Charlie Hebdo attack, Paris, FR

[CptBork]

Of course you can.

You can start a Church and preach and pray to kill the President of the US and to kill all gays, you can also start a Church and tell your adherents to kill themselves, not have children, have abortions to save the planet. You are also permitted to have a Church or religion that teaches its adherents that they should kill themselves so they can be taken up to space by alien gods (remember Heaven's Gate?). Then of course is the Creativity Religious Organisation/Movement which teaches, preaches and adheres to white supremacy. My favourite in the moronic and obscene religions allowed under the guise of "religious freedom" is "The Body".. If any should be put on the list to be flung by way of giant catapult into the burning sun, it is these folks.

In short, yes, you can just start a Church and preach anything you like whatsoever. Keep in mind that if you end up starving children to death, such as in the case of "The Body", and the authorities find out about it, you may be prosecuted. But so long as no one is hurt, you are free to preach what you like. It should also be noted that even if you do preach crap and others are hurt, more often than not, you can continue on preaching and the religious organisation you founded will not be banned.

So then why doesn't everyone declare their institution to be a church so they can say whatever crazy horseshit they like and not have to pay taxes? Why can't Charlie Hebdo be a religion too, based on a divine creator who enjoys offensive cartoons and therefore made it physically possible to draw them? Seems to me you're still expected to pray at the feet of one of the established gods, or else have massive legal teams and influential power brokers in Hollywood like the Scientologists. The examples you cite don't cut it, because the Heaven's Gate religion would have been closed down if authorities had known what they were preaching. Established religions are allowed to openly demonize non-adherents and promote ideas like ignoring all Earthly responsibilities while waiting for God to come down and clean up their stool for them, all without penalty as I'm sure you're aware. I want to see more examples of non-conventional religions being allowed the same degree of leeway, being allowed to tell their followers to avoid food or medical treatment and getting away with it.

The problem is that if I tell people to do something recklessly irresponsible and it's not in the name of Jesus, Mohammed, Moses or Xenu, my government is highly likely to deem my claims of religious conviction to be either fraud or deserving of psychiatric intervention. Anyhow my point is that the separation of church and state should no longer be accepted as a defense for preaching harmful bullcrap, such as the nonsense that ultimately encourages radicalized Muslims to employ violence against those who offend them. Temples aren't autonomous territories; you don't stop being a human being and a citizen of your society the moment you step inside.

I don't disagree with you. This should apply to all religions. Which is why schools and colleges like Patrick Henry College (subject of the "God's Next Army" documentary which is enough to keep sane people up at night), radical Jewish and Islamic schools which preach and teach religious hatred should be closed down. I also believe that home schooling programs should not be allowed to allow parents to turn their children into intellectual retards who believe in Adam and Eve (as was evidenced in the Jesus Camp documentary).

Hear, hear.

I find a good long cane is more than sufficient to teach... ermm.. to encourage children become servants. And selling them on weekends for cash is only really acceptable in certain societies. I believe some areas of Thailand have a tourism industry based on just that.

Great, so then there's no need to teach children about hell until they're of an age where they can think about it critically for themselves and challenge the authorities who attempt to abuse them with it.

You mean multiculturalism?

No, I mean a perpetually lagging centrally-planned economy and a bloated bureaucracy that attempts to intrusively steer the nation's culture and way of life. Looks like no one has yet figured out where the Paris ghettos fit into that picture, but I'm sure they've got some plan for resolving it without humiliating themselves in front of ze Americans.

I would argue that France needs to do more to protect all of its citizens equally. Regardless of religious orientation. One is no more or no less important than the other.

So then there should be an end to religious incitement altogether, and all the temples engaging in it to even the slightest degree should be shut down instead of slapped on the wrist. It should be outright criminal to traumatize children and stifle dissent through threats of violence and eternal punishment, or to intentionally deprive them of chances to integrate into the society at large.

We need to start monitoring and controlling the messages coming from religious institutions, or else we have no business controlling secular institutions either.

 

[Bells]

So then why doesn't everyone declare their institution to be a church so they can say whatever crazy horseshit they like and not have to pay taxes? Why can't Charlie Hebdo be a religion too, based on a divine creator who enjoys offensive cartoons and therefore made it physically possible to draw them?

They were all atheists..

Seems to me you're still expected to pray at the feet of one of the established gods, or else have massive legal teams and influential power brokers in Hollywood like the Scientologists.

Scientologists are a religion as well..

