A most diabolical plot

Ideology doesn't equal religion or vice versa. Historically China has had a very high suicide rate among women because of a historically patriarchal (but non-religious) culture in which women's options were limited and abuses high. There, too, violated "virtue" (ie sex only within male dominated marriage) was such a dishonour that only suicide would do. That woman is nasty. She is a nasty bit of goods and she is sick. I have known of and met similarly sick people who did similarly perverse things under the guise of various ideologies, some religious and some secular. You can get rid of religion, but you can't get rid of human perversity in doing so. It's true that religion can breed intolerance (so can some other social forms). But this isn't about intolerance. It goes way beyond that.

Is she any different than the women who make up that dubious system of baby farming known as the "foster care" system? How about the singlemom networks here at home?

The kids raise by these dupes all become cops, felons, menial wage earners or soldiers.

@Lilian Nattel: Your premise is false. I have never heard of anyone killing in the name of atheism. You are being disingenuous.

should simply not be allowed

It takes a tyranny to suppress religion. The USSR comes to mind.

I think you are conflating the tool with its user, in the same way that those who wish to control crime confuse the gun with the criminal. Religion is not what organized and then committed those rapes. Religion was the unfortunate instrument of the animals who perpetrated those crimes. Get rid of that religion, or even of all religions, and you'll still find people like that in the world. All they need is an idea to rally behind, and lots of hate. It doesn't really matter which idea. It could be the great spaghetti monster. Heck, it could be the abolition of the great spaghetti monster.

This is the human condition. We will always have criminals, and we will always have inhuman monsters willing to use others to commit acts of unspeakable cruelty. Getting rid of the tools of their trade won't stop them. What's worse, by going after the tools, you end up depriving innocent people of the benign or benevolent uses of those tools. You have to focus on the evildoers themselves.

Wayne, not all tools are alike. That applies to both your argument about gun control and your argument about religion.

Stephanie, There are differences, I agree. In the case of guns and religion, the most obvious difference is that one is physical; the other an incorporate, an idea. However, it is the similarity I wished to draw your attention to: Both can be used for good or evil, the difference depending upon who yields it, not upon the tool itself. Are there other differences you are thinking of?

Hmm. Perhaps I was not as clear as I should have been. Guns are not like other tools, even tools of self-defense, in some important ways. These differences make guns much closer to the class of objects whose use is routinely regulated.

Religion is not like other ideas in some very important ways. As an idea, toast is yummy does not carry the authority that religion does. It does not promise a reward to its defenders. It doesn't demand specific behaviors. It does not devalue those who think, "Toast? Meh." It doesn't devalue life in the here and now.

In short, there is a very small group of ideas that can be used to coerce others to do bad things that aren't in their direct interest. Religion is right up there at the top of the list.

Stephanie, Thanks for the clarification. I agree that guns are different from other tools of self defense. That is a side discussion that you and I might enjoy, but might be a distraction from this one.

I'd like to now discuss another aspect of banning religion: What does it really mean? What is the actual effect of banning religion, and what does it mean to live in a country where the government has the power to do it?

1. Banning religion is banning thought.

2. If you are going to ban thought, you have to pick which thought to ban. It could be religion. But it doesn't have to be.

3. In a democracy, any form of thought repugnant to the masses is the next target.

4. And, because we're here on scienceblogs: Science isn't always popular with the masses.

There is no power you can give government that cannot be turned against you. Taking back a power, once delegated to government, is nearly impossible; controlling it, devilishly difficult. The power to abolish religion is the power to abolish thought itself. It's a tyrannical genie that you don't want to let out of the bottle.

You don't need to ban religion. You need to drive it into extinction, by providing superior competitors in the same niche of the social ecology.

Banning it is as futile as trying to exterminate cockroaches.

Aren`t you being awfully judgemental towards this brown islamic person of colour ? I mean, maybe that`s just the way things are done in her non western culture. Who are you, as a white priviledged westerner, to judge this brown womyn of colour ?

Apparently, the same tactic was used to manipulate young men into suicide attacks. First they were raped, then shamed into believing a "sacrifice", in the form of suicide bombing, was the only way to redeem their "honor".

http://www.ennaharonline.com/en/news/173.html

Trust the fanatics, religious or others, to make the ugliest use possible of an already heavily repressive patriarcal, homophobic culture.

"same tactic was used to manipulate young men into suicide attacks."

This kind of reminds me of the nature of militancy itself. For example, the feminist movement convinced young women that they *might* have been, or *could* have been raped by males--and then proceeded to indoctrinate these fearful young women into the ways of bisexual, or lesbian anti-male militancy.

We hear these militants yapping endlessly about womens rights and "FGM" Yet seldom if ever do we hear any of these "progressives" advocate for the rights of young arabic males--many of whom are truly the victims of buggery and circumcision.

Makes sense now.