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Goodbye Jesus

Atheism And Freedom Of Religion


shirono

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So, I have to write a persuasive speech in debate class, and guess what I'm writing it on.

How can we change freedom of religion so that it includes freedom FROM religion for atheists. I know that many of us on this site have had experience in which we were discriminated against because of our atheism. What is your opinion on this subject. You don't have to be an atheist to post, any other religious persuasion and even christians haunting these boards, feel free to post. I also need some evidence to back it up if anyone has a website they would recommend. :grin:

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Well, you could first present the nature of faith, that troublesome state of mind in which we will accept some not-provable things and reject others.

 

Compare things like a Muslim rejecting the divinity of Jesus or a Protestant rejecting the Catholic concept of Mary, and from that point of view it makes just as much sense to protect the atheist rejection of gods.

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So, I have to write a persuasive speech in debate class, and guess what I'm writing it on.

How can we change freedom of religion so that it includes freedom FROM religion for atheists. I know that many of us on this site have had experience in which we were discriminated against because of our atheism. What is your opinion on this subject. You don't have to be an atheist to post, any other religious persuasion and even christians haunting these boards, feel free to post. I also need some evidence to back it up if anyone has a website they would recommend. :grin:

 

Well, I'd introduce the idea that a government must be secular from all belief systems and protect the rights of every individual, regardless of belief. Discrimination cannot be tolerated by anyone.

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You could start with a First Amendment overview, and move to examples of discrimination against atheists. There is a section on www.secularhumanism.org, and on state constitutions that discriminate against atheists on www.religioustolerance.org. You may want to also check the Federalist Papers to see what the authors of the constitution had to say, if anything, regarding those with no religious beliefs. If this is a persuasive speech, what, then, will you be persuading your audience to do? Will you leave them with the idea that the framers of the law had in mind that freedom of religion includes the right to make no religious commitments, or will you enter it as a separate legal question that calls for legislative action?

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You could start with a First Amendment overview, and move to examples of discrimination against atheists. There is a section on www.secularhumanism.org, and on state constitutions that discriminate against atheists on www.religioustolerance.org. You may want to also check the Federalist Papers to see what the authors of the constitution had to say, if anything, regarding those with no religious beliefs. If this is a persuasive speech, what, then, will you be persuading your audience to do? Will you leave them with the idea that the framers of the law had in mind that freedom of religion includes the right to make no religious commitments, or will you enter it as a separate legal question that calls for legislative action?

 

I want to leave people feeling that discrimination against anyone for being an atheist (or of any other religious persuasion) is wrong, and that there is nothing wrong with being an atheist. Also perhaps a call for some sort of action to prevent the government from becoming more intangled with religion and help stop religious discrimination.

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You could start with a First Amendment overview, and move to examples of discrimination against atheists. There is a section on www.secularhumanism.org, and on state constitutions that discriminate against atheists on www.religioustolerance.org. You may want to also check the Federalist Papers to see what the authors of the constitution had to say, if anything, regarding those with no religious beliefs. If this is a persuasive speech, what, then, will you be persuading your audience to do? Will you leave them with the idea that the framers of the law had in mind that freedom of religion includes the right to make no religious commitments, or will you enter it as a separate legal question that calls for legislative action?

 

I want to leave people feeling that discrimination against anyone for being an atheist (or of any other religious persuasion) is wrong, and that there is nothing wrong with being an atheist. Also perhaps a call for some sort of action to prevent the government from becoming more intangled with religion and help stop religious discrimination.

 

Depending on how long your speech is intended to be, it looks like a first amendment issue then. A good overview is on the site of Cornell Law School.

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I was thinking something along these lines a few nights ago, but it had to do with how atheists feel about the war in Iraq. The war there is primarily a war between a Christian nation that is fighting for the rights of others to worship as they please, but in order to make this happen the religious extremists must be "destroyed." Most convoluted. . .

 

I moved recently out of Utah where I lived about a thirty minute drive from Colorado City, a polygamist community. Most of us are familiar with underage girls forced to marry and have sex with the elders of this community, but the "poligs" also have the practice of kicking out and excommunicating the underage teen boys from the community.

 

Right now (in general) freedom of religion means that religions have the right to teach whatever they want, even when those beliefs cause harm to others. We also extend this right to religious disciples, granting them the right to do as they want. And it is pretty much considered a taboo to confront the practices of religions.

 

I compare this attitude with the rights of parents and children in America. It used to be that no person, state, or fed. government could supercede the rights of parents to do what they wanted with their children. Gradually, however, this freedom granted to parents has been removed. Attitudes changed in that people recognized the rights of children, but when parents were causing harm to their children, then their "freedom of parenting" was curbed or removed.

 

I don't know of any atheists that are opposed to freedom of religion. What atheists are generally opposed to is the effect of religion in culture and politics. ANd many atheists are also sensitive to the physical and psycological harms that religion causes to individuals.

 

I would like to see the concensus of what it means to grant freedom of religion changed. What it ought to mean is that people have the right to believe anything they want to. What it means right now is that people have the right to believe what they want, but they are also granted the right to cause harm to others. So, the whole concept of freedom of religion needs to be adjusted. It has to be adjusted in a way that preserves the right for people to believe as they want. But the perception of this right must allow for people to recognize and prevent if necessary, those religious beliefs cause harm to others.

