People are fine with being disrespectful to Christians

[Flymetothezoom]

At a church playgroup. The people who run it are very devout Christians. I am taken aback, by the number of parents, who thought it was appropriate to bring their kids to the church dressed for Halloween. Kids are dressed as witches, goblins, skeletons, creepy pumpkins etc..
The church holds a light party every year on Halloween and is very clear that they do not endorse Halloween.

I think the difference is that sometimes horrific / oppressive acts are committed by people of faith in the name of faith, whereas horrific / oppressive acts aren't committed by atheists in the name of atheism if that makes sense?

@monsteramunch No, it doesn't make sense.

If Christian regimes are to be held responsible for their crimes committed in the name of Christianity, then atheist regimes should be held accountable for their crimes committed in the name of atheism.
Can you deny that Stalin and Mao, not to mention Pol Pot and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of a Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic?
Surely you can't dispute that they did their bloody deeds by claiming to be establishing a new man and a religion-free utopia? These were mass murders performed with atheism as a central part of their ideological inspiration, they were not mass murders done by people who simply happened to be atheist.

Pol pot?

@OneTC en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide

@PandorasSuitcase maybe read this before rehashing the same tired old tropes about atheism

Pol Pot was a Buddhist.

@pointythings From the posts I have read it seems you aren't an atheist?

So what's rattling your cage?

Exactly

@PandorasSuitcase I absolutely am an atheist, I just don't meet @OneTC 's stringent criteria for this particular faith category. Fortunately she is not the arbiter of what is and is not atheism, so I reiterate: I am an atheist, and a pretty hardcore one at that.

Supposedly a peaceful religion

Probably cultural

@pointythings Pol Pot was a Buddhist.

Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't, but he was head of the Communist Khymer Rouge Party of Kampuchea, which in turn was supported by the Chinese Communist Party.

That's not a "trope", that's fact. The Cambodian Genocide was committed in support of a Communist ideology which was specifically atheist.

The fact that it happened between 1976 & 1979 (barely 60 years ago and within some peoples' lifetime) is also rather concerning.

It's people using religion though to serve their own purposes and hiding behind it

Also in the past life was cheap with short life spans which would affect your mindset and we didn't have the understanding of things we have now. People were superstitious

They banned religious practice. They enforced state atheism. There wasn't a target that wasn't people like them. They persecuted all faiths

@PandorasSuitcase I guess I don't have the same issues with Stalin and Mao because their communist regimes aren't being forced daily onto myself or my children. They aren't being told to denounce capitalism during morning assembly.

Religion is. It's state sanctioned and pervasive, despite there being no rational basis for it.

Communism isn't actually my bag either but their lack of belief in a deity is one of the very few parallels between us. Though I could certainly get behind an more equal distribution of wealth.

@PandorasSuitcase

My response to you earlier was entirely calm and measured, simply explaining what I felt the difference between the two examples was.

Your responses have been angry and pretty rude tbh, including the 'so what's rattling your cage' to someone.

I'm not really sure why you've chosen to respond in that way but I was joining a discussion, not looking for an argument so I'll leave it there.

@monsteramunch Your responses have been angry and pretty rude tbh, including the 'so what's rattling your cage' to someone.

If you'd checked my response, I wasn't talking to you, so perhaps you should MYOB and let others speak for themselves.

And that's why I specifically said 'to someone' and not 'to me'...

You seem very angry, I hope you're OK.

@monsteramunch You seem very angry, I hope you're OK.

You seems quite deluded, I'm really embarrassed for you.

@QuizzlyBear Religion is. It's state sanctioned and pervasive, despite there being no rational basis for it.

Then if you feel that strongly about it either put your kids in a secular school or educate them at home.
Don't whinge on a forum to a bunch of strangers about all the ways you are being infiltrated by religion - it smacks of paranoia and it makes you look unbalanced.

@PandorasSuitcase there are no secular schools in the UK. The 'compulsory daily act of worship of a broadly Christian nature' is mandatory in all schools. And that is not OK.

@pointythings Parents have the right to have their children excused from worship in any state-funded school - so exercise your rights if you feel that strongly.

In England and Wales, the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 states that all pupils in state schools must take part in a daily act of collective worship, unless their parents request that they be excused from attending.

@PandorasSuitcase my DC are all adults, and I was aware of this. But why should we have to do this? Why should we have to make our children different? Why do we have religion forced on us in schools? It's not necessary, it's not beneficial, countries all over Europe manage perfectly well without it. As I have said before, the words 'compulsory' and 'worship' should not occur in the same sentence. We are supposed to have freedom of religion in the UK - this isn't it.

I think you are just looking for something to be offended about

www.theguardian.com/education/2019/nov/20/oxfordshire-parents-win-right-to-prayer-free-school-assembly

there is no 'compulsory' at all

@ProudMarysHandbag if you read the article, it's still about allowing the children to attend secular provision elsewhere. You're still setting them apart from the rest of the school. If we had fully secular schools, as in schools with no religious content in assemblies at all, parents would have the option of sending their children to such a school. As it is, it's still the case that all schools must have a daily act of compulsory worship. Yes, children can be exempted from it but that isn't good enough. It should be abolished. Schools should be able to choose whether or not they have religious assemblies and at present that isn't an option they have.

And I'm not offended, I'm just fed up with secularism being treated as second best. It gets old.