Could we ban fundamentalism?

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2007-02-13 11:53am

It's pretty damn clear to anyone that fundamentalists are ruining a lot of shit worldwide, from the wahabbis in Saudi and the UK to the hardcore anti-gay creationists in the US, fundamentalism is a powerful and harmful social ill with multiple tendrils throughout society.

So, my question is pretty straightforward, could we ban it? My plan would be to construct a mental health act that penalises any organisation, church, mosque, whatever, with unhealthy antisocial teachings and actually inspires social division and mental problems.

Would it be feasible? Obviously not in a shitheap like the Bible Belt, but somewhere more sensible?

Singular Intellect · Post by **Singular Intellect** » 2007-02-13 11:55am

It would be a dream come true if that happened.

Howqever it's as likely as me learning to fly like Superman.

Justforfun000 · Post by **Justforfun000** » 2007-02-13 11:55am

I think it could fly if you got the proper scientific based organizations behind it, particularly ones on mental health. It'd be VERY delicate ground and it would probably be met with unprecedented resistance, but I'd love to hear them stammer against exactly WHY other people should give them license to promote such pernicious beliefs.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2007-02-13 12:05pm

And next week, we'll ban being mean.

My plan would be to construct a mental health act that penalises any organisation, church, mosque, whatever, with unhealthy antisocial teachings and actually inspires social division and mental problems.

The only way you could even remotely pull this off is if you can get a rock-solid definition of these "antisocial teachings" that'll hold up in a court of law, get equally solid evidence that these teachings are linked to a noticeable increase in anti-social behaviour, target the law at *any* person or organisation regardless of ideological base and make a clear distinction between holding and communicating a belief on the one hand and inciting anti-social behaviour on the other, because if you don't meet these criteria, your law will get shot down for reasons ranging from discrimination to Orwellian thought-control and worse.

Look at Holocaust denial laws; they're even less objectionable from a factual point of view and even they are often and viciously attacked.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-02-13 12:08pm

You may as well try banning people from being stupid. Nice idea in theory,but it'd never really be practical to implement within a single generation. Maybe if it was a multi-generational cultural program marketed as something else with the end goal of eliminating fundamentalism. . .then maybe.

Justforfun000 · Post by **Justforfun000** » 2007-02-13 12:58pm

You may as well try banning people from being stupid. Nice idea in theory,but it'd never really be practical to implement within a single generation. Maybe if it was a multi-generational cultural program marketed as something else with the end goal of eliminating fundamentalism. . .then maybe.

I don't know...I think with the right set of criteria to truly evaluate a SET of beliefs or behaviours that can be enequivocably demostrated to be harmful and of great detriment to a specific group of people that has the right to be free of bigotry and discrimination, you could pull it off. It's all in the angle. Lets be blunt here. Religion is already fighting a losing battle because they cannot back up their claims. Even worse, so many once assumed truths have been contradicted by science. They are on the ropes as it is and they mainly cling to their beliefs with a stubborn attitude of "Well...SOMEHOW I must be right because this is what God says...Isn't it.??"

So I wouldn't say it's impossible. It would be extremely challenging however. Make no mistake.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2007-02-13 01:09pm

the right to be free of bigotry and discrimination

People are already free of bigotry and discrimination, legally anyway. The problem here is that the members of a church are generally in it out of their own free will and if they want to hear about how gays are going to burn in hell, they can do so. Thinking like a fundamentalist is not a crime and I fail to see how it can be made one.

Once the church lashes out and harasses non-members, they can be stopped by criminal law (if they choose to, say, picket funerals) or democratic means (if they choose to, say, ban abortion on religious grounds). No "ban on fundamentalism" is going to change this.

Justforfun000 · Post by **Justforfun000** » 2007-02-13 01:41pm

Once the church lashes out and harasses non-members, they can be stopped by criminal law (if they choose to, say, picket funerals) or democratic means (if they choose to, say, ban abortion on religious grounds). No "ban on fundamentalism" is going to change this.

But this obviously isn't working in the United States. They are still constantly saying "it's immoral" and "sinful" in public and in writings. They are challenging scientific organizations, they are blocking gay-straight school clubs, etc.etc.

It seems to me like they have more freedom to spread bigotry and discrimination then people have to prevent it.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2007-02-13 01:47pm

In an ideal world, this would be a great idea except for the fact that there wouldn't be any fundies in an ideal world in the first place.

In the real world, such a move would only strengthen their resolve; reinforce their "persecution" complex. It would be about as effective as the war on terror.

Justforfun000 · Post by **Justforfun000** » 2007-02-13 01:56pm

In the real world, such a move would only strengthen their resolve; reinforce their "persecution" complex. It would be about as effective as the war on terror.

Well that was the best nail in the coffin. Nuff said'

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2007-02-13 01:57pm

Cute idea but impossible to do since Fundamentalism is merely a degree of belief.
Even Charity is damaging if taken to an extreme, and while religion or extremism does the damage at smaller extremes the problem remains with defining the extreme. You could ban some of the associated symptoms (Such as Creationism, mega-churches, forcing vaccinations, not allowing home-schooling) but banning a degree of a very, very wide ideological movement is impossible.

Post by **Lagmonster** » 2007-02-13 02:26pm

I don't think we could legally ban a belief, but we could damn well ban any legal or social actions anyone might do that are motivated by a belief.

Zor · Post by **Zor** » 2007-02-13 02:26pm

The best way is to simply gradually stack law after law on them restricting the shit they can do, start with the truely hardcore nutcases like the Plebsians and moving down the fundie pyramid of idiots from there. This would take decades, but it would work, bringing down the level of fundimentalism as apposed to the direct aproach of dumping a big list of anti fundie laws on a nation, which will cause a big fundamentalist movement in responce complete with violent fundimentalism.