The examples you cite don't cut it, because the Heaven's Gate religion would have been closed down if authorities had known what they were preaching.

Just because you do not see them as religious organisations is really beside the point. And Heavens Gate never hid their intentions. They were ignored.

Established religions are allowed to openly demonize non-adherents and promote ideas like ignoring all Earthly responsibilities while waiting for God to come down and clean up their stool for them, all without penalty as I'm sure you're aware. I want to see more examples of non-conventional religions being allowed the same degree of leeway, being allowed to tell their followers to avoid food or medical treatment and getting away with it.

Well I did provide you with ample examples. All have followers who adhere to their belief system. All believe that if they fail to adhere to those belief systems, then their deity of choice will punish them. None were punished or banned.

If people can start a religion 'praying' to spaghetti and meatballs, or teapots, umm, you really think you cannot start a religion about anything?

The problem is that if I tell people to do something recklessly irresponsible and it's not in the name of Jesus, Mohammed, Moses or Xenu, my government is highly likely to deem my claims of religious conviction to be either fraud or deserving of psychiatric intervention.

Michelle Mingo was never charged for telling Karen Roubidoux to effectively starve her child (the child dies some 50 or so days later), nor was she charged for preaching to the family about it. She claims she got a message from God.

One pastor and his church preaches to parents to beat and punch their children (and stomp them like bugs) if they show any hint of being gay.

Another church and its leaders preach and demand that followers do not take their children to the doctor or rely on any aspect of the medical profession or medicine and to only pray for their children. 80 child deaths have been connected to the Church of the First Born. It is still allowed to exist, the same with other Churches connected to it, regardless of the fact that children have died as a result of their preaching. In some States, it is perfectly legal to encourage and religiously preach to parents to not treat their children or take them to see doctors, regardless of what is wrong with a child. The few times parents have been charged, they have been given a slight slap on the wrist and allowed to reoffend. They are not banned. Some States in the US have religious shield laws, to protect such parents from prosecution if they kill their children or allow their children to die unnecessarily through their religious beliefs. For example:

4-year-old Natali Joy Mudd was found dead by detectives in her own home, with a tumor in her eye that was almost as big as the rest of her head. At the horrific scene, a police sergeant found horizontal trails of blood along the walls of the house. The trails matched the height of the girl’s head. Natali had apparently been leaning against the wall as she dragged herself from room to room, blinded, trying to find a way to freedom, before the tumor killed her.​

Natali’s parents belonged to the Faith Assembly Church, a Pentecostal offshoot. They didn’t believe in medical care, and they were not prosecuted because Indiana had strict religious shield laws. Two years later, Natali’s five-year-old sister died from an untreated tumor in her stomach the size of a basketball.

The Faith Assembly Church was responsible for as many as 100 childhood deaths and for a maternal childbirth mortality rate that was 870 times the usual rate. The most common cause of death was infant mortality in home births; something that is now rare in Christian Science because it now supports prenatal care and hospital births attended by doctors.
​

You can pray to a spot on your wall and tell your religious followers to not treat their children for common medical complaints and especially if you live in a state with religious shield laws, nothing will happen to you.

Anyhow my point is that the separation of church and state should no longer be accepted as a defense for preaching harmful bullcrap, such as the nonsense that ultimately encourages radicalized Muslims to employ violence against those who offend them. Temples aren't autonomous territories; you don't stop being a human being and a citizen of your society the moment you step inside.

Actually, it is religious freedom laws and religious shield laws that are the issue.

However since they are in place to protect mostly Christians in the US, at least, they will not be removed, despite repeated requests that they be lifted because of the dangers they pose to children. You see, the harm is not just from one religion. It stems from all religions. The increasing religious flashpoint will most probably be in Israel as moderate Jews are pitted against the rising Haredi Jews who have taken to assaulting women and little girls going about their day to day lives.

The point is that religious extremism in any form poses a danger to society. More often than not, to people of the same religion but who are not extremists. While the media and the world's attention on Paris, nearly 2000 people died within a few days in Nigeria, the target of religious extremists who attacked a large village and massacred everyone in sight. At around the same time, they strapped a bomb to a 10 year old girl and made her go to a market, where they then detonated the bomb. The victims were Muslim and the perpetrators were religious extremists. If you need to eradicate it in one place, then you need to eradicate it everywhere.

Great, so then there's no need to teach children about hell until they're of an age where they can think about it critically for themselves and challenge the authorities who attempt to abuse them with it.

