A ban on christianity?

“Would the world be a better place if Christianity in all forms was outlawed?” No, absolutely not. But I predict that since Fluther is mostly populated by atheists, I’ll be shouted down. And maybe (probably) get flamed. Bring it on.

”...specifically Christianity. What would change?” The world as we know it. In other countries where Christianity is banned, there is tremendous suffering and cruelty due to persecution.

“Would we be better off?” Not at all. Things would get worse for everyone, Christians and non Christians alike.

“Would it make any difference to you personally?” Absolutely 100%.

Other religions were outlawed throughout history. Paganism is a big one I can think of off-hand. Did it really disappear? No.

Would the world be a better place if Christianity in all forms was outlawed? I don’t think so. It only increased the crime rate, hatred and rebellion. I don’t follow any religion, but the rebellion would affect me in some way too.

No! Outlawing a religion is a horrible thought. It hasn’t worked throughout history either. Many Russians continued to practice religion during communism and so do the Cubans. The Jews have survived even though their religion was outlawed, suppressed, and oppressed at various times throughout history. Outlawing Christianity in America would just make the Christians more committed to their faith, not the opposite in my opinion. Telling someone they can’t do something usually does not make them compliant i ntheir heart, it pisses them off and makes them more passionate. The preachers use the tool now, they tell their congregations Christianity is under attack. Not all preachers, but more than you might guess. It bands together the troops to fight for Christianity, it increases loyalty telling them people are against them.

Plus, why Christianity? They are one of the calmer groups in the last 20 years. Without Christianity would atheism grow? The Muslim religion grow? What happens in the vaccuum?

snowberry* I wanted your opinion as much as anyone elses. I’m not using this as a platform to judge or condemn. Personally, I think that in a thousand years (provided we’re still around) Christianity will be unrecognizable to a Christian of today. Just as Christianity today would be unrecognizable to a Christian from 1,000 years ago. This is just my opinion, but if Christianity really was the one true & only way to save your immortal soul from hell fire eternal it would be exactly the way today as it was from the very start. It has evolved to meet the expectations of it’s current following. If it helps you sleep at night though, more power to ya.

@jhellion1031 You’re new here. As one of the few Chistians on a site started and populated mainly by atheists, I can assure you that theists are not normally welcomed here. Actually I’m surprised at the support I’ve seen in these answers. Things have changed since I started almost 5 years ago. Back then I’d have been flamed, shouted down, cursed at, and called any number of names on this same question, so I’m pleasantly surprised. In fact I’ve been flamed and called so many names since then that I’ve started collecting them right here on my profile. Take a peek and enjoy.

@jhellion1031 I just want to say that I disagree. I think Christianity will most likely be around in 1,000 years and it will be recognizable. Christianity today in its more extreme sects is similar to hundreds of years ago I think. What do you think is so different? We have girls promising not to have sex before marriage, people dismissing scientific hypothesis and the scientific method, people blaming disease on behavior and God, and so on.

@snowberry People often assume atheists are against religion, when most of us are very much in support of freedom of religion and the freedom to practice ones religion. This question is not asking if we agree with Christianity or the belief in God, it is asking if outlawing a religion is ok. Just like I don’t want a government to force any religion on its citizens I don’t want the government to deny the right to practice a religion. It’s the same thing in the end to prohibit a religion or dictate one.

I say all this barring any harmful or deadly rituals in a religion. Law trumps religion regarding the safety of the citizens, but that is a different topic.

There was a movie made a few years ago about a specific time in Mexican history where religiön was going to be outlawed and an atheist led the fight against it. Fighting for the freedom of religion.

“It has evolved to meet the expectations of it’s current following.”

Part of the reason there are less flame wars on fluther these days is because those who make broad brush accusations are often challenged (scolded) by the collective, and ultimately ignored. They just fade away over time. This is a good thing for those who enjoy productive dialogue.

No, it would not be a better place, just a different one.

What if the Roman empire had not crushed the Jerusalem based branch of Christianity in 70 A.D. wiping out those who probably had, if not first hand, at least second hand associations with Jesus, and thus allowing those who followed the more the hierarchical church doctrine put forth by Paul and his followers to become the driving force of Christianity ? Would the world be better or just different?

@jca is Paganism a religion or just a catch-all phrase for those religions not Christian?

@rojo: I’m not the pagan expert but I do know that a lot of our religious beliefs and practices have Pagan roots. I do know that Wikipedia is not always considered gospel but here’s what a quick Google search found:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism.

Modern paganism is not the same as the early Pagans. Modern paganism is more a congomeration. I don’t practice it, other than its influence on Christianity, so I don’t proclaim to be an expert on it.

Not at all. No religion should be banned. It wouldn’t work anyway, to ban religion. People would just practice it in their basements as opposed to their churches.

I’m also not sure how you “ban” a set of beliefs.

But one of the reasons that banning christianity will never happen is that there is one hell of a lot of real estate (and buildings, and so on) that is owned by churches. Sort of the church-industrial complex. And that means a whole lot of money tied up with the religion industry. Nothing would ever be done that would affect all that money.

Why not?

Eventually they will find a way to ban everything.

Evangelical atheists are just as annoying as evangelical Christians.

It’s pointless trying to ban superstitions. It seems as a species we’re all wired to seek explanations for things we don’t understand. And how do you prove that an irrational answer is worse than no answer at all?

I have never met an atheist who wishes to ban Christianity. And almost everyone I know is an atheist.

