In Defense Of People Who Speak Out Against Harmful Religions

[First draft] 

This discussion began in the comments section of this newly released video:


As it happens, I thought the guest speaker did a rather poor job of justifying the idea he was there to speak about. 
 
However, to be fair, maybe he was jittery from caffeine and sugar, after a long night of insomnia.

Nobody can always bring their "A" Game. 

I'm sure he was just having a rough day. 
But it made the host visible uncomfortable;
which made me feel uncomfortable.

I was glad when it was over. 

Meanwhile,
yet again,
some of us lowly nobodies are NOT one of humanity's "great minds".

And why not?
Merely because we haven't used Capitalism to create a name for ourselves.

 Ironically, we were much to busy actually developing our minds. 

In any case, that's where this blog's conversation began. 

[To hear this blog read aloud by this blog's author:]

@ApPersonaNonGrata]

I think most of the outspoken critics have actually reasonable and even noble motivations for challenging popular (mostly Abrahamic) god-claims."

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]
... But theistic claims are based on spirituality. It is (in other words) an inward belief system that isn't the same as scientific inquiry.  [@ApPersonaNonGrata] Most of that seems (so far as I can tell) irrelevant to the issue at hand; except for the part where you mentioned it's "inward" Nobody is going after the "inward" stuff. Religious people can worship dryer lint; for all we care. The reason you never see self-labeled "atheists" and other anti-religious critics challenging Native American Indigenous spiritual narratives, or Wiccans, or "Energists", Pantheists, Stoics, or Deists, etc is because: Those people are not normally making their spirituality-narratives anyone else's problem. Now, on the very very rare occasion that someone of a normally-ignored spirituality-narrative steps into the ring (the arena of competing ideas), or if they make the news for doing something "in the name of" their beliefs which infringes upon the rights of non-consenting-others, ... (example: denying a child proper medical care, in the "belief" that crystals have healing power) these are really the only times they get any flack. It's also important to recognize that anti-religious critics aren't going door-to-door to challenge anyone's beliefs. Nor are they gathering with picket signs and bull-horns outside of peaceful religious gatherings. Nor are they fighting to get laws passed to infringe upon the Civil Rights of religious people. In other words, anti-religious critics are not guilty of behaving like religious-fundamentalists. It's the outward happenings of fundamentalist religions that everyone has ample reason to care about. That's what they're getting pushback for. It's their outward expressions that are the primary driver of: * Suicides of LGBT youth in many countries; including the United States. * Bullying and homicides against LGBT adults; including at least a few mass shootings every year. * Centuries of still-ongoing culture-war against the Civil Liberties of all marginalized demographics. It is primarily the ultra-conservative, Abrahamic religions whom the rest of HUMANITY has has to fight BACK against, for the rights of women, non-white people, gay people, etc.. Those groups dominated societies for so many centuries. They acquired a very deep sense of entitlement to getting their way. They entrenched deeply into government. With their corrupt grip on that over-powered tool, they have leveraged the POWER of government against the rights of everyone beneath. They have even infiltrated public schools as a way to sneak behind non-Christian and differently-Christian parent's backs; in attempts to indoctrinate other people's innocent and vulnerable children ... into fantastically harmful (<-- link) exploitative, and politically weaponized ideologies. [More links about different, signficant, and verified forms of harm are available upon request]

They are even the primary driver of conspiracy theories about Global Climate Change and global pandemics. As such, they have killed millions of people. Even today (literally today) many people are suffering greatly today and many people will die today who would have otherwise been fine. They are a "clear and present danger" to the survival of our species (and most other forms of life on this planet). [@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC] If someone advocates "aroma therapy" with candles to alleviate stress and pain, I don't believe it works, but it's "their thing." I'm not going to practice aroma therapy, so who am I to tell them how silly I think it is?  [@ApPersonaNonGrata] Again, the inconsequential trivialities of random people's spirituality-narratives continue to get near-zero attention from critics. The only time such things get attention from critics is when either: a.) the religious person found a way to hurt someone with it, b.) it's relevant to a topic in the arena (the arena of competing ideas; where nobody is forced to compete) or c.) a critic is seizing upon an opportunity to: expose a harmful grift. By drawing attention to something silly that obviously isn't "true", this can help us ~call into serious question~ the larger claim that a seller is marketing as "The Truth". Criticism (including mockery) is reasonable and warranted, whenever a Con Artist is caught leveraging their CLAIM of being "The Truth" as a way to sucker vulnerable people into an: easy to fall for and hard to escape system of predatory exploitation. ---  [@ApPersonaNonGrata] "It's a dirty job. But somebody's gotta do it."