I am an atheist. I don't think children need to hear about that kind of stuff. There is more than enough horror and scary crap in the world without it.

No, I mean a perpetually lagging centrally-planned economy and a bloated bureaucracy that attempts to intrusively steer the nation's culture and way of life. Looks like no one has yet figured out where the Paris ghettos fit into that picture, but I'm sure they've got some plan for resolving it without humiliating themselves in front of ze Americans.

If you want to try to combat radical Islam, then young men and women need to be engaged more in society, not feel as though they are shut out to turn to radical Islamists who prey on such individuals. There is a reason why so many are radicalised and converted to radical Islam in prison.

Because prison is full of young men who feel left out of society, disillusioned and who feel they have no prospects.. And they are ripe for the picking. And many are being converted in prison. This is happening everywhere. From the US to France. In France, for example, even petty offences end up in the hard line prisons. And these young men and boys are going in either not religious or mildly religious and coming out as radicals who do go on to commit terrorist acts or threaten acts of terrorism. They are, literally being radicalised while in prison. They go in, feeling they are excluded from society, away from their parents, poverty, lack of education or lack of encouragement to remain in school, they are unemployed with few employment prospects. Easy prey. And they are being preyed on.

So then there should be an end to religious incitement altogether, and all the temples engaging in it to even the slightest degree should be shut down instead of slapped on the wrist. It should be outright criminal to traumatize children and stifle dissent through threats of violence and eternal punishment, or to intentionally deprive them of chances to integrate into the society at large.

I do believe any religious group that preaches extremism, regardless of the religion, should be banned. I say this because I have family members who are becoming Christian fundamentalists who are into the Old Testament. And it is terrifying to watch and witness. It is like watching someone descend into madness.

 

[Billy T]

Not far from where I lived, in the generally quite progressive community of Colombia MD a mother of a 2 or 3 year old child became convinced Satan had possessed him - inhabited his body. She pressed his bare butt on the red hot electric stove "burner" - too drive Satan out with the pain. I don't know what, if anything, happened to that mom. My justice would demand the same be done to her, as Satan clearly had possessed her - all for her soul's good, of course.

 

[GeoffP]

Ugh. I'm not supposed to comment here, but I have no idea how one can be against meddling by the authorities in religious matters and also feel that religious extremism should be banned. Maybe the thresholds are different for different faiths, in some people's minds.

 

[iceaura]

I have no idea how one can be against meddling by the authorities in religious matters and also feel that religious extremism should be banned

Focus not on extremist rhetoric, but direct incitement to specific action that harms others in ways defined independently of religion.

This is a common problem of law and power - one must specify the difference between people talking about seizing a bank's assets and lining up the bankers in front of a brick wall with blindfolds and a last cigarette, and people actually conspiring to commit felony robbery and murder, for example. In a large and wealthy society that aspires to avoid the normal descent into tyranny, one errs firmly on the side of tolerating the speech and risking the conspiracy. One can tell that one's errors are correctly biased by noting the occasional successful conspiracy - to be mourned and regretted (and caught and punished) but not feared over much, as an indication that the right track is the one on. The State is always inherently more dangerous than a bank robber or a terrorist.

We seem to have had a dearth of banker assassinations, btw - maybe we are too much risking tyranny? When the infidel bankers are safe and the infidel cartoonists are at risk of their lives, the role of the State in mediating bears examination.

At any rate, it's not a problem unique to religion - it's a problem inherent in State organization and power as it impinges on life in general and people talking to each other in particular.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Ugh. I'm not supposed to comment here, but I have no idea how one can be against meddling by the authorities in religious matters and also feel that religious extremism should be banned. Maybe the thresholds are different for different faiths, in some people's minds.

The problem is not creating the legislation but deciding who creates the legislation.
Whose standards of right behaviour and action should be accepted?
It is an impossible conundrum to solve.

 

[iceaura]

It is an impossible conundrum to solve.

Some places handle it through "elections" involving "voters" who choose "representatives" of their standards to meet together and decide by argument and vote what the laws establishing those standards should be.

That works pretty well, especially if some overall limits have been placed on the enactions possible at a given meeting.

 

[GeoffP]

The problem is not creating the legislation but deciding who creates the legislation.
Whose standards of right behaviour and action should be accepted?
It is an impossible conundrum to solve.

The secular ones, if all else fail. Making illegal the propagation of hate should be, at a minimum, enforceable.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

I agree.
Secular being a cross section of the public.
Making laws concerning censorship is nearly impossible,
but people can agree on what foments hate.

