider community and sometimes on a global scale. Now it might arguably be better if they had done what they did out of a secular belief of what is right/wrong than from a belief of the same stemming from religion, but the belief in a religion still caused them to do good and in many cases too gives people a meaning and purpose in life that causes them to do good.

It is a shame that when adherents of religions get organised and have to co-exist with other sets of values and beliefs, the very forces that might cause them to do individual good causes them to do mass harm as intolerance can lie so easily beneath the surface.

Often people are taught religion at a young age when in fact they are being taught a series of values constructed around an arguably archaic set of beliefs. It is the tone of the teaching and the society they experience as that teaching is imparted that has as much of a negative (or otherwise) effect in my view.

 

[littleDinosaurLuke]

It's getting too deep for me

 

[PleaseNotPoll]

On the surface your argument is entirely reasonable and friendly and fair, live and let live, as you say. That's worked for us after all. You are comfortably smug in Spain and I am very comfortable in Scotland. We have made up our minds on religion even though we were taught at a young age from people who were committed to their religion.
You are in effect arguing for the status quo, in enlightened Europe at least.
The trouble is that position ignores what has happened historically with religion and even more important what is happening now.
Question: All the major religions put a great deal of effort into 'teaching' children their religions, why do you think they do that?

Question: Is it not fair and reasonable to restrict the teaching of religion to adults?

Alcohol, Smoking, and Sex are restricted by age, yet their effects are no where near as profound as religion to groups of humans although it's true they can all profoundly effect individuals.

We must be fair and impartial says the BBC while supporting the status quo.

The world is a dangerous and blood torn place with millions leading very short brutal lives. Much of the strife is religion based. This is not a subject that you can be cuddly and nice about and just accept that everything is fine and does not need changing. The status quo hasn't and doesn't work for the bulk of mankind, it needs changing. The first step must be to remove it from it's entanglement with the state.

Restricting the teaching of religion to adults isn't something that I'd back.
I'm an atheist and I believe that secularism is extremely important, but this would be a step too far, for me.
Virtually unenforceable and a substantial violation of freedom of speech, too.

I would like to see the end of religious schools, though.
Educate children on what religion is and what each faith broadly teaches, plus the conflicts between them, but as a separate subject.
Perhaps include it in some sort of philosophy or morality class?
If parents want to add a religious education aspect, then they can still send their offspring to Sunday school or the equivalent.

Intentionally educating children apart from each other on the basis of their faith seems ridiculously divisive.
If we're trying to create a cohesive and peaceful society, then this seems completely counter-productive.

There's absolutely no way that anything will be done about it at the moment though, unfortunately.
The current Education Secretary would never allow it, as she's strongly CoE.
She ignored a High Court ruling that said that it was unlawful to exclude atheism from religious teaching in schools and voted against marriage equality.

 

[BrunelGooner]

Religion served a purpose in a pre-enlightenment world when science had no answers. Yes religion has provided some benefits - art, architecture, music, literature, quasi-moral leadership etc etc. But these benefits are trivial when compared to the suffering inflicted on millions by contraception bans, entrenched poverty and disease, gender based enslavement, sexuality based persecution, sectarian intolerance and much much more.

You're right religion is not the cause of all of humanity's problems, far from it, but I can't think of a single major problem facing humanity whose solution isn't barricaded by religious issues.

Again, matters such as poverty, disease, gender-based enslavement, sexuality-based persecution have all stemmed from individuals who have had a bloodthirsty lust for power and control. A lot of these things you mention are down to socioeconomic and political factors, rather than religious ones.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that based on my comments on here, I am quite a religious person and there's no prizes for guessing which religion I follow. I can't speak on behalf of all religions, even the other Abrahamic faiths, but I do believe that the religion I follow has achieved a lot of good for humanity.

In any case, you wouldn't say ISIS represent a form of Islam, or Muhammed Ahmad waging war against the Ottoman-Egyptian rule in Sudan during the 19th century would be representative of the Islamic faith, nor would you claim the KKK to be an authentic segment of Christianity, so why attribute the aforementioned issues to religion?

You may argue that individuals will interpret it their own way and can take things too far, but you can say that about most things in life. Even then, that's the fault of the person, rather than the religion or idea.

At the risk of getting a Pythonesque answer, what has religion done for us? From the beginning it was a construct to keep the masses from overturning their masters - hence all this BS about the meek inheriting the earth. If you accept the status quo you will get your reward in heaven. The only benefit is the comfort it brings people - but that is a house built on sand.