@jhellion1031 as other here have pointed out, attempting to ban anything, religious or political (think Nazism), has never been successful. Any authoritarian attempt to regulate behavior will eventually be rejected by the populace. You asked “if Christianity really was the one true & only way to save your immortal soul from hell fire eternal it would be exactly the way today as it was from the very start.” (this question disappeared after I started to address it)

While liturgy and ritual changed over the years, the essential tenets of Christianity have not changed in two millennia. Christians commonly believe:

that God, the Father almighty, created heaven and earth;
that Jesus Christ is God’s only Son, and is Lord;
that Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary;
that under Pontius Pilate, He was crucified, died, and was buried;
that He descended into the realm of the dead, on the third day rose, ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father;
that He will come again to judge the living and the dead;
that He sacrificed His body to redeem the souls from sin and its consequences for those who believe in Him, that their body will be resurrected and they will have life everlasting.

Their beliefs are not likely to change in the next two millennia.

When a particular creed or ideology is suppressed and banned, it’s typically because there’s some competing irrational belief system with the power to do so.

I don’t agree that banning something can’t be successful. There have been various instances where brutal, authoritarian suppression over a long period has succeeded in eradicating or diminishing all sorts of beliefs, cultures, and languages.

Christianity suppressed and outlawed paganism. Catholics banned Protestantism, and vice-versa. Islam banned Zoroastrianism. Sunni fanatics are forcing conversions to their religion today in Iraq. Bolsheviks tried to suppress all religious belief.

I prefer the route of education. It seems that better educated and less authoritarian societies gravitate toward secularism and abandon superstitions.

A ban could ignite ‘militant’ theism. Yes it would matter to me, a lot.

@Kropotkin Or to put it a bit more neutrally: no one who believes they have the truth on their side should feel the need to suppress dissenting points of view. To say that a topic shouldn’t be discussed is to confess that you don’t think your side could win in a free and open debate. This goes for those who would suppress theists and those who would suppress atheists alike (and for countless other would-be censors).

@SavoirFaire I don’t think it has to do necessarily with truth on ones side. I don’t think I hold the absolute truth in religion, which is the very reason I am open to discussion and freedom of religion. I just know what religious beliefs work for me.

@JLeslie I didn’t say that one needs to think one has the absolute truth to be willing to discuss something. I said that those who think they do have it shouldn’t feel the need to suppress the discussion. The desire to censor comes from the fear that you cannot win any other way. So what I said really doesn’t contradict what you said at all.

With the Christians I don’t worry about discussion, I worry about them trying to make laws that surpress people of other religions from being able to live freely as their own beliefs dictate without being barraged with Christianity. Not that I think most Christians are trying to make laws like that, but enough are that it makes a difference.

That’s why some of the reaction to this Q is interesting to me. Most of us atheists on this Q have been around for years on many religious Q’s, and we jellies have disagreed and debated over religion a lot. Some Christians on here seem to be saying that they like that they are seeing a lot of support for Christianity, but that isn’t the point. Nothing has changed. I understand that some very outspoken atheists aren’t around as much.

It doesn’t change that most Christians in America would be reluctant, or flat out won’t, vote for an atheist. That many still have trouble understanding how someone can be moral and not believe in God, etc.

The question in my mind is how many Christians think atheism is a bad thing in the world? How many would protect it as a valid belief system in the same way people on this Q want to protect Christianity? How many want prayer in school?

I can’t tell you how many people when they learn I am an atheist think I am also a communist. It is shocking to me that those two things are always associated together, and then I realized that many of the people who think that way associate democracy with Christianity, so if A=B and B=C then that means an atheist can’t be a good American. See how that works? I’m not saying people on fluther think that way, I am just talking about some of my experience in the bible belt.

@KNOWITALL Are you being sarcastic? I think both theists and atheists show respect for each other, except for some very vocal people in the minority of each group. The “problem” is since Christians are over 70% of the population even their minority within the group is large and influential.

Mandating prayer is the flip side of banning Christianity, but many Christians don’t see it that way. I know you would agree there are some Christians out there against homosexuality, and they want to interfere in the lives of homosexuals and deny them rights. I also think you would agree where you live if a politican admitted they were an atheist they would have a hard time getting elected.

@KNOWITALL It’s difficult for any atheist to even begin respond to that comment because atheism is not a belief. Equating it with belief is, in a sense, inherently disrespectful.

However, none of this discussion has anything to do with the question. To echo what others have said here, no – a ban on any religion (however one would try to do this) would not eliminate the religion. It’s pointless.

I am an atheist and I refer to it as a belief system. Or, I should say I still feel I have a belief system.

Haha. Sex position. Bill Maher, gotta love him.

I didn’t want to take the Q way of track, my only point really is this Q is a different question than the majority of the other religious Q’s we have seen big arguments on, and I think it is mostly that very reason that the Q has not been very explosive. We aren’t discussing if Christiianity is right or wrong, we arent questioning a persons belief system on this Q, and until now no one had said something like “make up deities” ugh, I wish that hadn’t been said.

@jhellion1031: “Adults with imaginary friends are pathetic.”

What we have here is an example of someone who is not making a critical statement of an idea or belief (belief in the supernatural, etc). In this case, @jhellion1031 is explicitly criticizing those who hold these beliefs. I’ve been talking about how we need to be able to discuss – with brutal honesty and openness – ideas. This is not what I have been talking about.

@jhellion1031 – For the record, you are now making positive claims. I suppose this is your thread, and you may have some leeway to be able to expand the discussion in a different direction. But I would recommend that if do, building a case through mere fallacy (argument from incredulity) is probably not the preferred method. As it stands now, you appear to be satisfied by a “Why else would people…” question, as though this is a fine exposition outlining your position. It isn’t.

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@hearkat Thanks. That was getting nasty.

@JLeslie Absolutely. Atheism, Communism, various religious beliefs, political leanings, cultural beliefs, even self talk.- all are belief systems or are part of a larger belief system. Nobody gets through this life without one.