religious tolerance?

5uspect

Okay, I new here so I don't know if this has already been discussed to death but I was wondering what peoples views regarding religious tolerance. Do you think that too much religious tolerance is a bad thing or that it is particuarly lacking.
Can it be unbiased towards the particular dominant religion and can it go too far in trying to keep everyone happy?

I think that in society religion is afforded too high a position. Maybe this is allowed because governments see it as a good social insurance policy or more likely it is just part and parcel of our civilization. So what I'm getting at here is really can religious intolerance (in a sense that it's role in society is solely up to the individual believer and is completely unsponsored by the state) work?

I know this may bring out the extremists but hopefully we can keep things civil for this (probably short and soon to be closed) thread.

abetarrush

Get out of religion and get on with your life

5uspect

abetarrush wrote:

Get out of religion and get on with your life

I'm not religious at all, I'm just wondering if society will ever fully escape it or is it part of us that will always be there

Dades

I'm all for religious tolerence where the exercising of that particlar faith doesn't affect people of other persuasions adversely. Only when that line is crossed would I deem it right to curb the actions of that religion. In Ireland there are some small but obvious cases where the RC Church does this, but you need to go international to find the real instances of religion affecting human rights.

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

H. L. Mencken

Funsterdelux

Religious tolerance, Im ok with it, however Religion's status should be that of a hobby, sport or a pastime, its seems to be on a par with politics, which shouldnt be.

5uspect

Funsterdelux wrote:

Religious tolerance, Im ok with it, however Religion's status should be that of a hobby, sport or a pastime, its seems to be on a par with politics, which shouldnt be.

I agree, it's given too much sway in politics. You can believe that the sky is green with orange stripes but that belief should never be taken into the public domain as religion is. Call a spade a spade.

monkeyfudge

How tolerant should we be when a religious belief of a parent puts the life of their child at risk due to the refusal of life saving medical procedures?

layke

I'm fairly tolerant however there has to be a line drawn where where the stupidity ends. Say the post above would be a prime example. If people want to believe in hocus pocus then can, just don't let it cloud your judgement.

monkeyfudge

layke wrote:

I'm fairly tolerant however there has to be a line drawn where where the stupidity ends. Say the post above would be a prime example.

Care to expand on what you mean by that?

For example The Jehovah Witnesses don't allow blood transfusions, why should I be tolerant of a religious belief that can lead to a death of a minor.

layke

lol.

I was agreeing with you.

monkeyfudge

layke wrote:

lol.

I was agreeing with you.

ha.. apologies... I thought you were refering my post as example of stupidity...

ScumLord

I think the problem people have with religion is they've confused it for something it's not. Religion has been an important part of human development since we started painting on the inside of caves all those years ago, I've seen documentrys that say parts of the brain are dedicated to religious/spiritual/meditative thinking. As far as I'm conserned it's all about the search for answers to the fundimental questions like how does the universe work and how did it get here. We still haven't come up with a better explanation for the universe other than God did it.

I don't believe in God the way he's discribed in the many different books I see God more as the princibles that make the universe work, a perfect balence.

I do think it's foolish to turn our backs on religion when it's helped us acheive so much to date. Religion is about people coming together and sharing ideals, it also prevents people from going off on wild ideals like those in wako.

Zombrex

monkeyfudge wrote:

How tolerant should we be when a religious belief of a parent puts the life of their child at risk due to the refusal of life saving medical procedures?

It depends.

Does the parent have the right to refuse medical procedures for their child no matter the reason? If that is the case, then having a religous reason is no better or worse reason than any other is it?

If that isn't the case then because the reason is religous shouldn't mean it has any specialy over-riding power.

I am pretty anti-religion, but at the same time I'm very pro-civil liberities. Which is why I get a bit concerned when talk of how religous tolerance is going to far (a bit like PC society is going to far), which these days seems to be focused largely around Muslims, because it seem to be an attempt to restict religous freedom (not this thread, but others on other forums, particularly Politics)

Over on politics there was a discussion that the Muslim headscarf should be banned, screw religous tolerance it is oppressing women. What wasn't mentioned is that, in Ireland at least, women are free to wear or not wear the head scarf. Banning it outright woudl actually be a restriction on a Muslim woman's civil liberties. She has to right to wear what ever she likes so long as she doesn't break the law.

So really you have to be specific in what you are actually talking about when we way "religoius tolerance".

5uspect

The arguement about denying a child medical care because of religious befiefs is a very good example. If parents refuse to give their kids care for no other reason than stubbornness or ignorance then we would be all up in arms about child abuse. A good example is that child up in galway or somewhere who died of an infection as a result of coming into contact with cat faeces and was found to be severely infected with lice. To the majority of people this is accepted as child abuse. However if someone refuses their child medical attention or adequate care solely on their particular superstition then that is called religious tolerance. This is clearly wrong.

Another example of religious tolerance gone astray is here in UL. There is a comtemplative room in the student centre for all to use religious or not for prayer, mediation or quiet time. However the minority Muslim community here refused to use it as there was a star of David on the wall - along with many other religious symbols. As a result they have been given their own prayer room in the student centre.
This is clearly a case of tolerance of religious intolerance and should never have been allowed.

Religious tolerance should never extend beyond denying someone the right to believe what he wishes. If that is wearing head scarves or denying blood transfusions for youself only fine its your decision and ultimately only affects you However this gets tricky when it comes to children.
Should parents be allowed to force their beliefs onto their kids?
Should there be an age limit for kids before they are indoctinrated?