I'm not going to give a long answer because I've had the same questions levied at me before. Look at what religious people have contributed from the foundations of drugs and medicine, food, science, education, music. The roots of everything that we all take for granted now have stemmed from the Golden Ages of religious people.

 

[NSIS]

On the surface your argument is entirely reasonable and friendly and fair, live and let live, as you say. That's worked for us after all. You are comfortably smug in Spain and I am very comfortable in Scotland. We have made up our minds on religion even though we were taught at a young age from people who were committed to their religion.
You are in effect arguing for the status quo, in enlightened Europe at least.
The trouble is that position ignores what has happened historically with religion and even more important what is happening now.
Question: All the major religions put a great deal of effort into 'teaching' children their religions, why do you think they do that?

Question: Is it not fair and reasonable to restrict the teaching of religion to adults?

Alcohol, Smoking, and Sex are restricted by age, yet their effects are no where near as profound as religion to groups of humans although it's true they can all profoundly effect individuals.

We must be fair and impartial says the BBC while supporting the status quo.

The world is a dangerous and blood torn place with millions leading very short brutal lives. Much of the strife is religion based. This is not a subject that you can be cuddly and nice about and just accept that everything is fine and does not need changing. The status quo hasn't and doesn't work for the bulk of mankind, it needs changing. The first step must be to remove it from it's entanglement with the state.

I think that to blame the whole of a faith for the actions of very few is akin to blaming the actions of criminals on the whole of mankind. Groups like ISIS hide behind their religion for their own purposes. Yes, they use their warped version of it to recruit and encourage others. I do believe quite possibly that Islam should do more to denounce these people; even excommunicate them. It must be made abundantly clear to young, and very possibly impressionable Muslims, that these people do not represent the Islamic faith in any way.

I would tend to agree with PNP's suggestion that in general comprehensive schools religious theory should be explained or taught as a form of philosophy. I think, as I said earlier, it would be foolish to even attempt to ban it or pretend that it doesn't exist. Children are not stupid, they would realise very quickly that there was something going on out there that they were being excluded from. But again, to some degree that should be up to the individual school based on the wishes of the parents. As we know, kids are inherently curious. Let them ask questions, give them both sides of the argument, and let them form their own opinions.

Yes, alcohol, sex, and smoking are age restricted, to very little effect. Even at my age, I had experienced all three before the age of sixteen. The same result would apply to religion. Again, kids are not stupid.

The prominence of religion, both in schools and in society in general, has decreased quite dramatically from my day. Like many of us, I was forced to attend morning assemblies, end of term church services, and religious instruction classes. I really don't know if those things are still compulsory in today's schools, but I doubt it.

 

[The RDBD]

"The roots of everything that we all take for granted now have stemmed from the Golden Ages of religious people"

Except for those things that have their roots in Chinese/Greek culture ( ^religious people ^philosophers) .

 

[Spurf]

Restricting the teaching of religion to adults isn't something that I'd back.
I'm an atheist and I believe that secularism is extremely important, but this would be a step too far, for me.
Virtually unenforceable and a substantial violation of freedom of speech, too.

I would like to see the end of religious schools, though.
Educate children on what religion is and what each faith broadly teaches, plus the conflicts between them, but as a separate subject.
Perhaps include it in some sort of philosophy or morality class?
If parents want to add a religious education aspect, then they can still send their offspring to Sunday school or the equivalent.

Intentionally educating children apart from each other on the basis of their faith seems ridiculously divisive.
If we're trying to create a cohesive and peaceful society, then this seems completely counter-productive.

There's absolutely no way that anything will be done about it at the moment though, unfortunately.
The current Education Secretary would never allow it, as she's strongly CoE.
She ignored a High Court ruling that said that it was unlawful to exclude atheism from religious teaching in schools and voted against marriage equality.

I don't disagree with much of what you say PNP but the teaching of religion needs a much higher profile debate than we have had so far. We generally don't teach Marx until later in the young persons development and we certainly dont teach it to infants. Teaching religion to children is largely about winning the child to it and that should be stopped in my view.

 

[NSIS]

Some form of religion exists in virtually every country in the world. There has to be a reason for that. Even in countries where it is no longer taught, or it has been banned, it still survives and thrives. It says that it's something that some people want.

If some people want to believe that there an afterlife, that you don't just live, die, and then get turned into a pile of ashes, then why try to snatch that away from them?

 

[Spurf]

Again, matters such as poverty, disease, gender-based enslavement, sexuality-based persecution have all stemmed from individuals who have had a bloodthirsty lust for power and control. A lot of these things you mention are down to socioeconomic and political factors, rather than religious ones.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that based on my comments on here, I am quite a religious person and there's no prizes for guessing which religion I follow. I can't speak on behalf of all religions, even the other Abrahamic faiths, but I do believe that the religion I follow has achieved a lot of good for humanity.

