I don’t see the difference between your last paragraph and banning believing. To me, you can ban hate crime but you can’t ban bad morals, so you can’t ban beliefs because it’s just a disguise for the morals doing the talking, an arbitrary abstraction that people from all spectrums enjoy. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism.
I literally can’t control what people think, correct.
because it’s just a disguise for the morals doing the talking
You got it backwards. We are all morally obliged to align our beliefs with reality because mistakes can cost lives. I don’t have to ban belief. I have to educate whoever is willing to listen to reason. It is in everyone’s best interests for everyone to believe in the reality we share. All our lives depend on it.
People like my father are proudly exercising their right to be wrong, to accept claims with no evidence, and their choices as a direct result of their magical thinking have directly led to abuse. No one should be okay with parents abusing their children because they believe in magic, but it is cheered here in the bible belt. I think people are underestimating how harmful these beliefs are.
I’ll agree with that. But I disagree with the targetting of religion as “these beliefs”. Domestic violence is famously high in atheist China. I have my own personal anecdotes from a very atheist/agnostic family. Religion is just aesthetic window-dressing and creates both bad and good. Believing “no pain no gain” is its own form of magic.
I don’t see the difference between your last paragraph and banning believing. To me, you can ban hate crime but you can’t ban bad morals, so you can’t ban beliefs because it’s just a disguise for the morals doing the talking, an arbitrary abstraction that people from all spectrums enjoy. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism.
I literally can’t control what people think, correct.
You got it backwards. We are all morally obliged to align our beliefs with reality because mistakes can cost lives. I don’t have to ban belief. I have to educate whoever is willing to listen to reason. It is in everyone’s best interests for everyone to believe in the reality we share. All our lives depend on it.
People like my father are proudly exercising their right to be wrong, to accept claims with no evidence, and their choices as a direct result of their magical thinking have directly led to abuse. No one should be okay with parents abusing their children because they believe in magic, but it is cheered here in the bible belt. I think people are underestimating how harmful these beliefs are.
I’ll agree with that. But I disagree with the targetting of religion as “these beliefs”. Domestic violence is famously high in atheist China. I have my own personal anecdotes from a very atheist/agnostic family. Religion is just aesthetic window-dressing and creates both bad and good. Believing “no pain no gain” is its own form of magic.
I agree that people don’t need religion to be bad.
But also, the more excuses we remove, the fewer places they have to hide.
Religion is not just aesthetic window dressing. It is often the willful embracing of things that cannot be measured, including deadly falsehoods.
My main issue with religion is that there is no consistent standard.