 

[Bells]

The problem is not creating the legislation but deciding who creates the legislation.
Whose standards of right behaviour and action should be accepted?
It is an impossible conundrum to solve.

Yes it is. However in today's political climate in so many parts of the world, atheism is not trusted. US politics, for example, is focused so much around God and Christianity, and frankly, I wouldn't trust right wing Christian fundamentalists who continually try to foist their religious beliefs on others through governance to do it either.

The alternative is to render the extremists impotent and deny them the chance to convert others. They can be banned. Instead, they are ignored by the authorities. Man Haron Monis, the terrorist who took the hostages in Sydney just before Christmas, had been reported multiple times to the federal police because Muslims knew and felt that he posed a risk to society, and they were ignored. In 2009 he had threatened the principal of a Muslim school in Sydney, via dozens of faxes, because the principal had arranged an ANZAC Day commemoration ceremony (ANZAC Day is a very important day in Australia) and because the principal had established an inter-faith relationship with the local Jewish school. Monis found this offensive and though unconnected to the school, he began to send a series of threatening letters to the principal, threatening him, even threatening to kill him for associating with "infidels". The principal also felt that Monis posed a danger to the students, as he was the type of person who could radicalise the students in his school. The letters were given to the Australian Federal Police in good faith that something might finally be done. Instead, Monis was removed from the terror watch list. While the letters stopped and the principal had assumed something had been done, the reality is that nothing had been done. It, like all other threats that Monis had made to Muslims in Sydney were ignored.

We know that prison is the recruitment ground in the West. It makes sense that it is. I don't understand how and why radical extremists are held and allowed to mingle with the main prison population, where they are recruiting. And we know they are. Most of the terrorists who have attacked the West from within spent time in prison, where they were radicalised. So why aren't they isolated? We are seeing it here among the Aboriginal population. Over-represented within the criminal justice system, they feel oppressed and rightly so in Australian society, because they are treated so terribly, so they are ripe for the picking and they are converting to Islam, and radical Islam at that, while in prison. And it has been going on for years, it was flagged as a danger back in 2006.

DOZENS of violent criminals are being brainwashed by hardliners and converting to radical Islam in jail, creating a serious national security time bomb.

Federal police yesterday warned that criminal converts could become "a significant issue in the future", and Muslim leaders fear Aboriginal inmates are most in danger.
"Radical fanatics could convince my people to become killers ... they're already prone to violence because they grew up in racist, violent society," Koori Muslim Association director Rocky Davis said yesterday.

Already there were hardcore criminals, including Aborigines, at some maximum-security prisons who had converted to Wahabism - a fundamentalist branch of Islam practised by Osama bin Laden - by radical clerics or fellow prisoners.

Mr Davis, head of Redfern's Aboriginal Youth Centre in Sydney's inner south, said he regularly visited jails and was concerned about 40 Aboriginal prisoners he believed were Wahabi converts. His fears were also shared by the best-known Aboriginal Muslim: champion boxer Anthony Mundine.

Mr Davis, a 40-year-old former inmate also known as Shaheed Malik, said Aboriginal prison converts were highly susceptible.

"I've been to a few talks where imams have talked about jihad and violence and oppression and it's very, very simple to convince someone that's already oppressed to become an oppressor," he said.

"If you're disenfranchised and you're oppressed and you've got no economy and you've always been discriminated against, you're the most likely to become a terrorist, you're the most likely to become a fanatic - and that's the thing that I have to worry about because my people are disenfranchised, they're oppressed," he told The Australian.

Mr Davis, who is completing a degree in social welfare at Sydney's Macquarie University, said Wahabis were increasingly infiltrating the prison system to poison the minds of Muslims.

"Wahabi clerics, they're already in prison recruiting," he said. "Most of the Muslims in prison now are Wahabi ... including the Aboriginals."

The concerns raised by Mr Davis, who converted to Islam in the early 90s while serving a 14-year jail sentence for armed robberies and other offences, come as Muslim leaders urged the Howard Government to back a plan to tackle the radicalisation of converts. The Australian revealed this week that the Muslim community was worried about marginalised converts turning to extremist clerics.

The Australian Federal Police has also identified prisons as an emerging problem. While not an immediate issue, "the experiences overseas show that there is a potential that it will become a significant issue in the future", a spokeswoman said.

