| padib said: Yeah, I've witnessed that too. But the problem lies elsewhere than where you first thought. The problem with religious cults today is that they have a tendency to stay within their 4 walls. One reason of this is because religion is oppressed and has its expression suffocated. As such, the religious mentality stagnates into a cycle of obsession, where there is no outlet valve. Thoughts become circular, there is no challenging one's own beliefs. In my quest to flee from the traps of religion, I've embraced many values of secularism so as to find solace from that phenomenon of stagnation. But that didn't mean I was to throw the baby with the bathwater. As for your other points, I like what you said. And that was one of the things I was trying to show too. That one person can bash something, and another can bash the challenging view. Well, what is the truth? It must lie somewhere in the middle. That's why there is so much back and forth, because we keep thinking it's one or the other... As a person who left the confines of the church, I can tell you I've learnt alot from opening myself up to secularism. But those who are confined in the 4 walls of secularism may also fall in the same trap as does the church. Circular thinking, not challenging one's own opinions, etc. etc. |
But it is not religion that is beign oppressed!!
It is the religious engaging in open hostility. Athiests are not into aggression simply because they hate religion. Athiests are about logic, and to go after somethign for no reason is illogical. People are not oppressign religion. We are protecting science and freedom against the oppression of religion! At this very moment, religious groups would love to supplant grade school textbook teaching of evolution with creation. They would LOVE it.
Religion is the oppressor. Religion is the cage.
