Poll: Forcing a Religion

[Rufo]

He listed a variety of complaints that people are not in fact making. His implied claim is that these are the types of things that we view as forcing religion on us.

Some of the options are very close to being strawmen, or at least unnecessary and inviting of heckling, so I can see what you're getting at.

However, if many people selected some of these, I could be mistaken. Perhaps some do claim these things constitute forcing religion. However, if it were a more honest poll it would include things like mandatory prayer and preventing gays from marrying.

I'm also fairly surprised that anyone seriously thought these represented their opinions on what constitutes forcing Christianity on someone, although most of the selections are probably not serious.

Fnord has claimed to be working on another poll which he implied will include suggestions from this thread. I look forward to it.

 

[Kotatsu]

What is the difference between:
"Giving you a Bible or Chick Tract"
and:
"Giving you a Bible, Chick Tract, or WWJD bracelet"
that justifies having this as two different alternatives? Isn't the first just a subset of the second?

 

[Ladewig]

I wanted to give the thread a bump and ask how long it takes to construct a new poll with the items recently listed?

I also want to say that Judge Moore's Ten Commandments plaque offended not only my love for the Bill of Rights, but also my love of aesthetics. Have you seen that thing?! Won't someone think of the children?

 

[DARK LORD XENU]

I have a question for the 3 people who voted that someone being a christian without their permision how is that forcing a religion onto you?

 

[Madalch]

I have a question for the 3 people who voted that someone being a christian without their permision how is that forcing a religion onto you?

Do you think anyone who voted that was actually serious, as opposed to wishing to jerk Fnord's chain?

 

[DARK LORD XENU]

Do you think anyone who voted that was actually serious, as opposed to wishing to jerk Fnord's chain?

Fair point but I meant it at those who may vote that and are serious about it.

 

[Dunstan]

I demand the inclusion of an option to vote for throwing non-Christians through a plate glass window

 

[Prometheus]

Trying to get stores where I shop to pander to their religion by boycotting the use of "X-mas" in store advertising, while whining about being victims of the war on Christmas.

 

[PixyMisa]

Posting egregiously dishonest polls on the internets.

 

[Ladewig]

I demand the inclusion of an option to vote for throwing non-Christians through a plate glass window

Hey, thanks for reminding me. I wanted to ask Fnord if those guys physically attacked you or verbally attacked you.

 

[Ladewig]

I found another one: public school districts distributing Bibles to students.

AP story from 2004

Fnord, be sure to add that item to your new poll. I think the vast majority of posters on this forum would consider that to be forcing a religion. Of course, I could be wrong. We'll have to wait until the poll results are calculated before we know for sure.

 

[linusrichard]

The poll is absolutely ridiculous. The point of it is obviously to imply that Christians don't force their religion on people by giving examples of Christian behavior that isn't forcing their religion on people. Meanwhile, gay people can't get married (an example of Christians forcing their religion on people that's not in the poll), you can't buy booze on Christmas, at least in some states (ditto), kids are being taught "intelligent design" and/or that evolution is somehow in serious doubt in science classes (ditto), kids are being pressured into acknowledging the existence of God in the Pledge of Allegiance (ditto), etc.

If people complain about the behaviors listed in the poll (and I don't think most atheists would complain about most of those things), it's because they're annoying to the person complaining, not because it's forcing religion on people. The poll is a joke, except not really funny.

I'll Godwin this thread: I can imply that Nazis didn't persecute and murder Jews by listing 20 things Nazis did that didn't have to do with persecuting and murdering Jews. Would that be honest?

 

[Fnord]

Okay, 51 posts should be enough to glean questions for the second part. Thank you for your participation!

Please stand by...

 

[Fnord]

Hey, thanks for reminding me. I wanted to ask Fnord if those guys physically attacked you or verbally attacked you.

Physical attack. Punching with fists, kicking with feet ... do you understand now?