​

As of 2014, nothing has been done about it. France is facing a similar issue with non-practising or very moderate Muslim men being converted in prison. They know who are doing it, but again, nothing is done to segregate those individuals from the main prison population. If you want a prime example of the dangers of allowing young men to be radicalised in prison or ignoring what is happening in prisons, then you need only to look at what happened last week:

One of the Charlie Hebdo attackers who led a deadly shooting rampage at the magazine’s Paris office last week was radicalized by a militant jihadist network that has produced some of Europe’s most dangerous extremists, the New York Times reported Monday.

Chérif Kouachi reportedly trained with the Buttes-Chaumont group, a homegrown cadre of radicalized young Muslim men from an immigrant neighbourhood in the 19th Arrondissement whose members were arrested in 2005 for sending some of their own to fight in Iraq.

While in jail, Chérif Kouachi was recruited by the French-Algerian jihadist Djamel Beghal who had plotted to bomb the United States Embassy in Paris in 2001. It was during this time that Beghal recruited Amedy Coulibaly, the shooter who killed four hostages at a kosher market in Paris on Friday.

Buttes-Chaumont may have largely disbanded when the 2005 arrests were made. But its members’ most important connections were made with other extremists in French prisons.

The boys of Buttes-Chaumont, intermingling with prominent jihadists in jail, became increasingly hardened and committed to radical Islam.

“He [Cherif] was much more radical when he was judged in 2008 than he was in 2005, when he was arrested,” Buttes-Chaumont defence lawyer Dominique Many told the Times. “So perhaps in jail he became what he is today, the Kouachi that we knew these last days.”

According to a leaked French intelligence report that the Times cites, close to 300 Muslim inmates were deemed radical “time bombs” who officials believed would pose a threat once they were released.

The men of Buttes-Chaumont comprise just a handful of the several hundreds of young, aliented Muslims in France who have traveled to fight with jihadists in Syria and Iraq. French officials are now starting to question whether they may have underestimated the influence of extremist networks like Buttes-Chaumont.​

Which begs the question.. Why are hard line radicals allowed to mingle with the normal prison population when everyone knows this is where they are recruiting?

While we may not be able to create laws to control religions, there are several things that can and should be done to reduce the impact and deny extremists the ability to recruit. We can monitor religious schools and yes, we should be monitoring home schooling programs which we know in the US, is exceptionally popular with Christian radicals (who also go on to commit acts of home grown terror). Prison inmates who are radicals should be segregated from the rest of the prison population and not allowed to have any contact with the rest of the inmates (treat them like we do paedophiles and isolate them completely from everyone else) and frankly, ban, extremist or radical and firebrand imams and priests from having access to inmates. It might be a start.

 

[Quantum Quack]

Given the frequency of events related to the jihadist cause over the last few years and the fact that the free world can not live under the constant fear of being slaughtered in their homes, the whole issue, no doubt will be forced to come to a head reasonably soon I would expect... people globally will actually deliberately and subconsciously attempt to bring it on because they may feel it is better to get it over with than spend an entire life worrying about their personal and family security that is thought to be precarious at present.
When it comes to this level of global fear, rational judgement is usually not fully available so IMO hang on to your seats....the ride could get really bumpy...

 

[CptBork]

They were all atheists..

They can pretend to be otherwise, for convience's sake. Would it stand up in court? I dunno, but if their convictions are to be cross-examined by the public, all other religious leaders should be held to the same scrutiny.

Scientologists are a religion as well..

As I said, their success comes from the support of wealthy, influential celebrities and a powerful legal team. I'm not so convinced that it's legal in Canada or the US to simply make up a religion on the fly to justify otherwise illegal activities, I certainly don't see many examples of it even though it seems like a very easy loophole to exploit. Whatever the case, I've lost any belief that secular and religious institutions should be held to separate standards.

Just because you do not see them as religious organisations is really beside the point. And Heavens Gate never hid their intentions. They were ignored.

Well if that's the case, it just shows why religious education can't be ignored by the public at large.

Well I did provide you with ample examples. All have followers who adhere to their belief system. All believe that if they fail to adhere to those belief systems, then their deity of choice will punish them. None were punished or banned.

If people can start a religion 'praying' to spaghetti and meatballs, or teapots, umm, you really think you cannot start a religion about anything?

None of those religions has won official recognition except in a small number of isolated cases. The Spaghetti Monster article on Wikipedia refers to a few people winning the right to wear pasta strainers on their heads in driver's license photos, including a case in Texas, and that an individual was denied this same right in New Jersey. I think the attitude on special treatment towards the "established" religions is gradually changing thanks to groups such as the Pastafarians and other secular organizations, but we need a bigger push now with the increase in social diversity and the rise in extremism.

