Burka Rage

[AeroFly]

"No, ANY religious culture which controls through fear and murder does not deserve any special treatment, other than ridicule and legal attacks. It certainly doesn't deserve respect OR tolerance. "

I understand the point that you are trying to make here. I understand the thought behind it. However, as I try to understand different religions across the human race, I wonder how many can we really find as such. Every religion requires the believers to follow certain traditions, certain norms, certain rules. This eventually, come from either the priests or the higher echelons of that religion. Spiritual blackmail is an integral part of most religions as I know it. 'Do good or you will go to hell' or 'Its a war and you must bomb and kill thousands, for you will have angels waiting for you in heaven' or ' Praise the lord and he will forgive all your sins ( even if you have murdered 14 children and women)' or ' You will go to hell, if you choose not to wear a burqa and disgrace god' - they all sound the same across all religions.

[Thorne]

Every religion requires the believers to follow certain traditions, certain norms, certain rules. This eventually, come from either the priests or the higher echelons of that religion. Spiritual blackmail is an integral part of most religions as I know it. 'Do good or you will go to hell' or 'Its a war and you must bomb and kill thousands, for you will have angels waiting for you in heaven' or ' Praise the lord and he will forgive all your sins ( even if you have murdered 14 children and women)' or ' You will go to hell, if you choose not to wear a burqa and disgrace god' - they all sound the same across all religions.

I'm not talking about 'spiritual blackmail', but real, mortal danger. The standard sentence for renouncing Islam is death. The standard punishment for offending Islam is death. Not hell, not Allah's displeasure, but real death. Execution, when they can get away with it, assassination if you are in a non-Islamic country. There have been other religions, including Christianity, which have practiced similar penalties in the past. The leaders of these religions are not concerned with any spiritual punishment, but with maintaining control, and in many cases the only way to do that is to kill those who do not agree with them.

As an atheist, I deny the existence of gods, I deny the existence of an afterlife. Therefore religious leaders no longer have and 'spiritual blackmail' with which to try to control me. In much of the modern world, of course, I am protected by the same laws which protect those who practice religion. But in some parts of this world, simply denying the existence of the local gods is punishable by death. Simply speaking against the religious leaders is punishable by death. Obviously these religious leaders have no faith in the 'spiritual' punishments of their deities, and resort to physical punishments as a means of maintaining control.

ANY law which helps to reduce that stranglehold is, in my opinion, a good law. It does nothing to harm the followers of any religious cult, but does weaken the power of the leaders of those cults. It is the leaders of the Muslims in France who are most threatened by this law, not the women who will be liberated by it.