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC] ... I don't think so. If someone wants to believe in God, more power to them. It's their life and they can believe in whatever way they want.  [@ApPersonaNonGrata] My reply to this is covered in above-printed statements. However, I'll make an extra and important observation. You're acting as a "Flying Monkey" against the rational interests of your fellow humans. Abrahamic authoritarian ideologues are a collective criminal empire of organized clinical Narcissism. They aren't all clinical narcissists. But they have all been trained to emulate, shelter, and celebrate that disorder; whether they (or you) realize it or not. As Dr Robert Sapolsky puts is:
“the same exact traits which in a secular context are life-destroying” and “separate you from the community” are, “at the core of what is protected, what is sanctioned, what is rewarded, what is valued in religious settings.”
The reasons we CARE about any of that? 1. Everything that's harmful in non-religious settings is ALSO harmful in religious settings. Religious settings just go to great lengths to keep families from realizing the harm being done.

2. We care about the innocent children born into that captivity
and subject to that damage. If you want to take a LOOK at that damage, join and lurk ANY support group for survivors of Abrahamic fundamentalist religions. 3. The harm that happens "in there" carries over "out here"; making it everyone else's problem. [@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC] As far as pushing for legislation over hot topics in our society (like right-to-life and other moral issues), I would argue these issues would be hotly debated regardless of the presence of religion.  [@ApPersonaNonGrata] Human psychology and sociology are both systems of physics. To get a broader view of how those play out in less-fundamentalist /more secular societies (<--- link). Notice how most of these hot-topic "morality" issues (in more secular societies) have been long-since settled. And then notice which foundational narratives have historically been presented AS "the reasons" [example: And then notice those "reasons" are still presently incentivizing those ongoing battles in the U.S.. You are correct that an entirely secular society would still have some issues to argue and resolve. But in such a society, no laws would be leveraged by the idea that a fertilized egg has a "soul", or that every fetus is a "person". Nor is there much disagreement among progressive people about euthanasia. In fact, there is an overwhelming consensus among secular and religious-progressive about almost every hot topic. Over the past couple of centuries, women's rights, non-white-rights, gay rights, etc have been almost exclusively suppressed by Abrahamic-religious conservatives. In fact, religious colonizers couldn't just contain their evil to the society's they've infested. They had to go out into the world, far and wide, to make sure their religion continues to be a problem for all people everywhere.





A much smaller cloud of not-religious political-conservatives fought along WITH religious-conservatives. But it was the cultural-values of religious-fundamentalists that was so heavily influencing the smaller cloud of not-religious political conservatives. And if we only had that smaller cloud to contend with, so many Civil Rights battles (and, indeed, the larger war) would have been resolved long ago. Pretty much everyone else was then (and still is) of the view "let those people have their rights". But those rights still had to be hard-fought for (and many still are being hard-fought for) because of how much political power (and, to a lesser degree, social influence) is held by Abrahamic fundamentalists. Meanwhile, who else wants to mutilate the genitals of infant boys? Who else wants to sabotage every child's RIGHT to an education with literal Genesis-Creationism taught as SCIENCE?
They are actively trying to sabotage future generations' ability to compete on the global stage, in our development of understanding and technologies, by trying to sabotage every child's: * rational trust of science. [not blind trust; just healthy and functional]