Actually, it is religious freedom laws and religious shield laws that are the issue.

However since they are in place to protect mostly Christians in the US, at least, they will not be removed, despite repeated requests that they be lifted because of the dangers they pose to children. You see, the harm is not just from one religion. It stems from all religions. The increasing religious flashpoint will most probably be in Israel as moderate Jews are pitted against the rising Haredi Jews who have taken to assaulting women and little girls going about their day to day lives.

Yes, Jewish Haredi extremism and isolationism is indeed on the rise, and I think the lack of will to confront it is encouraging it while half-measures only add fuel to the flames, just as has been the case for Christian and Muslim extremists. What gives urgency to the situation, in my eyes, is that birth rates, demographics, politics and economics are giving rise to religious-based divisions in society which are widening rather than narrowing, and I don't see the extremists as being composed merely of fringe groups who popped up out of thin air to steal the spotlight from the peaceful mainstream. When you teach young children that those who question a religion or practice alternative lifestyles deserve to burn in eternal hellfire, some of them are going to get seriously whacky ideas.

The point is that religious extremism in any form poses a danger to society. More often than not, to people of the same religion but who are not extremists. While the media and the world's attention on Paris, nearly 2000 people died within a few days in Nigeria, the target of religious extremists who attacked a large village and massacred everyone in sight. At around the same time, they strapped a bomb to a 10 year old girl and made her go to a market, where they then detonated the bomb. The victims were Muslim and the perpetrators were religious extremists. If you need to eradicate it in one place, then you need to eradicate it everywhere.

Indeed, extremism should be eradicated from every corner of the globe, but mild trickles of cruise missiles here and there are an utter waste of time in the big scheme. I believe the first course of action should be a global economic realignment whereby the secular democracies no longer trade with dictatorships and theocracies that stall or reverse meaningful reforms, nor allow tourism from their citizens unless it's to come see firsthand what their governments aren't delivering back home. Notice how even medieval-dressed terrorists in the deserts of Pakistan are using vehicles, weapons and watching their exploits on televisions manufactured in nations whose very economic survival depends on trade with the US and Europe? Funny how that little oddity came about, huh? Saudi and Iranian oil should have been blacklisted all the way back in the 70's, let them see if the bankrupt Soviets would have treated them better.

I am an atheist. I don't think children need to hear about that kind of stuff. There is more than enough horror and scary crap in the world without it.

If psychologists determine that a religious school's methods are traumatizing the students, then its curriculum and staff should be tossed right out the window without delay.

If you want to try to combat radical Islam, then young men and women need to be engaged more in society, not feel as though they are shut out to turn to radical Islamists who prey on such individuals. There is a reason why so many are radicalised and converted to radical Islam in prison.

It has to be a joint effort. Barriers to mainstream social inclusion -of which there are countless multitudes in socially-engineered France- must be removed on the secular side, but likewise they have to be forcefully brought down on the religious side. Students of all stripes must be taught the full secular curriculum, including modern science, and they must be thoroughly trained to understand and respect differences and diversity. No student or child should be permitted to be exposed to religious instruction without first being given the necessary tools to assess the reliability of the people providing the instruction.

I do believe any religious group that preaches extremism, regardless of the religion, should be banned. I say this because I have family members who are becoming Christian fundamentalists who are into the Old Testament. And it is terrifying to watch and witness. It is like watching someone descend into madness.

I have personally witnessed people descend into madness within all three of the Abrahamic faiths, and given that the least educated and most radicalized of society are the ones being allowed to have and raise the most kids while they collect welfare from the more functional seculars, something urgent needs to be done to protect the very concept of universal human rights.

 

[Bells]

They can pretend to be otherwise, for convience's sake. Would it stand up in court? I dunno, but if their convictions are to be cross-examined by the public, all other religious leaders should be held to the same scrutiny.

Why would you sell yourself out?

As I said, their success comes from the support of wealthy, influential celebrities and a powerful legal team. I'm not so convinced that it's legal in Canada or the US to simply make up a religion on the fly to justify otherwise illegal activities, I certainly don't see many examples of it even though it seems like a very easy loophole to exploit. Whatever the case, I've lost any belief that secular and religious institutions should be held to separate standards.

