Should bad religion be tolerated?

[PoetPhilosopher]

Should bad religion, religion that promotes bigotry and prejudice, be tolerated?

At what point does neutral/good religion tip the scale into bad, and who should decide such a thing?

 

[SalixIncendium]

I've never gotten into their music, but I accept the fact that others do. If their music doesn't affect me (since I don't listen to it) and it doesn't hurt others, why wouldn't I tolerate allowing them to tour?

 

[Heyo]

It depends on what you want to do against "bad religion".
Do you want a bad religion removed by law? That's very slippery ice. Religious freedom is a human right for a reason.
Do you want to publicly expose that religion? By all means. Free speech is exactly the right tool to balance the freedom of religion.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

It depends on what you want to do against "bad religion".
Do you want a bad religion removed by law? That's very slippery ice. Religious freedom is a human right for a reason.
Do you want to publicly expose that religion? By all means. Free speech is exactly the right tool to balance the freedom of religion.

The main problem comes when people start doing risky things, saying it's a part of their "religion".

Though there would be some debate as to what's considered "risky".

 

[osgart]

It should NOT be tolerated. And religion has quite a few of them. Religion has a bad name because of them. Society is push and pull with a number of issues so we all collectively must decide.

The trouble is that the prejudice, and bigotry is masked under the guise of righteousness.

 

[Vinayaka]

Who gets to decide what's bad and what isn't? So often, it's just a religion that is different from yours that is 'bad'. European invaders of indigenous lands the world over thought they were the good guys, and the native peoples were the bad guys. Such a travesty!

Can you give more specific examples of 'bad' religion?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I've never gotten into their music, but I accept the fact that others do. If their music doesn't affect me (since I don't listen to it) and it doesn't hurt others, why wouldn't I tolerate allowing them to tour?

I love Bad Religion. One of my fave punk bands.

 

[Rival]

There seems to be this view among a certain group of people, mainly humanists but not just them, that morality, culture and human societies move in a linear fashion and always 'improve'; that is, every group from one century looks back at the other and wonders how bad and primitive they were. This is not only false, it's damaging. This view that one day everyone will be enlightened to this particular philosophy and one day all will be on board with things like abortion, sex before marriage, same sex marriage, people wearing whatever they want &c. because that's somehow 'inevitable'. It's not inevitable and there are always going to be religious people and even nonreligious people who oppose this. We're not going away, we're not a vestige of a past age, we're living, breathing, growing cultures and we're not interested in changing.

As long as we stick to ours and you stick to yours, it should be fine. Salad bowl, not melting pot.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

Can you give more specific examples of 'bad' religion?

Catholic prohibition on contraceptives.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

There seems to be this view among a certain group of people, mainly humanists but not just them, that morailty, culture and human societies move in a linear fashion and always 'improve'; that is, every group from one century looks back at the other and wonders how bad and primitive they were. This is not only false, it's damaging. This view that one day everyone will be enlightened to this particular philosophy and one day all will be on board with things like abortion, sex before marriage, same sex marriage, people wearing whatever they want &c. because that's somehow 'inevitable'. It's not inevitable and there are always going to be religious people and even nonreligious people who oppose this. We're not going away, we're not a vestige of a past age, we're living, breathing, growing cultures and we're not interested in changing.

As long as we stick to ours and you stick to yours, it should be fine. Salad bowl, not melting pot.

Thanks for the post. I mean it's no secret you're religious, and I respect that... but your stance also confuses me a bit since you aren't really known to be anti-LGBTQ+ yourself (I say that because same sex marriage was mentioned).

 

[Vinayaka]

Catholic prohibition on contraceptives.

The only place where Catholics listen to that much, from what I've seen, is in Latin America. And you're right, it is s problem that leads to poverty. Any more examples?

 

[Aupmanyav]

Any religion that says that it is the only correct way is a bad religion, and should be banned. Some time or the other, it is going to bring misery, either to itself or to others. It does not need someone to judge. Just check their scriptures.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Should bad religion, religion that promotes bigotry and prejudice, be tolerated?

At what point does neutral/good religion tip the scale into bad, and who should decide such a thing?

Depends what we're talking about. If you're trying to decide whether to flip a particular church the bird when you pass it, that's entirely up to you.

If we're talking about legal repercussions, well, laws are enacted and enforced by governments.

I think it's reasonable to haveva graduated approach.

At the worst end, organizations that are so bad that their behaviour is criminal: prosecute them, send the guilty people to prison, and sell off the organization's assets to compensate the victims.