Hah! Your religious attacker got off lucky! The last relative stranger who "put hands on me" wound up slammed to the floor, about an inch from a dislocated shoulder.

And it looks like I'm not the only one.

 

[juniper_ann]

None of the above. Here’s my list.

Blue laws.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law

For instance, here in Texas it is illegal to sell sex toys (although you can sell “novelty items”), all car dealerships must be closed for one day of the weekend (which day do you think they choose?), and it is illegal to sell alcohol on Sunday before noon.

Other states ban liquor sales on Sunday entirely.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sunday_ban_off_prem_2005_3-9-2006.GIF

Having the school enforce a “minute of silence.”

Permitting students to wear crosses in schools but not pentagrams.

Trying to use public money to install Christian religious symbols on public property.

Not allowing gay people to be married, nor to have the same rights as married people.

Trying to take evolution and global warming out of the school books because they don’t agree with their religion. (Darn you, Terri Leo & Don McLeroy, you stupid spawn.)

There are also individual instances of Christian whackjobs violently persecuting non-Christians, but I would argue that “whackjob” is more important than “Christian” in most of these instances.

However, the homophobia of U.S. culture is rooted in theism. So I think that we could lay a little of the responsibility for persecution of GLBT people at Christianity’s doorstep.

By historical standards, these are all very light burdens, but they are real.

 

[Madalch]

And it looks like I'm not the only one.

Joe did not attack the person because of that person's religion. That person grabbed Joe, and thus deserved to have his hands removed.

From Joe, that is.

To claim that this poor Joe-grabbing person was persecuted/attacked for his religion reminds me of the girl who gives her sorry tale here:
http://www.fstdt.com/fundies/comments.aspx?q=28146

 

[JoeEllison]

Joe did not attack the person because of that person's religion. That person grabbed Joe, and thus deserved to have his hands removed.

From Joe, that is.

To claim that this poor Joe-grabbing person was persecuted/attacked for his religion reminds me of the girl who gives her sorry tale here:
http://www.fstdt.com/fundies/comments.aspx?q=28146

Yeah... it is odd of some people, including some Christians, that think that should be immune from the negative results of their behavior, and that accountability is a sign of persecution. The victim delusion that they suffer from is one of the more difficult things to deal with.

Some moron, for instance, thought that I was joking when I told him to stay away from me and keep his hands off of me. After I subdued him, he thought that I had done something wrong to him. He didn't seem to understand that he had zero right to touch me, especially after I told him not to. My right to me body and my space didn't register to him at all... he thought that because he was religious, no rules applied to his behavior. Fnord doesn't respect the rights of other people either, based on his comments.

He found out differently. Now I'm older and wiser... if someone were to do that to me today, I would make sure to cripple them.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Concerted effort to pass laws and install judges and elect legislators who force Christian beliefs on the rest of us.

For example, making what Christians consider sinful behavior illegal behavior such as claiming gay behavior between consenting adults should be illegal.

Requiring tax dollars intended to address the HIV burden to be wasted on abstinence only education when the empirical evidence is clear such measures are ineffective. Interfering with successful programs such as condom promotion because Christians want to impose their culture and beliefs on societies that are not of like mind.

Wasting school district money pushing to have religious explanations for the natural world included in science classrooms. There was no convincing scientific evidence so religious pushers raised the false straw man claiming science arbitrarily excluded evidence that supported Biblical claims. That was a lie. Just as the lie developed by the Discovery Institute called the Wedge Strategy was concocted purposefully masking Creation myth beliefs in scientific terms in order to get Creationism taught in science classrooms.

That kind of crap has no place in science. You can't change the Universe by pretending evidence isn't what it is.

Blocking stem cell research for absurd religious principles. If you don't like it, don't use the medical advances when they are developed, but don't stop me from taking advantage of it because you want to imagine your god cares about a cell culture in a dish.

Those are examples of what I consider forcing religious crap down the throats of others.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Some of the options are very close to being strawmen, ....

Close? From my perspective they were all straw men.