That depends. It is a bit of a hole to be honest. I don't believe the State should interfere with religious belief, but I also do not believe that extremism should be allowed to be taught in schools, nor do I believe it should be allowed anywhere within government or public sphere. I also believe that fundamentalists who find their way into our prison systems should be segregated completely from the main prison population, treat them like paedophiles and keep them completely away.

Our former prime minister is an atheist. And so much was made about it at first. It shouldn't have been. I look at the US political system and I am appalled at just how much religion intrudes in governance.

Well if that's the case, it just shows why religious education can't be ignored by the public at large.

It should not be. Then again, education should not be ignored full stop. Battles in public education systems about teaching evolution and teaching sex education should not happen. And yet it does. And it's bloody stupid.

None of those religions has won official recognition except in a small number of isolated cases. The Spaghetti Monster article on Wikipedia refers to a few people winning the right to wear pasta strainers on their heads in driver's license photos, including a case in Texas, and that an individual was denied this same right in New Jersey. I think the attitude on special treatment towards the "established" religions is gradually changing thanks to groups such as the Pastafarians and other secular organizations, but we need a bigger push now with the increase in social diversity and the rise in extremism.

What official recognition do you think is needed? The biggest dangers are the ones who are doing it on the sly, quietly, creating extremists under the guise of freedom of religion. It's not the big churches, mosques, temples that are creating extremists. They are so well publicised that word would get out. It's the little ones, the out of the way ones, the ones doing it quietly, out of sight. Like in prisons and home schooling and small and exclusive private schools. 100 deaths of babies and infants attributed to a religion and nothing is done about it. Prisons becoming breeding ground for recruiting and creating religious extremists, and nothing is done about it. Home schooling creating religious fundamentalists, and nothing is done about it.

Yes, Jewish Haredi extremism and isolationism is indeed on the rise, and I think the lack of will to confront it is encouraging it while half-measures only add fuel to the flames, just as has been the case for Christian and Muslim extremists. What gives urgency to the situation, in my eyes, is that birth rates, demographics, politics and economics are giving rise to religious-based divisions in society which are widening rather than narrowing, and I don't see the extremists as being composed merely of fringe groups who popped up out of thin air to steal the spotlight from the peaceful mainstream. When you teach young children that those who question a religion or practice alternative lifestyles deserve to burn in eternal hellfire, some of them are going to get seriously whacky ideas.

The problem with any such ideology, as we are seeing in Israel, is that they have distinctive influence over the political process. We see it in the States with right wing Christians and we see it in many Middle Eastern countries who try to bow down to extremist ideologies. The problem with extremists is that they prey on the most vulnerable in society. That is where they are recruiting from. Breed a culture of fear, hatred, coupled with people's desperation to escape their own poverty, unemployment.. This is fast becoming a cultural phenomenon with exceptionally dangerous consequences.

Indeed, extremism should be eradicated from every corner of the globe, but mild trickles of cruise missiles here and there are an utter waste of time in the big scheme. I believe the first course of action should be a global economic realignment whereby the secular democracies no longer trade with dictatorships and theocracies that stall or reverse meaningful reforms, nor allow tourism from their citizens unless it's to come see firsthand what their governments aren't delivering back home. Notice how even medieval-dressed terrorists in the deserts of Pakistan are using vehicles, weapons and watching their exploits on televisions manufactured in nations whose very economic survival depends on trade with the US and Europe? Funny how that little oddity came about, huh? Saudi and Iranian oil should have been blacklisted all the way back in the 70's, let them see if the bankrupt Soviets would have treated them better.

I agree with you. But the problem with that is that it does not deal with the aftermath. It will create a cycle of poverty in the population who are then easy prey to the extremists who will and do tell them that the world does not care about them, and so, they turn to those they think are trying to help them.

I think the best way to combat it is to not give them the grounds to be able to recruit. Make secularism more appealing. Provide better health care to the poor, employment, facilities to African nations to feed themselves, trade their wares so that they do not feel the need to be attracted to extremists who are trying to recruit. In the West, try and provide better employment opportunities, better education, interfaith programs in religious schools, better monitoring of religious schools and religious education in public schools (should be banned personally) and more stringent control over home schooling programs and segregate extremists and fundamentalists in prison. Completely segregate them from the main prison population. Offer better rehabilitation programs that deal directly with extremists and radicalisation in prison.

If psychologists determine that a religious school's methods are traumatizing the students, then its curriculum and staff should be tossed right out the window without delay.

