Tolerance towards religion and religious people

[Serkat]

I once thought that, you know, if someone chose a religion for him personally I should totally "respect" that and if, even though I disagreed with him, I said anything against it in his presence, this would create unneeded "offense" on his part. Basically, what we call "tolerance". However, this has changed and i am now wondering why religion should play a special, dignified role in judging a person and his attributes. I always looked at Russel's teapot and the like as something that is used to show the obvious logical errors that religions are built upon. But if someone would honestly declare that he believed a flying teapot was orbiting the earth, we would also classify him as mentally challenged. So we have to pose the question whether this would not be a logical and accurate analogy for judging persons on a psychological level as well, and not just showing the errors inherent in religions. Gender, race and nationality are nothing that can be chosen, it is what you are born with. In some situations, though, a specific religion is also imposed upon you as a child. Yet, membership of religion is non-physical and in all the civilized countries you are free to stop believing in your religion. Religion is a matter of choice. Thus, it is unfair and illogical to put religion into the same group of personal aspects with race, gender and nationality. We should not judge people differently because of these 3 things, however, we should judge them on the basis of the decisions they are making, and religiosity is one of them. To say that membership in a specific religion does not go hand in hand with specific character attributes would be naive. Our stance on religion shows very clearly towards which mode of thinking we tend, which model of the world we have adapted, what we think of authority, how well we think we can live our lives independently and self-responsibly, autonomously and without external guidance. You can fill in the gaps as to what religiosity and non-religiosity imply in each of these cases. I feel that people being offended because of my or someone else's disapproval or religious concepts is unjustified and a farce. I should be free to denounce religions and their followers as a whole, on the grounds of their voluntary membership in that religion. I have nothing against people differing in their opinion about philosophical, sociological, political etc. matters as long as their arguments bear some kind of relationship to logic. I have no problem with theism and weird spiritual stuff. But religion goes much farther than simple theism, as we all know. Religion and logical are unrelated. Thus, in the case of religiosity, it is clearly a sign of a diseased mind, housing in a defective human being, just as with Russel's teapot. Quite possibly, we should go as far as to classify religiosity as a psychiatric condition requiring immediate treatment. Apart from all this we should also consider that the major world religions as a whole are intolerant regarding matters which shouldn't even be subject to debate in a civilized society, such as homosexuality etc. Religions halt and hinder human progress by being grounded on fixed pieces of paper. Religions are non-democratic, anti-human and anti-progress and in this sense opposed to the constitution of most Western countries. Here, we are not talking about a peaceful and most tolerant set of beliefs, but a highly dangerous, borderline-crazy, regressive form of irrationality. We would (hopefully) not tolerate an organization that, as a mission statement, promotes "irrationality, authoritarianism, conservatism, violence as a solution to problems and intolerance towards sexual preferences that differ from ours". Yet, when we put the religion tag on it, this is acceptable? Should the criticism of religion not apply to their followers as well, since they express their support by being members? Would we not be highly suspicious of a person who openly admits to being a member in the aforementioned grouping of irrational conservative assholes? Yet, if we add a philosophical dimension to it and rename it, this is acceptable? It should definitely not be against the law to prefer a non-religious applicant to a religious one on the grounds that he is non-religious and thus more self-reliable and a more rational and critical thinker, more fit for the job. I do not advocate treating religious people worse on a human level or using these arguments as a stepping stone towards some form of Social Darwinism. But we have to see that whether we believe in the things the Bible teaches or a teapot orbiting earth makes no difference in showing that we are resistant to civilized, logical discussion. How then should we treat someone like that, without falling into the dangerous schemes of fascism or Social Darwinism? The limit of tolerance is reached. I hope this is provocative enough and has been meaningful to you all.