In any case, you wouldn't say ISIS represent a form of Islam, or Muhammed Ahmad waging war against the Ottoman-Egyptian rule in Sudan during the 19th century would be representative of the Islamic faith, nor would you claim the KKK to be an authentic segment of Christianity, so why attribute the aforementioned issues to religion?

You may argue that individuals will interpret it their own way and can take things too far, but you can say that about most things in life. Even then, that's the fault of the person, rather than the religion or idea.



I'm not going to give a long answer because I've had the same questions levied at me before. Look at what religious people have contributed from the foundations of drugs and medicine, food, science, education, music. The roots of everything that we all take for granted now have stemmed from the Golden Ages of religious people.

When most are members of the club, club members will be the ones featured. The argument is that religion somehow has promoted and is responsible for these good things. My argument is that Individuals have been responsible, because somebody has faith it does not follow that the faith is responsible their actions.
I can point to the Arab nation for example that led the world in science and technology until religion halted their progress a situation from which they have never recovered. So much energy has been wasted following fairy tales all in an attempt to explain such questions as why we are here and what happens after we aren't here. How much less do you achieve if you believe that it will all be sorted after you die, rather than this is all there is let's get on with it while we can.
Much more than all of this is the division caused by those in possession of the 'truth', history is littered with humans dying for their faith the problem is the collateral damage caused in the process. These arguments have been rehearsed over and over and people tend to stick to their positions indeed people with faith are fixated anyway.

The only answer is to teach people to think for themselves in other words the kind of teaching that generally goes on in Universities. This should be the pattern throughout education not just at the top end of it, when many have already left education with their heads full of doctrines.

If people insist on teaching ism's to young children then all ism's should be included not just the Tory one's. Do you really advocate teaching Marxism to 5 year olds?

 

[The RDBD]

"Some form of religion exists in virtually every country in the world. There has to be a reason for that."

IMHO the reason is related to the (dis)comfort of your lifetime.

If you life your life by the common moral/social codes, but still suffer persecution /
war / famine / plague, or others who flagrantly do not prosper regardless, it is soul-destroying
that there may be no reward for your ways and this is the best of it.

 

[Spurf]

One of the best sights in the UK in recent years is to see churches turning into museums or houses or pubs or simple meeting places. Every one signifies a victory for intelligence over doctrine.

Imagine the ant crawling up the bonnet of a car. Do you think it has any chance of understanding what it is walking on?
Humans are probably a bit cleverer than the average ant and the discovery of Gravitational Waves could be compared to us having managed to open the bonnet. All we have to do now is understand what we can see. The ant might manage to squeeze through the gap to the engine. Explain that ant!

 

[NSIS]

"Some form of religion exists in virtually every country in the world. There has to be a reason for that."

IMHO the reason is related to the (dis)comfort of your lifetime.

If you life your life by the common moral/social codes, but still suffer persecution /
war / famine / plague, or others who flagrantly do not prosper regardless, it is soul-destroying
that there may be no reward for your ways and this is the best of it.

I think, as I added, that many people want the comfort of a belief in the afterlife. Or, as you suggested, a better life than the one they have on this mortal coil.

 

[PleaseNotPoll]

In any case, you wouldn't say ISIS represent a form of Islam, or Muhammed Ahmad waging war against the Ottoman-Egyptian rule in Sudan during the 19th century would be representative of the Islamic faith, nor would you claim the KKK to be an authentic segment of Christianity, so why attribute the aforementioned issues to religion?

Look at what religious people have contributed from the foundations of drugs and medicine, food, science, education, music. The roots of everything that we all take for granted now have stemmed from the Golden Ages of religious people.

So the bad things aren't about them being religious, but the good things are? No True Scotsman.

People can do good things or bad things independently of their faith.
My personal concern is whether any of it's actually true, while my political concern is more about peaceful co-existence.
Separation of church and state, plus freedom of worship seem like the most sensible way to achieve this.

I don't disagree with much of what you say PNP but the teaching of religion needs a much higher profile debate than we have had so far. We generally don't teach Marx until later in the young persons development and we certainly dont teach it to infants. Teaching religion to children is largely about winning the child to it and that should be stopped in my view.

I just think that skepticism and critical thinking need to be taught more, as well as comparative religion.
Opting out of the latter shouldn't be possible.
I also think that it's basically impossible to prevent parents from teaching their kids about their faith.