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What religion do you view as most threatening to democracy and why?

Earthling50 6 June 5
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32 comments

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1

Islam. As bad as Christianity is, there are no Christians in the modern age who would behead you for drawing a funny cartoon of Jesus.

@Morganfreeman "Islam seems to be far more humane."

Honor killings, acid attacks, bombings, beheadings, female genital mutilation, misyongny, homophobia, anti-Semitism, niqabs, burkas, child marriages, persecution of atheists, the list is endless. Please don't breed.

@Morganfreeman Mohammed beheaded anyone who disagreed with him, kept sex slaves, and had a 9-year-old wife. To say Islam is more "humane" than Christianity is dangerously wrong and untrue.

@Morganfreeman And where exactly are all the Christians throwing terror tantrums whenever Jesus is made fun of on South Park?

0

Statism.

Satanism... ?

@Tomas No. Statism. Essentially, worship of the state.

@firecracker ... oops, sorry, not fond of that either.

What do you mean by 'statism'? I've never heard that term before.

@Earthling50 According to Merriam-Webster, statism is defined as:

Concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government often extending to government ownership of industry.

However, in common usage is can be thought of as a religion in which government is "worshipped" by those who believe that the state should tightly control either economic or social policy, or both, to some degree. Statists often assume the government to be akin to a benevolent higher power. Statists also tend to believe that rights stem from government instead of inhering in the individual.

1

I would have to say Islam. Dont get me wrong, I live in a multi-cultural community. Many of my customers are muslim and they have done wonders in cleaning up my area of the city but just look outside of the USA (I know thats hard for some you). Center of Islam is Saudi, a kingdom. Most of the arab world is not democratic. Its extreme is most anti-democracy. FFS the muslims enjoy more democratic rights in Israel than surrounding countries. Even in Pakistan, the corruption makes a mockery of the voting system. There is no muslim country where democracy flourishes, not even Turkey.
Now some of you will say that this is because of western interference and there is a point to that but hey you had UK interference in 1776. The difference is you had the will and leadership to fight for your rights. Not just read the old book and do what your told.

I have to agree. To add to this, as far as goes, Islam seems to be the greatest threat to Western society. It's ideology has not created success for itself. It calls itself a of 'peace' but I see no evidence - not 1 city or country that is peaceful or has the success that the western world enjoys.

@Earthling50 Western success is the result of colonialism and imperialism.

@Krish55 Islam had its empires too. The Ottoman Empire for one. Western empires went industrial which required an educated workforce, Which pushed for democracy. A population kept ignorant by just reading the one book is likely to.

1

I think they’re all destructive to democracy. Religion Is The Problem.

What to do about it? That's the question ... what do you do? what should we do?

@Earthling50 Outside of telling our truth, and financially boycotting religious or religious supportive organizations, there is little we can do. I’m going to get mean and tell them what a sadistic, psychotic, narcissistic God they worship, though. Their God cares nothing for human, animal, or plant life and that’s well documented in their own Bible. This is how we know abortion means nothing to Thou so they can end their little tirade.

2

Neoliberalism -The Religion of contemporary Capitalism - is the most destructive to the environment, to countries that resist exploitation, and to American citizens. Islamic fanaticism has grown as a reaction to the chaos caused by capitalist wars. But it was the capitalist countries that encouraged that fanaticism in the first place to destroy socialism in Muslim countries. Domestically, neoliberal capitalism has also destroyed the kids of Flint and NJ (see "kids for cash" ), areas where fracking occurs, etc. etc. American neoliberal capitalism incarcerates the largest population in the world.

Don't you think their 'supreme' leaders had some say in this? No country fails solely because of capitalist pressure.

@Earthling50 many of the countries destroyed were democracies, for example Guatemala in 1954. You have an unwarranted negative stereotype of weaker countries in the global South.