along with: their understanding of the physical world; including biology, cosmology, geology, virology, psychology, and sociology. Meanwhile, are you actually going to sit there and argue that teaching people to reason irrationally and unethically is NOT harming humanity?
If a parent or church DECIDES not to teach critical thinking skills, and yet DECIDES to teach a child logically-fallacious reasoning, ... The effects of that are going to carry over into every facet of their adult life and into the society which bares the WEIGHT of those dysfunctions. As examples, ... Who created a lingering fog of social stigma about mental illness? Whose idea was it, for so many centuries, to argue that various forms of mental illness was actually "spiritual sickness" caused by the free-will'ed decisions of the afflicted to resist drawing sufficiently close to "the one true God"? Whose idea was it to divert so much necessary education, funding, and manpower away from: proper research into the causes and potential treatments for mental illness? And on what grounds? Because "it's really just spiritual" and "the end of the world is upon us anyways. So let's put our precious resources into spreading that message instead". JUST THINK about how much further along we'd all be by now; for understanding, treating, and preventing many profoundly destructive forms of illness. Remember this the next time some lunatic shoots up a school. Meanwhile, ... Who else is arguing that GOD wouldn't ALLOW for us to destroy the environment until WHENEVER "prophecy" (of a destroyed earth) is due? Who else argues "therefore mankind couldn't possibly be a major contributing cause to Global Climate Change UNLESS it's part of bible prophecy", and therefore we should keep pouring pollutions into our land, seas, and air? Who else does all they can to shift everyone's PRIORITY (of attention and resources) away from life-saving and society-building focus of THIS WORLD's interests?

Who else plasters "In God We Trust" all over public-school hallways and cop-car bumpers, and religious "commandments" at court houses, as a way to mark their territory and impose inferred warning to all whom dare resist their authoritarian entitlements? Who else perpetuates religions which function as popular and artificial forms of racism, disingenuously veiled as a global call to equality and harmony? As a result, destructively divisive lines merely get redrawn rather than truly resolved.
Such authoritarian religions go around preaching the "good news" that all lives are worthless EXCEPT for those who will place themselves under the "authority" of the "true God". And HOW (pray tell) is that accomplished? By placing ourselves under those who represent said God. And who are those "one true people?" It's always whichever arbitrarily specific subtype-group built that specific speaker's pedestal. Upon every such pedestal, self-appointed messengers declare all non-member lives worthless and forfeit.

All the while, were just supposed to not-notice the wildly unethical conflict of interests inherent to everything "the messenger" will personally gain as more people enlist.

Meanwhile, ... Who else invokes the powerfully effective and virally-propagating idea of "God" as way to sabotage every child's understanding of what a HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP looks like?
Meanwhile,
Authoritarian religions are pedestals for dangerous degrees of unearned trust and inequitable power over vulnerable innocent children and adults. It's absolutely inevitable that predators who NOTICE that opportunity are going to flock to that opportunity. Meanwhile, ... Who else demands that young women see themselves as baby-vending machines "as God intended"? Who else tells abused mates that "God hates divorce" and that Prayer, Faith, and Perseverance can heal their abuser? Who else demonizes ALL non-theists as morally bankrupt with the idea that morality requires authoritarian THEISM and everyone who rejects authoritarian THEISM has an anti-morality agenda?

Now, you can correctly point out that sometimes (rarely) not-religious people say-and-do the same stupid things; without invoking "God".
You can also point out correctly that #NotAllReligiousPeople do X, Y, or Z. But that's not AT ALL the issue here.
The issue is: Can skeptics EVER (ever) justify challenging the religiously-predicated attitudes, preachments, and (other) actions of religious authoritarians?
And the answer to that is: yes. Otherwise, we should all STFU about Islamic Jihadists. [@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC] Obviously, Christians aren't going to me on board with boys and girls using the same locker/dressing rooms, but so aren't a lot of other people. I don't care. We all realize that maturing humanity past that willfully destructive stupidity of religious ideologues still leaves many issues to be resolved. That was never the point of contest here.