My former sister-in-law filed several complaints when the nun who taught RE at her children's school started to attract more students by having a TV and an xbox in her office. She also organised that when children are sent to sick-bay, they be sent to her instead. The conversion process did not take long for many children. Nothing was done about it. In my home state, even though the courts have ruled that RE is not legal in public schools, the current State Government, led by a religious man and a right wing party, demand that it continues, in direct contravention with the law. So we opt our children out of RE. We have no other option. And RE is taught everywhere now.

It has to be a joint effort. Barriers to mainstream social inclusion -of which there are countless multitudes in socially-engineered France- must be removed on the secular side, but likewise they have to be forcefully brought down on the religious side. Students of all stripes must be taught the full secular curriculum, including modern science, and they must be thoroughly trained to understand and respect differences and diversity. No student or child should be permitted to be exposed to religious instruction without first being given the necessary tools to assess the reliability of the people providing the instruction.

I agree.

I have personally witnessed people descend into madness within all three of the Abrahamic faiths, and given that the least educated and most radicalized of society are the ones being allowed to have and raise the most kids while they collect welfare from the more functional seculars, something urgent needs to be done to protect the very concept of universal human rights.

It is very difficult for us. I do know domestic abuse plays a role with one, the beatings and abuse slow down when he preaches. We've tried everything to break her out of that relationship and away from the fundamentalists they have become, but he is manipulative and he has literally broken her and she is terrified. With the other, it was depression that led her down that path after she suffered from post partum-depression, despite our desperate attempts to help her. They gave her what she felt she needed. Convinced her it was demons attacking her, and she was in such a bad place, she believed it. While ignoring the doctors who were treating her, she thought it was their prayer that cured her of the demons she thought were possessing her.. It is insidious. Over the last 10+ years, I have watched two talented, intelligent women descend down to this.. They literally prey on the vulnerable and they chip away at them until they get them. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

 

[Quantum Quack]

I have personally witnessed people descend into madness within all three of the Abrahamic faiths, and given that the least educated and most radicalized of society are the ones being allowed to have and raise the most kids while they collect welfare from the more functional seculars, something urgent needs to be done to protect the very concept of universal human rights.

Making eduction and practice of the universal declaration of human rights mandatory for all children through out schooling regardless of religious values (preschool to university) would be a great start IMO. Make the UN charter a "secular religion" and problem solved. IMO

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Yes it is. However in today's political climate in so many parts of the world, atheism is not trusted. US politics, for example, is focused so much around God and Christianity, and frankly, I wouldn't trust right wing Christian fundamentalists who continually try to foist their religious beliefs on others through governance to do it either.

The alternative is to render the extremists impotent and deny them the chance to convert others. They can be banned.

Yes, it's odd.
The majority of Muslims would want them stopped from corrupting their children.
But preachers of hate are not prosecuted for breaking the law.

 

[GeoffP]

Some are; some aren't. Law is subject to approval by the media, who are subject to the approval of the population and it's talking heads.

 

[pjdude1219]

Scientologists are a religion as well..

actually most countries scientology is in don't recognize as a religion.

 

[The Marquis]

Yes, it's odd.
The majority of Muslims would want them stopped from corrupting their children.
But preachers of hate are not prosecuted for breaking the law.

"The majority of Muslims".

I'm wondering who this majority is supposed to be. Is it who Bells say they are? Who Kremmen say they are? From what actual knowledge do they make such statements?
Did they speak to any of them? All of them? Some of them, most of them? Perhaps it just comes from media statements from whichever leader they prefer to believe actually is one. Read the papers, cherry pick, form an opinion.
Or is the "majority of Muslims" something we westerners like to trot out as a phrase from time to time to give our statements some semblance of authority on a forum?

In my experience, the "majority" tend to do exactly as they are told. Misgivings aren't enough.
God forbid we actually judge anything at all.

 

[The Marquis]

Making eduction and practice of the universal declaration of human rights mandatory for all children through out schooling regardless of religious values (preschool to university) would be a great start IMO. Make the UN charter a "secular religion" and problem solved. IMO

I find the knowledge that humanity is so easily malleable deeply disturbing. It's difficult to live with.

The war of ideals is driven by those who care enough to enforce their own ideals upon everyone... for their own good.

 

[The Marquis]

Something I've written in one way or another before:

There is very little allowance, in most critiques, for the concept of dismissal dependant upon understanding.
The inherent assumption is nearly always that we should not judge because we do not understand. It is a soft stance, and one propagated simply because it requires very little effort, and an excuse for being unable to reach a decision.
It is an enabler of complacency and indecision.

It is, moreover, a particularly Western phenomenon.