However, assuming of course that cybernetics and neurology advances to the point were this is possible and practical, neurological reprograming (spacificly the mass deletion of all knowlage the religion of the Fundie convict) would be the ultimate deturent for religious fundies. They may well be willing to die for there religion because of there beleif of afterlife rewards, but they would be scared shitless if they knew that there were devices that could quickly and efficiently destroy there faith in there god(s). But we don't have those toys right now and i doubt we will for a few decades.

Zor

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2007-02-21 07:44am

On a government level all you have to do is properly fund public education and enforce church/state separation. Society will progress just like it has been doing. If you try and accelerate the process by attacking religion directly, especially as a minority, you're just going to exacerbate the problem.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2007-02-21 11:38am

Wicked Pilot wrote:On a government level all you have to do is properly fund public education and enforce church/state separation.

Except for the fact that many fundies are trained from the time they are in diapers to see science (evolution, etc) as evil, to reject their conclusions, its a conspiracy of satan, walk out of the classroom, etc. The best education system in the world won't be able to teach someone who has already dismissed anything you say as a tool of Satan and won't listen.

Society will progress just like it has been doing. If you try and accelerate the process by attacking religion directly, especially as a minority, you're just going to exacerbate the problem.

As far as I can tell, religiouis fundamentalism seems to go in cycles like the width of neckties. They're narrow one decade and wide the next and then back to narrow again in a few more years.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2007-02-21 11:54am

Darth Servo wrote:Except for the fact that many fundies are trained from the time they are in diapers to see science (evolution, etc) as evil, to reject their conclusions, its a conspiracy of satan, walk out of the classroom, etc. The best education system in the world won't be able to teach someone who has already dismissed anything you say as a tool of Satan and won't listen.

Many, not all, and not necessarily most. Fundies deconvert all the time, especially in their high school and college years. That's why religious groups are pressing so hard to get their bullshit in high schools and 'liberal elite secularist' professors out of the universities. It's not to win converts, it's to bring down the attrition rate.

As far as I can tell, religiouis fundamentalism seems to go in cycles like the width of neckties. They're narrow one decade and wide the next and then back to narrow again in a few more years.

Religion, and Christianity especially, has been declining for quite a while now, althought the rates have been significantly slower in the US than in Europe. Christian fundies cannot exceed the total number of Christians, and that number is coming down.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2007-02-21 12:08pm

Wicked Pilot wrote:Many, not all, and not necessarily most. Fundies deconvert all the time, especially in their high school and college years.

And they usually go running back the moment they hit hard times in their adult life. They attribute getting through said hard times to God, think its a miracle and get even more cemented.

Religion, and Christianity especially, has been declining for quite a while now, althought the rates have been significantly slower in the US than in Europe. Christian fundies cannot exceed the total number of Christians, and that number is coming down.

A fundy Christian who converts to, for example, Islam will probably be a fundy Muslim. Different religion, same shit.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2007-02-21 12:32pm

Darth Servo wrote:And they usually go running back the moment they hit hard times in their adult life. They attribute getting through said hard times to God, think its a miracle and get even more cemented.

Some do, some don't. The rate is still in our favor.

A fundy Christian who converts to, for example, Islam will probably be a fundy Muslim. Different religion, same shit.

A hop like that is exceeding rare. The good thing about fundies is that their faith is so strong that if they deconvert they'll come crashing down hard. They're not like your mainstream wishy washy Christians who can easily sidestep to different demoninations, go the simple theism route, or in still rare cases switch faiths or go New Age.

EDIT: Quick numbers from here

From 1990-2001:

Christians: 86%-77%
Non religioius: 8%-14%

Different studies with different survey questions have led to different numbers, but the above trend is always what is found.

Yogi · Post by **Yogi** » 2007-02-21 01:25pm

Anti-fundy laws will never be applied to actual Christians. Instead they'll be used to go after Atheists, Goths, Muslims, Dungeons and Dragons players etc. etc. I would vote against any such law.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2007-02-21 01:29pm

Even when atheist become the majority I still doubt such laws would pass because you probably couldn't even get a majority of atheist to support them.

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2007-02-21 01:44pm

With how the Fundamentalists in America behave right now, imagine how they would act if they were actually being persecuted.

Moreover, it would never be passed in the USA because of American faith in the marketplace of ideas. As Wicked Pilot says, even an overwhelmingly atheist electorate would reject the wholesale banning of an entire system of thought.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2007-02-21 01:57pm

I would think that by the time we had a majority atheist electorate the issue would be mout. While we would probably still have a fair number of Christians the fundies would be far removed from political power, their ideas would be openly ridiculed, and their numbers would probably be falling at greater and greater rates as the bell curve shifts secular.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2007-02-21 04:43pm

Wicked Pilot wrote: From 1990-2001:

Christians: 86%-77%
Non religioius: 8%-14%

Different studies with different survey questions have led to different numbers, but the above trend is always what is found.

Interesting. Are there figures over the last century? A line graph would be really helpful.

Brain_Caster · Post by **Brain_Caster** » 2007-02-21 04:54pm

How the hell are you supposed to legislate for what people believe in? And from where do you take the right to do it, for that matter?

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2007-02-21 04:57pm

Brain_Caster wrote:How the hell are you supposed to legislate for what people believe in? And from where do you take the right to do it, for that matter?

You make being a member of a given group illegal. Wasn't it done before with the Communist party?