 

 

Don't know if that helps, but good luck on the speech!

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What is your opinion on this subject.

 

Free choice of religion automatically includes the choice "none", so of course, freedom of religion includes freedom to be an atheist if this is what one is convinced of. Period.

 

Seriously, I don't know what more any half-brained person could want to say about that.

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So, I have to write a persuasive speech in debate class, and guess what I'm writing it on.

How can we change freedom of religion so that it includes freedom FROM religion for atheists.

 

:)Shirono, I'm curious to know how Atheists do not have freedom from religion? How can we grant people the right to believe how they want AND allow Atheists freedom from religion any more than we have now? I am assuming you live in the US too. I find that hardly anyone believes like me. Perhaps that is how most of us feel? I think it is the extremists in any philosophy that causes these problems... in that they insist we believe like they do.

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I don't know of any atheists that are opposed to freedom of religion. What atheists are generally opposed to is the effect of religion in culture and politics. ANd many atheists are also sensitive to the physical and psycological harms that religion causes to individuals.

 

 

Don't know if that helps, but good luck on the speech!

 

I didn't really mean that atheists are opposed to freedom of religion, I think it's a perfectly good thing to have in my opinion. I was more talking about the fact that freedom of religion, while it's supposed to protect people's rights to believe and religion, it does seem to me that it more protects Christians, Buddhists, Hindus (basically religions with a god) and that more and more discrimination seems to pointed towards atheists in todays world. In fact from a few quotes and peices of info I've gathered, it doesn't really seem to government is that much in favor of changing that fact. Some people seem to think that if you are an atheist that you aren't patriotic and that you don't stand up for this country, because this supposedly a "Christian" nation.

 

Thanks, I'll need the luck, my debate teacher can be fairly demanding.

 

 

So, I have to write a persuasive speech in debate class, and guess what I'm writing it on.

How can we change freedom of religion so that it includes freedom FROM religion for atheists.

 

:)Shirono, I'm curious to know how Atheists do not have freedom from religion? How can we grant people the right to believe how they want AND allow Atheists freedom from religion any more than we have now? I am assuming you live in the US too. I find that hardly anyone believes like me. Perhaps that is how most of us feel? I think it is the extremists in any philosophy that causes these problems... in that they insist we believe like they do.

yes I do live in the U.S.

I didn't mean that Atheists do not have freedom from religion for the most part, just that there are many people who have decided that Atheists are a new scapegoat to blame their problems on. I was forced, by parents, to go to a southern baptist revival :ugh: anyway the second night the minister actually said that Atheists and Homosexuals were the reason that America was going downhill and all the problems in the U.S. could be traced to this. What's worse is that most of the people in the church (and it's a large church) were either nodding or saying "Amen brother!"

 

Like Asimov said, people have to realize that discrimination against any people can't be allowed. I think it's would be hard to disagree that the government is far to entangled with the Christian church at this moment.

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I think I see what you are saying, while people do have freedom to be athiest in this country, most people think that if you are an athiest you are immoral and/or dangerous.

 

and it doesn't seem that the government is very concerned with getting rid of that stereotype or preventing bigotry against athiests.

 

Look at it another way, if the pastor that shirono mentioned had said that blacks or hispanics or jews were the problem with our country, and were making it go downhill. there would have likely been public outrage. People would have accused him of being racist (and rightly so) but if you accuse athiests and homosexuals....it seems the majority doesn't even bat an eye. And the government does nothing to stop it either.

 

When I worked at walmart, my boss found out I was an athiest, and I was forced to quit because the boss had it in for me after that point as was trying to find reasons to fire me.....

 

of course I had kinda made it easy, because I hated my job and thus didn't do it very well, but other people did worse jobs than me and she never even noticed them.

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Like Asimov said, people have to realize that discrimination against any people can't be allowed. I think it's would be hard to disagree that the government is far to entangled with the Christian church at this moment.

 

Shirono, I agree... people need to have the right to avoid discrimination because of their religous beliefs, or lack of. It makes sense what Kuroikaze said about discrimination in the same way Atheist get, it would bring outrage if suggested about an ethnic group. I remember on one thread here there was the mention of one of the president Bushs, I think the father, having said that Atheist should leave the country, or something like that! :eek: That might be interesting to include in your paper...

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That was the older bush, saying (roughly) that he doesn't think atheists should be considered citizens. Quote: "This is one country under gawd".

 

:banghead::vent:

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That was the older bush, saying (roughly) that he doesn't think atheists should be considered citizens. Quote: "This is one country under gawd".

 

:banghead::vent:

 

Yes, I have that quote along with plenty of other information. Also several things quoted from the boy scout's handbook saying that to be a good citizen you had to be a good christian. Though those were from an old copy so I won't use those more than likely. Kuroikaze was right, that is what I meant, he just phrased it better. Maybe I'll tie him up in the basement of the new house, that he had better help us move into, an make him write the speech :lmao:

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