This was a comment from this 45 sec video. Religious freedom is a right enshrined in Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; a treaty made binding by the United Nations in 1966 following the Universal Declaration of Human Rights created after the Second World War. An attempt at forestalling any further horrors following the Holocaust tragedy. However, the concept of religion has purportedly become a bedraggled notion of medieval ideology. Whenever an article, poster, or piece of writing on religion, conversions, Islam, Christianity, the Church, or even what good a recent Pope has done is disseminated, it suffers from a hoard of comments which do not read the piece, subject-matter, or anything of relevance. These commentators bludgeon the response section with filthy obscenities, insulting religion, believers, and everything in between. Religion is the cause of all/ most violence! There is an ultimate irony in this unrestrained abuse towards anyone of faith which is consistently portrayed by self-proclaimed atheists: how does one accuse others of spreading violence while their attitude is a culmination of spite and antagonism? Within this irony is a double standard which should not be perpetuated. It seems that because these commentators label themselves as atheists, there is some accepted perception that they are beyond the scope of radicalisation or extremism; as if such terms are reserved for comments of likeness made from a religious viewpoint. By its very definition, radicalisation encompasses a process by which an individual or group come to adopt extreme... aspirations that... reject and/ or undermine... expressions of freedom of choice. Therefore, whether you comment from faith or no-faith, in a hateful, bigoted, or aggressive way; a way which undermines civil liberties, you are an extremist. Unfortunately, a further hypocrisy is then exposed. Atheism is usually associated (at least by atheists) as a progressive ideology. Every progressive instrument of human rights legislation (from the American Convention on Human Rights, to the European Convention on Human Rights) incorporates the concept of religious freedom as a fundamental pillar of guaranteed freedoms. Is it not hypocrisy then, for the likes of Richard Dawkins to advance relentless attacks against religion under the guise of scientific, social, cultural, and legal progress, when it is a clear regression for one to deny such a basic liberty, in essence, a freedom of thought? In regard to religion as a direct cause of violence, there is overwhelming factual and historical evidence to the contrary. Out of 1,763 wars chronicled in The Encyclopedia of Wars, less than 7% are cited as religious in nature; that means an immense 93% of historical conflicts bear no religious incentive. Anyone who believes in a sky-man is an idiot! Albert Einsteins achievements need no introduction, and his intellect has become a threshold for ingenuity; he believed in the existence of God. Al-Khwarizmi was a Muslim scholar who contributed to mathematics, geography, and astronomy- a name much less pronounced, but widely acknowledged as the innovator of Algebra. Proof is in the concept of Algorithms, a term coined after the latin form of his name (Algoritmi). Other notable scholars and scientists (paradoxically celebrated by Atheism) whom also believed in the sky-man include Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Fatima al-Fihri, Robert Boyle, Ibn Battuta, Stephen Myers, and many more- beyond that, their achievements are usually attached to some premise of search for knowledge sprang from... faith. To propose a blanket statement in insult of intellect on the basis of someones faith (even with evidence of such intellect having existed/ existing) is in itself a form of idiocy. Atheism causes no harm, to anyone! At this point it would be fair to differentiate moderate atheists (which is supposedly the main class of Atheism) from New Atheists, or Militant atheists (defined below). This is to avert any possibility of unfair generalisations. Militant atheists, or now reinvented as the New Atheism movement have a desire to differ themselves from the mainstream of atheists. The underlying logic is a desire to propagate the doctrine that religion is harmful and/ or religion should not simply be tolerated but should be... [actively] countered. This doctrine has also (unsurprisingly) been the cornerstone of many communist regimes. It is responsible for causing multiple instances of oppression, unrivaled denial of basic rights in modern times, and directly, the death of more than 3.5 million people in China. If one were to employ the logic imposed on all religions by the New Atheism movement (religion has caused harm, therefore religion will cause harm), there would be an obvious necessity for this movement to justify how such an ideology could possibly breed peace and prosperity given its previous affiliation with grossly repressive action. In fact, to this day, states which identify as Atheist countries (in contrast to secular countries which are officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion) continue to commit blatant violations of human rights. China and North Korea for example, censure the public to a massive extent. Websites like Facebook and Youtube are systematically banned, and there are many thought crimes under domestic law. From this perspective, recurring events have already demonstrated that the collapse of religious freedom is in essence the rise of an authoritarian regime. The League of the Godless in the Soviet Union (and other groups in Moldova, North Korea, and Vietnam) were conceived with the aim of exterminating religion in all its manifestations. Clerics, priests, and mullahs were disenfranchised, harassed, and tortured; religious monuments were destroyed; and those of faith faced mass deportation. According to Mihaela Robila, ironically, those composed to the freedom of civil liberties, caused flagrant human rights abuses- this irony is regrettably a consistent theme; from practical death tolls in history, to those aforementioned comments made by extremists on religion-related articles. Of course, it is entirely conceivable that the blame for such crimes should in fact be attributed to communism (a political ideology) rather than militant atheism (the no-faith basis). However, in the interest of avoiding double standards, atheists would then have to concede that religion (the faith basis) is not the primary cause of those conflicts attributed to it, but it is rather the territorial, economic, and social (political) dynamics that are responsible.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 23:17:45 +0000
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