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Originally Posted by bolidismo   ....but why does anybody need to convert anyone? Why can't it just be accepted that other people have different beliefs ...or maybe even no beliefs at all? |
Because religions (at least 3 big monotheistic ones) teach - in their most radical parts - the non-believers should be persuaded into "right & only true" religion, while the ones who believe in a wrong god (= "fake god") are sinners, and should be immediately converted, or even punished (sometimes even executed).
Just stupid.
I'm with Marx on this one: "Religion is the opium of the people."
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Originally Posted by Karl Marx Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. |