If someone smokes when pregnant society frowns on them
I think pushing religion on kids results in just as much as a social cancer.
I suppose the analogy ends with kids deciding for themselves to smoke or not when they're old enough (or at least old enough to be capable of some independent thought)

Dades

ScumLord wrote:

I do think it's foolish to turn our backs on religion when it's helped us acheive so much to date. Religion is about people coming together and sharing ideals, it also prevents people from going off on wild ideals like those in wako.

I agree with most of what you've said but not this. Religion may be a sharing of ideals - but they are someone else's ideals from thousands of years ago in most cases. There are other ways of sharing your own thoughts on how to co-exist.

Wako came about when after a Seventh Day Adventist came up with his own bible-based religion, convinced enough sheep to join him, and went loco. Definitely not a pro-religion story.

mountainyman

If you want religion to be irrelevant give it power.

Sounds like a contradiction but when religious people are oppressed they will die for their faith. When the faith has power people grow to hate it.

Look at Iran and of course this country.


MM

5uspect

mountainyman wrote:

If you want religion to be irrelevant give it power.

Sounds like a contradiction but when religious people are oppressed they will die for their faith. When the faith has power people grow to hate it.

Look at Iran and of course this country.


MM

I think I'd rather see the end of religion without bloodshed thanks. Giving one religion power will always create a minority willing to be martyred. We see this all over the world, The middle east, the north, Rywanda. It is impossible to be fair to all religions this way. My point is that no religion should be recognised in a democracy - only the right of an individual to believe what he or she wishes as long as it's untestable dogma does not affect society.

Zombrex

5uspect wrote:

However if someone refuses their child medical attention or adequate care solely on their particular superstition then that is called religious tolerance.

Is it though and by who? What is the law in Ireland?

TBH I can't stand the argument that A isn't acceptable but everyone love's B. This is used all the time but is normally not true.

How do you actually know that society in Ireland would tolerate a woman letting her child die from lice infection because of her religious beliefs?

5uspect wrote:

However the minority Muslim community here refused to use it as there was a star of David on the wall - along with many other religious symbols. As a result they have been given their own prayer room in the student centre.
This is clearly a case of tolerance of religious intolerance and should never have been allowed.

That does seem a bit funny, but to show it is religious tolerance "gone astray" you would have to show the UL refuses to give any other religion their own prayer room.

Have you actually asked for your own prayer room?

ScumLord

The Atheist wrote:

I agree with most of what you've said but not this. Religion may be a sharing of ideals - but they are someone else's ideals from thousands of years ago in most cases. There are other ways of sharing your own thoughts on how to co-exist.

I would agree the human race seemed to have decided they knew all there was to know and gave up challanging their perception of the world but that's power mongering and the narrow mindedness of people in power not nesseserally the fault of religion.

I don't think religion is all about sticking to one set of rules no matter what to me it's about a search for "God" God being the answer to the biggest questions not an old man with a white beard ruling like a king (the only example they had of power at the time). The bibles are out of date with what we now know but they did come close in some respects even though the people of the time had no way to prove their theorys.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the ideals of most religions the ten commandments are a very good guide for living your life too it's just all the extra bumf they've added to it that makes it not work, they've over complicated something very simple... Being nice and respectful of one another are the basic princibles of most religions.

5uspect

Wicknight wrote:

How do you actually know that society in Ireland would tolerate a woman letting her child die from lice infection because of her religious beliefs?

No I don't suppose society here could stomach such an extreme case. The point I'm trying to make is that religion asks that we respect its views regardless of the consequences as it is the word of god and since we are influenced by the church since we're very young society tends to accept it as an authoritative body even though it holds no real power. So for example you can argue that the spread of AIDS is universally unacceptable but the church's attitudes regarding contraception which undermines condom use and its stance on changing this position is not exactly firecly opposed.

Wicknight wrote:

That does seem a bit funny, but to show it is religious tolerance "gone astray" you would have to show the UL refuses to give any other religion their own prayer room.

Have you actually asked for your own prayer room?

I hold no religious beliefs so a prayer room wouldn't interest me. However if I did need some me time the common contemplative centre would probably do just fine. The problem with the muslin prayer room was that initally the muslims refusing to use the contemplative centre were using our aerodynamics lab without permission for prayers. One night while a researcher was performing experiments a group of the muslims came in to pray, were upset at the distraction of a wind tunnel to their prayers and promptly killed the main circuit breaker to the lab . Needless to say this landed these guys in a lot of hot water as many of them were completely unauthorised to be in there nevermind pray there. They were then offered their own prayer room to prevent further issues in other areas of the campus.

The reason that i think this is religious tolerance gone astray is that the university was effectively bullied into meeting the demads of a group of people who take offense at another religious symbol. The university in giving in validated the intolerant view of these muslims. What does that say to Jewish people in UL?

lostexpectation

The Atheist wrote:

I'm all for religious tolerence where the exercising of that particlar faith doesn't affect people of other persuasions adversely. Only when that line is crossed would I deem it right to curb the actions of that religion. In Ireland there are some small but obvious cases where the RC Church does this, but you need to go international to find the real instances of religion affecting human rights.

I dont' think the RC Church affect on people in Ireland is small.
am i gonna do anything bout it, i dunno