Fellow athiets - what do you make of this?

[JazzHands]

here

I found it downright scary, but am aware that I know too little of worldwide politics UN etc to really understand whether this is truly a big deal. It sounds like it to me but I'm one of those people who can watch question time and for each successive person think "hmm good point" even as they all contradict each other.

The one thing I do know is that in my life now more than ever I find I have to keep my views to myself when around religious friends, while they do not feel the same obligation.

It is a big deal. Somewhere along the line it has become worse to risk offending those with religious views than to allow whatever abuses might be hiding behind those views. It's not just in relation to Islam, look at how powerful the religious right have become in the States in recent years. It's terrifying and I don't know why it's happening; we should be evolving away from this instead of towards it.

I don't understand how this has crept into things like the UN.

It's ridiculous.

I also don't understand how it has crept into society unnoticed - I have certainly moderated my behaviour in recent years and I didn't even realise that I was changing.

I guess this is why the secular scoiety is becoming more vocal - in response.

Yes, I remember hearing Christopher Hitchens talking about going to America to promote God is Not Great and people coming to his readings with something like relief to hear their views being talked about in the open.

I think in the UN's case it must have been decided that they will have more influence on policy in the Muslim states if they can get them on board and then try and sort of win them around gently, rather than condemning their practices from the outside. But I don't agree with this approach. I wouldn't even if I saw someone make a really good case for it on Question Time

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I think that for it to have filtered through to a personal level is a big warning sign. That it has become the norm to be careful what we say around religious types for fear of offending.

It gets compared to the fact that people are (rightly) careful what they say with minority groups for fear of offending.

But to say that your personal opinion is that god doesn't exist and religious belief is ridiculous is now deemed as offensive as for eg saying something horrible about a gay person. When in fact it is not the same thing at all.

The reason I say I don't know enough about it is that I have assumed that everything the columnist has said is exactly true as I have no actual knowledge of what the UN gets up to.

I don't understand how something as basic as being allowed freedom of speech and belief - ie somthing totally basic - has been allowed to be altered like this without some massive reaction and outrage.

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Of course you have the freedom to be an atheist now, and it is better in this country than in the States; for example, I can't imagine anyone being elected president there who professed to being one. But I think the fear of offense just hamstrings any debate that involves religious differencefor example, wearing hijabs in school and is the reason why we've been so slow in trying to stop forced marriages, etc.

[waves at Pruners. It's mybabysinthegarden; I had a namechange]

(btw Jazz, I was going to suggest that if you want to get more people involved in this discussion you could write a quick precis of that article; it is looooong )

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He is absolutely spot on. I am sure the Koran is full of peace and love etc (never read it) but practitioners of sharia law seem to be with very few exceptions, brutal, intolerant and misogynist. that is what I believe and I should be allowed to say so, without being threatened.

On a more heartening note, in Sunday times today apparently atheism is on the rise in the US.

Prunders on a personal level in the last 15 years say - my personal experience of this stuff.

Although it may be due to circumstance that I have noticed a rise in people (me) biting their tongues.

At school/uni I studied science and so i suppose didn't talk about/think about relgiion at all.

I now have a 21 month DD and have just realised that of the 3 local schools 2 are religious and so she won't be able to go there and the other has a minute catchment.

I have been discussing this with friends who I have known since school age (althouth they went to a different religious school) and the consensus is "why don't you just go to church". Erm because I don't believe in god. Cue thunderstruck look and worried glance to see if their DC have heard. I feel that it is somehow an attack on them to state my views. Maybe that says more about me than them. it's this feeling I have that if I had a death in the family they would all merrily tell my DD that whoever had gone to heaven and completely fail to understand if I objected. Yet if I told their DC that dead people went in the ground I doubt they'd ever speak to me again.

Hope that makes sense!

Incidentally I have no idea who prunders is but pruners you can read it if you like

As for a preci - I'm not sure I'm up to that.

As far as i can see it is telling us that rather than moving forward to a more rational ideal of the way the planet is run, thungs are reverting as religious fundamentalists infiltrate and subvert policy in loads of important areas.

That the person tasked with overseeing the UN fundamental that everyone should have freedom of speech and belief, has managed to have it altered to effectively include the addendum "as long as that freedom of speech and belief does not conflict with the prevailing beliefs in their country at the time".

That politicians are giving in and pandering to religious extremists and they are somehow managing to work a "respect for others beliefs" into something which actually means that no-one has the right to criticise their actions, no matter how obscene.

This to me does look like a reversal when I look at where we were in the 70s/80s. I suppose then though it was conflicting political ideologies that were the big news. When those went it left a vacuum of conflict and religion has stepped in?

I find this really scary, the way that religion is becoming something that should not be criticised. That is restricting my right to free speech.

The blurring of the principle, saying it is like criticising a race. It is not. You choose your religion, even if your belief is so strongly held that it may not feel like it; you can, and people do, change their religion, or give it up. If you are gay, or straight, or black or yellow, you are born that way and it is not a choice.

Religion is a choice as much as political affiliation is. And should be up for criticism to the same degree.

IMVHO

Absolutely appalling. Thanks for flagging that up Jazz Hands.

I find it very worrying. As Pruners said things did improve a lot. We don't get killed for being atheists in this country (though I'm not planning any middle eastern holidays). Unfortunately it has recently swung the other way.

I don't have any problems locally, but you will often hear on this forum and others that we 'must respect' this or that behaviour because it's cultural or religious.

I want the religious people to have the right to say atheism is nonsense and I'm going to continue saying the same about religion until they arrest me. It's possible that it could happen though. The government wanted it make anything that stirred up religous hatred illegal whether that was the intent or not.

As a science teacher I was always being asked about God. At first I tiptoed around it, then I thought sod it, I don't believe in God and as a science teacher trying to teach kids to be analytical i can't justify pretending. I am now upfront and tell them that God is something for RE lessons and I do not belive in him.

I do not mock the kids if they have come from religious backgrounds..of course not. but I do thin atheists must be more confident in their own beliefs and not be cowed..ra, ra the revolution!!

Not an atheist, but I think this is totally wrong. There is absolutely no reason to respect beliefs you think worthy of contempt. You respect people, you retain complete freedom of conscience and speech on ideas. Anything else is thought police cobblers.