This is what theism does. Is this what we want in our country, in our neighborhoods? And I don’t just point to Islam. Christianity is as bad.
One should always look at the bigger picture first. Almost no Americans do this when it comes to religion. Part of being able to see the bigger picture is in understanding the history of the subject. Mankind has always had religion to handle the questions of life. Islam and Christianity have the same god, are no better than the other. Both come from the Religions of the Children of Abraham.
This brings up the question. Is religion bad or good for mankind? History’s timeline has shown us that religion is good overall for mankind. Wars are not recorded or talked of before the Age of Deities. People had heaven and new life a long time before there were gods. And the religions without deities (gods) don’t seem to have the same problems as the deity religions.
This brings up the point. Being an atheist, means not believing in deities. It does not mean, not believing in religion.
This bring up the question. Are all deities bad for mankind? Again we have to look at history. The number of gods are too many to count. A couple hundred thousand anyway. And from what I have learned, it is only with the deities’ mankind seems to have problems with. And it is only the deities from the branch of The Religions of the Children of Abraham that are creating the major problems, the other deities have for the most part been good for mankind.
What is different with the Abraham’s religions? It seemed to evolve as other religions did. It took the Egyptian and the Babylonian and formed a better suited religion for the people of the Egyptian/Canaan region. Paul and Mohamad came along and wanted only one “deity" religion for the people and used Jesus’s religion to form a new religion. The new monolithic god when added to the political and economic forces seem to have created problems in the fact that the controlling religious entities feared the scholastic aspects of the people and thus found the need to control the scholastic thinking of the masses.
This brings up the question. Am I calling all deity religious people “dumb"? My understanding is that man is an animal that has instincts for survival. A lot of what children see and learn at a very young age is placed deep in the mind and can control actions and thinking at later ages. In other words, many people are born into a religion. Islam is creating trouble because the religion controls the schooling. Thus it is evolving into a strong religion by reinforcing its beliefs. An example would be the Nigerian Islamic Boko Haram, which translates to “Western education is forbidden".
Point being, Halima is not giving up her faith (in the overall aspect of deities), as much as changing teams.
Indoctrination is possibly the strongest factor for me declaring myself an atheist. I want to stand with those who say they have heard all the arguments for God, all the traditions and found all of them wanting. I can’t explain all of these arguments to every child, but I can be an example of something that they will at least notice, and give them cause to question. No child should be taught something as absolutely true that they will later find to be questionable. No child should be put in a situation where they need to make a faith statement, or declare allegiance to something supernatural.
Indoctrination is possibly the strongest factor for me declaring myself an atheist. I want to stand with those who say they have heard all the arguments for God, all the traditions and found all of them wanting. I can't explain all of these arguments to every child, but I can be an example of something that they will at least notice, and give them cause to question. No child should be taught something as absolutely true that they will later find to be questionable. No child should be put in a situation where they need to make a faith statement, or declare allegiance to something supernatural.How much of the teaching of the children of tomorrow will be by the internet? God was in some parts prayed to for unanswered questions and superstitious ideas. Will these tasks now be taken over by the computer? I think the biggest threat to Islam is the web. Point being, religions expand too many countries. Then the religion is a little different in each country. This could be because the educational level is also a little different in each country. An example is the Islam interpretation and how it varies greatly by area. The Web is same worldwide, thus bypassing area boarders.