Short of that, I thought that the Canadian government's approach with Summer Jobs Program grants was a reasonable one. to be eligible for government grants, organizations had to affirm that they upheld the principles expressed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I thought it was a good idea. I certainly don't want my tax dollars going toward undermining Charter rights, but you'd think from the outcry that the sky was falling. The idea that some Christian summer camp wouldn't get their counsellors subsidized unless they promised not to teach the campers that homosexuality is evil had a certain segment of the public completely up in arms.

‘Extremely disappointed’: Religious groups meet with minister on summer jobs program, but no compromise coming

 

[Rival]

Thanks for the post. I mean it's no secret you're religious, and I respect that... but your stance also confuses me a bit since you aren't really known to be anti-LGBTQ+ yourself (I say that because same sex marriage was mentioned).

I can get out all my sapphic stuff online and it helps, but in real life I do try to focus on men.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Who gets to decide what's bad and what isn't? So often, it's just a religion that is different from yours that is 'bad'. European invaders of indigenous lands the world over thought they were the good guys, and the native peoples were the bad guys. Such a travesty!

Can you give more specific examples of 'bad' religion?

Here's one example:

Toronto Catholic board committee votes for code of conduct that excludes stated protections for gender expression | The Star

Personally, my preferred approach would be to just ignore the underlying beliefs and focus on behaviours and actions, dividing them into a few categories:

- those that we should promote and encourage
- those that we shouldn't promote, but should tolerate
- those that we should actively discourage
- those that we should outlaw (i.e. crimes)

Any government will encourage certain things, tolerate certain things, and outlaw certain things, so it's really a matter of being transparent and accountable for the criteria that are being used to put actions into the different categories.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

I can get out all my sapphic stuff online and it helps, but in real life I do try to focus on men.

Makes sense. Sometimes I do tap into a different part of myself in online forums as well.

And to the forum, regarding the thread, it was more of just questions. One can't really question me much on my notions, I don't think, when I was asking those same questions myself. One can ask why I brought it up though. And I guess my view might be a little slanted in that I tend to take on a bit of the humanist ideology, yet have some religious people in my life going a bit too far, urging me not to do this or that because they "don't want to see me in hell".

 

[Heyo]

The main problem comes when people start doing risky things, saying it's a part of their "religion".

Though there would be some debate as to what's considered "risky".

What about people doing "risky things" based on their party affiliation, their hobby, their job?
You can't regulate that. You can't even regulate really bad behaviour like bigotry, racism or misogyny.
The only red line is outright criminal behaviour.
And there is the possibility to connect granted privileges to good behaviour like with tax exempt statutes. You'd have to be careful not to directly target a certain group but in principle it is possible to incentivise good behaviour with money.

 

[PureX]

Should bad religion, religion that promotes bigotry and prejudice, be tolerated?

At what point does neutral/good religion tip the scale into bad, and who should decide such a thing?

The religions (ideologies) are irrelevant. It's the behavior of groups and individuals that determine social tolerance, or intolerance. This is why it's crucial to have a written declaration of individual rights and responsibilities in relation to the state. And to protect and enforce them to the letter.

 

[Erebus]

There are always going to be grey areas with this. As a general rule though I'd say people should be free to apply their religious beliefs to themselves. Want to refuse a blood transfusion because it's against your beliefs? Go for it, it's your body. Don't try to prevent somebody else from having one though. Do you believe that gay people shouldn't marry? Fine, if you happen to be gay you're under no obligation to get married. Other people aren't subject to that belief though.

 

[Vinayaka]

Any government will encourage certain things, tolerate certain things, and outlaw certain things, so it's really a matter of being transparent and accountable for the criteria that are being used to put actions into the different categories.

Thanks for the example. I've always had quite a lot of difficulty with Canadian governments, in particular provincial governments failure to separate religion and state. Another example of bias is religious holidays. Only Christians get certain days off for holidays. All other faiths get to work on their religious days, generally.

Not sure if it couldn't be, or eventually will be changed, though. Small steps.

I worked in the public system here in Texas north, and there were a lot of 'debatable' things going on in the education field. I knew of teachers from the Catholic schools who openly suggested to parents to have their disabled kids go to the public schools. Those kids still count in statistics, and then other kids get less funding per child, as the school has to allot more money on providing for the special needs programs. Then when the PATS (provincial Achievement tests) results came out, the schools with less special needs kids did better. So yeah, away too much divisive politics for me.