lipsbetweenthehips:

tamburina:

The terms militant atheism and militant atheist are designations applied to atheists who are, or are perceived to be, hostile towards religion. The term has been used going back to at least 1894 and it has been applied to people from Thomas Hobbes onwards. It had a specific application within the materialism of Marxism–Leninism, and in the early years of the Soviet Union, and more recently the term has been used, frequently pejoratively, to describe atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett.
Julian Baggini defines militant atheism as “Atheism which is actively hostile to religion”, which “requires more than strong disagreement with religion — it requires something verging on hatred and is characterised by a desire to wipe out all forms of religious belief. Militant atheists tend to make one or both of two claims that moderate atheists do not. The first is that religion is demonstrably false or nonsense and the second is that it is usually or always harmful.

i wouldn’t ever go as far as to say that i am at all actively hostile towards religion, nor do i have any desire to eliminate religion (though i do believe that would improve things exponentially). but the last sentence is resonating with me.

The first is that religion is demonstrably false or nonsense and the second is that it is usually or always harmful.

i think it’s quite rude of me to express openly that i think religion is false/nonsense (even though i certainly do), but i wholeheartedly agree that it is usually or always harmful. globally, it’s by far one of the biggest incentives for violence, ignorance and hate. duh.
 

Undercover Nun always saddened when I hear it said that religion is usually or always harmful, and the source of most or all wars.  In fact, religion has brought many great goods into the world, but we humans do tend to weigh tremendous evil more heavily than tremendous good. 

It is not religion itself that is harmful.  It is people who have a pathology, who have deep-seated fears, control issues, feelings of powerlessness (etc.) that lead them to abuse others.  Religion is used by these people as a tool, just as abusers and bullies use politics, laws, rules, and even social customs as tools to put others down and to keep them down.

But this is a perversion of religion.  Religion is our experience of the sublime, of the divine, of that which is beyond us.  It goes by many names, with many stories and legends and myths, with strong or weak doctrine.  Religion itself does not harm people, but religion in the hands of a bully is used to harm others.

I grieve for everyone who has been harmed by religion, especially by my beloved Christianity, and I’ve long felt a specific call to those who have been damaged by the church and/or who are hostile toward the church.  I want to gather them in my arms, hold them while they cry out their pain, and whisper to them, This was not of God.  What was done to you was abuse, and it was done by a bully who is very sick on the inside.  And for every loud, obnoxious bully in the church, there are a dozen faithful and loving Christians who go quietly about living their faith, never showing up on television or in the news because they don’t think it’s anything special — it’s just what they do, who they are.  I promise you, this is not God’s church.  I love you, and I will hold you in the Light.

Fundamentally, I believe all bullying and abuse to be expressions of fear.  And fear is the opposite of faith — the rejection of faith.  Faith is a choice, made continually every day.  Faith is work, it is the conscious turning toward the Divine whenever we notice we’re facing another way.  But fear — fear is a choice, too.  Fear is the conscious turning away from the Holy One, turning our backs and squinting our eyes tightly shut and sticking our fingers in our ears to sing the “La la la, I can’t hear you!” song.

So truly, religion is not the root of bullying, abuse, terrorism, war, genocide.  No, the root of these is fear, which is actually a rejection of religion, even when one appears to be embracing religion to promote these harms and insults to the world.  Were there no religions for fearful people to wield against us, they would find other weapons.