There is no religious freedom anywhere !!

[mistermack]

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Countries that pride themselves on safeguarding religious freedom are just pushing a fiction.

Who really has had religious freedom in their lives? Not me.

I was brought up a catholic, and had no religious freedom for the first fifteen years of my life.
I was told, you are a catholic. You believe in god. This is how it happened, god did this, god did that.

Can anybody claim that that is religious freedom? It's like giving a child heroin for fifteen years, and then saying, "you're an adult now, you're free to stop if you like".

What proportion of people in the US for example, REALLY have had religious freedom?
Not that other countries are any different. It's just that the US take so much pride in so-called religious freedom.

I expect everyone has seen this clip, but I love it, so no apologies for posting it again :

[Gallstones]

I was raised Catholic in a Catholic culture--but there was and is no insistence that I be Catholic. I am free to be atheist, or Hindu or whatever with only the most impotent of objection and yet I am not rejected by family or community.


I enjoyed and valued the ritual of Catholicism (it is boring now)---but it hasn't been significant for many years and I may not be free of it (not free as I have been informed by objective outside observers), and I may insist that I am not Catholic, but I am certainly no longer religious and no longer a believer. I don't see that changing--ever.

However, if it was important to the love of my life that I adhere to certain rituals, even attending Mass, then I would do it for him. But he would be made aware that I no longer believe and that I was doing it--willingly--because it is important to him. And you know what, that's fine with me. BeffFuckingD. Everything will pass out of existence anyway. We can only make the best of the moment until the lights go out permanently forever.

[laklak]

I did, never had any religion pushed on me. Been an atheist as long as I can remember.

[mistermack]

I'm just saying that if you're indoctrinated for the first ten to fifteen years of your life, it takes away any claim to religious freedom.
Of course, you are free to believe what you like, once you are an adult. But just like a drug addict, most people are hooked for life by that age. People don't freely CHOOSE their religious belief, it's chosen for them by their parents. It's only the tiny minority who go against it in later life.

[laklak]

I certainly agree, indoctrination of children is reprehensible. I've known quite a few people who were raised as I was, with no religion at all. In fact, almost everyone I grew up with came from either a non-religious or very weakly religious family, I can only think of a couple of people who were raise in a strongly religious family. Of the first group, several have become "born again" and are as religiously brainwashed as anyone I've ever met, to the point that I can no longer have any sort of relationship with them. Of the second, more religious group, most have retained their religious belief.

That's the real problem with religion - it's insidious. I think more non-religious people end up thumping bibles than the other way around. I find the protestant evangelicals to be the worst ones, the catholics seem to take a more reasonable view of it in general.

[Atheist-Lite]

Death is the end I was told quite seriously by my deep thinking father. I have no reason to doubt my elders.

[Coito ergo sum]

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Countries that pride themselves on safeguarding religious freedom are just pushing a fiction.

Who really has had religious freedom in their lives? Not me.

Me.

.

I was brought up a catholic, and had no religious freedom for the first fifteen years of my life.

You had religious freedom in terms of government telling you what religion you had to be, didn't you? That's what religious freedom means. It doesn't mean you don't have parents.

.
I was told, you are a catholic. You believe in god. This is how it happened, god did this, god did that.

Sounds like you had sucky parents.

Can anybody claim that that is religious freedom?

Yes, because religious freedom doesn't mean that kids aren't raised by their parents.

.
It's like giving a child heroin for fifteen years, and then saying, "you're an adult now, you're free to stop if you like".

Not exactly like that, but religious freedom means freedom against the government/State, not freedom against one's parents. The latter is something every human must work out on his or her own.

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What proportion of people in the US for example, REALLY have had religious freedom?

All of them.

.
Not that other countries are any different. It's just that the US take so much pride in so-called religious freedom.

That's because people are free believe what they want without interference from the State. They aren't free as children from the guidance of their parents, or from the persuasion of others.

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I expect everyone has seen this clip, but I love it, so no apologies for posting it again :

That is hilarious. But, everyone has freedoms. The son is not being denied his freedom. His mother is exercising her right to freedom of speech. What would make things more free? Prohibiting parents from speaking their minds and telling their children what they believe to be the truth? That would expand freedom? The mother owns the house, she can say what she wants. The child lives there, he can say what he wants and he is under no legal obligation to believe what the mother is saying. They both have liberty in this regard.

Is there such a thing as absolute freedom in the sense that one's actions are not in any way influenced by any outside forces? No, of course not. That is impossible. But, again, that's also not what freedom of religion, or freedom of speech, means.

[Tero]

We did not have these BIG ideas from the world when I was a kid. By 1960 Coca Cola, amercan gum, and by 1963 The Beatles. Things just blew up by 1970 so modern stuff like the pill for women and atheism among the educated arrived.

But if born after 1980, human rights included beliefs. There. But I had left Finland.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Most Merkins are no more religious than I am.

[Svartalf]

C'mon, my 'rents brought me up catholic, but never dragged me to church, and my mother did not really encourage active practice once I had gone through the socially expected first communion.
It's interesting to not that, for years, if not decades, I remained blissfully ignorant of the fact that you are supposed to go through confession, absolution, and possible penitence, before being eligible to partake of the eucharist, and thus partook of it any number of time while undoubtedly in a state of deadly sin.

In ways, my religious freedom was curtailed a lot more when I was under influence from certain of my relatives who did not believe in religious freedom, beside the freedom to be a practicing catholic.
(like, dragged me to church, prevented me from dragging my study of mormon doctrine and prozelityzing tactics as long as as I wanted etc... I was well rid when I cut contact with those)

[Gallstones]

Every child is indoctrinated into the culture into which they are born and raised. Part of the indoctrination might include religion, but religion isn't the all.

[Jesus_of_Nazareth]

It's called "Religous Grooming".

[Coito ergo sum]

Most Merkins are no more religious than I am.

All Merkins are religious nutters, except those that aren't.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Most Merkins are no more religious than I am.

All Merkins are religious nutters, except those that aren't.

And those are pale, washed out versions of nutters elsewhere.

[Santa_Claus]

I once did a turd on an Alter.

Apparently Christians have no sense of humour.