2

Now I don't like to use a broad brush to paint anything or anyone, that is a dangerous start that can lead to complete intolerance. So I will qualify my answer by saying it's all IMHO and I recognize that the acts of some should not constitute a reason for tarring all the rest. Having said that, it sure seems like the evangelical wing of the christian religion is mighty interested in turning us into a blatant theocracy. Southern Baptists are slightly saner, but even so they are in the amen corner enabling a lot of what the radical evangelicals are trying to do. Anybody have anything to convince me otherwise? I am willing to listen.

I've heard that there are over 20,000 expressions of Christianity which really blows my mind.
In speaking about the fundamentalist what I take comfort in is that at least they don't blow up buildings or threaten murder on people as a means to convert them. Islam on the other hand ...

2

Evangelical christian and (usually goes hand in hand) white supremists! They seem to be running, I mean ruining this country and its democracy. I'm amazed at the lack of "christian values" in these people!

yes the KKK is alive and well inside USA using code like Russssssaaaah Dingy Crazy LimpBOSS selling the facade of greed & zionism as top government priorities for the ultra rich.... none the less, fascism comes from BOTH CORPORATIONS running amok AND Islam unchalleged per their violent faith/quoran.....as long as polluter oil wars provoke more muslims, our democracy is being bankrupted by the war profiteering banksters 20 trillion buckS now 7 trillion owed to CHINA .... we can have peace through green jobs and repudiating all violent religions.... there is no Allah, or Jehovah/YHWH Jesua Nasoret in existence justifying all this violence genocide and rewarding warriours with rape

1

evangelicals who try to force others to obey their beliefs.

2

Tricky question! Having traveled in 8 Islamic nations, I'll say they're the worst, as far as personal liberties are concerned. Their treatment of women can be despicable and, in the end, Islam is the final ''judge'' of any situation. Logic just doesn't matter. Thinking on this, I realize Orthodox Judaism's no better.

3

Any fundamentalist branch of any religion.

0

Definitely the one that is still chopping heads off and blowing up sites of historical significance....

2

I'll go with fundamentalist anything.

3

Christianity. Look at the way it's infecting Western governments, especially the US.

1

All theocracies

0

All of them. Oh, most threatening. In that case, I'm torn. Either the denominations that discourage or forbid voting and participating in democracy (for obvious reasons), or those that encourage voting. ?

3

The most dangerous : the belief in American Exceptionalism...://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-Military-Interventions-Updated/dp/1783601779/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1528226197&sr=8-1&keywords=killing+hope+us+military+and+cia+interventions+since+world+war+ii&dpID=51J9YuPt6yL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200QL40&dpSrc=srch

2

I don’t feel threatened by any . The Catholic Church was once dictatorial, but not now, and it’s on the wane, at least in the US. There is a plethora of noisy, cultish things but none of those have much power.

3

Southern Christian Bible Thumping, Gun Toting Racist Rebuplicanism.

3

All of them. There is no compromise with religious people. Democracy cannot survive without compromise.

0

Only the ones that shoot or explode.

3

In the USA - fundamentalist evangelicals. They have a warped view that this is a christian nation and therefore deserve to inject their beliefs into government systems from town ordinance to federal constitution. A theocracy is the desire. Subordination to cherry picked bible "rules" and forced nationalism will be the norm. Freedom to discriminate against anything deemed anti-christian will be let loose upon the population. Once having control of a military power, there will be another Crusade in foreign countries.

0

All of them have a hand in the chaos that has infected our planet, our country. How could we pin point 1 religion responsible for all this, I don’t know?

1

The two most dangerous are extreme evangelical Christianity and the most fundamentalistic Islamic sects.

0

Any that limit human rights...which in my humble opinion, seem to be most of them 😟But as previously expressed we should start by finding common goals and then discuss how to resolve our differences, you'd be surprised how many common goals we could achieve before we got to the differences!).

2

Any Religion that Actively seeks to suppress the Freedom of others. Those who Favor the Following: 1) Violence 2) Coercion 3) Discrimination 4) Laws that limit or restrict freedoms

So in other words: Fundamentalist Christians and Muslims

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