Should religious clothing be discouraged in public?

[mojorising]

I would tend to say that if our plan involves stepping on people, we need to rethink the plan.

It is OK to step on people's toes a little bit sometimes to encourage the timely progress of .... well progress.

I know it feels more comfortable from an ultra-orthodox liberal perspective to try to do everything without causing even a micro-gram of offence to anyone but in the real world people get offended when they are gently encouraged to mend their errant ways.

That is the way the cookie crumbles as the say in the USA.

 

[Toni]

Well I think 'it's annoying' is a good starting point from which to explore the various reasons why it might make sense.

e.g.

1. Reduce friction between tribes
2. Speed up the phasing out of religion
3. Adjust society's perspective on religion to be more negative (like attitudes to smoking have been adjusted)
4. Help sufferers of religious belief to understand that their beliefs should be regarded as private

What are the benefits of advertising religious belief?

Sounds like what you really want is for everybody to agree with you or at least keep quiet about if they don't.

So, who died and made you god?

 

[Keith&Co.]

I would tend to say that if our plan involves stepping on people, we need to rethink the plan.

It is OK to step on people's toes a little bit sometimes to encourage the timely progress of .... well progress.

Sooooooo...you've reversed your decision about gay rights?
It's okay to step on YOUR toes, to offend you just a little bit for the progress of progress in accepting gays as having the right to marry, to adopt, to hold hands and kiss each other in public?

I know it feels more comfortable from an ultra-orthodox liberal perspective to try to do everything without causing even a micro-gram of offence to anyone but in the real world people get offended when they are gently encouraged to mend their errant ways.

I really don't give a flying fig of a fuck about offense. I do try to figure out exactly how to justify taking a given moral stance, where i get to decide that their ways are errant and my ways are progress.

It reminds me much too much of people within a given religion using their beliefs as the standard to judge, legislate, and manipulate everyone else. I kinda dislike that sort of behavior. I mean, i hate it when the Catholics expect me to use their standards with respect to birth control, or when the Muslims want me to observe their dietary restrictions, or when the Mormons expect me not to point and laugh at the magic underwear. I imagine they've got every right to feel the same way if i were to tell them they cannot wear their crosses or headgear or beards or funny underwear because there're really no gods.

 

[Juma]

Don't know if this has been done before but anyway...

I find something annoying about people advertising their religious beliefs in public. Religious belief should be private matter between individuals and their 'gods'.

Common examples are the jewish skull cap, the turban and the various islamic female dress codes. Some christians wear crosses round their necks although this is more discreet than the other examples.

Obviously in more culturally backwards countries religious dress is still common but should people not be actively discouraged from advertising their religious beliefs in a progressive secular society?

Religious leaders such as priests and rabbis and imams would have to get a pass since it is more their job than a simple belief but what is the purpose of lay believers advertising which tribe they belong to?

The standard counter argument you hear from these people is 'why should I be ashamed of my religious beliefs?' but that argument does not wash. Not feeling the need to advertise beliefs does not imply that you are ashamed of them.

Advertising your beliefs also seems to suggest that you want people to know your religious beliefs before they interact with you but why? Do they expect to be treated differently?

If they have dietary requirements then they can be dealt with verbally when required. They do not need to be communicated by semaphore from a distance of 100 meteres.

If females need to cover their hair then there are many ways this can be done without making a religious pantomime out of it.

Removing religiously identifying dress would reduce friction between religious factions which is practical benefit of discouraging this tribalism but the more general principle of religion being a private matter is really what I am thinking about with this suggestion.

What constitute the "non-religious" dress?
If a religion requires a nice black suits should they be forbidden too?

 

[mojorising]

It reminds me much too much of people within a given religion using their beliefs as the standard to judge, legislate, and manipulate everyone else. I kinda dislike that sort of behavior. I mean, i hate it when the Catholics expect me to use their standards with respect to birth control, or when the Muslims want me to observe their dietary restrictions, or when the Mormons expect me not to point and laugh at the magic underwear. I imagine they've got every right to feel the same way if i were to tell them they cannot wear their crosses or headgear or beards or funny underwear because there're really no gods.

I think you are missing the point a little bit Keith. It is not about people telling other people how to behave. It is about advertising offensive beliefs and annoying other people by doing so.

Advertising your religion creates problems because it annoys other people. You can take an ultra-liberal perspective and say 'well people shouldn't get annoyed' but the fact is that advertising your religion is only going rub other people up the wrong way and has no benefit for other people and society has rules that try to minimise the friction between people. You cannot wear symbols of Nazism in Germany since it is considered offensive - I think that is reasonable.

If someone believes that they are going to a special place when they die and that makes them special and it makes other people less important then that is an offensive belief to hold (as well as corrosive to the smooth running of a progressive secular society) and they should keep those sorts of beliefs private. I think religious belief is harmful to society and I find the tribalist ideas about chosen people and heaven to be offensive.

I think they should keep advertisement of those beliefs through clothing inside their places of worship and out of public sight.

Humans should not have the superstitious and irrational beliefs of others shoved in their face as a matter of course through clothing. These offensive beliefs should be discouraged like smoking with appropriate health warnings on adverts discouraging religion.

If a religion requires a nice black suits should they be forbidden too?

Well the issue is clothing that advertises your religion.

If your religious clothing is a business suit then it is very stealthy and can probably slip under the police radar as it could not really cause offence.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I think you are missing the point a little bit Keith. It is not about people telling other people how to behave. It is about advertising offensive beliefs and annoying other people by doing so.

Reread the title of the thread, mojo. It's exactly about telling other people how to behave, simply because you're offended.
Just like what you wanted to do about gays. Gay behavior out of your sight.

Advertising your religion creates problems because it annoys other people.

And telling them they don't get to practice their religion annoys religious people. Luv-all.

You can take an ultra-liberal perspective and say 'well people shouldn't get annoyed' but the fact is that advertising your religion is only going rub other people up the wrong way and has no benefit for other people and society has rules that try to minimise the friction between people. You cannot wear symbols of Nazism in Germany since it is considered offensive - I think that is reasonable.

Ultra-liberal?
I think i expressed myself clearly. I don't give a fuck about 'annoyed.'
I think it's a conservative issue, my relationship with my gods is none of your fucking business, no matter who or what those gods may be, or even if there aren't any. When my beliefs (or lack of beliefs) cause me to infringe on your actual rights, that would be a sticking point. I shouldn't control your diet to match my religious beliefs, or your clothing, or your choices of who you get to have sex with, if it's just my religion vs. yours.

If someone believes that they are going to a special place when they die and that makes them special and it makes other people less important then that is an offensive belief to hold (as well as corrosive to the smooth running of a progressive secular society)

No.
The belief is not a problem.
Unless and until the act on it. We're making great strides in limiting people's ability to discriminate against others based on skin color, religion, sexual preference or haircuts. So being able to identify people of a given 'tribe,' and assuming you know how they feel about your ability to go bareheaded it prejudicial. Assuming you know that they are going to discriminate against you because you don't take the sacrament they do, that's prejudicial.
Stop being prejudicial and assuming others will be prejudicial.

When and IF they ARE prejudicial, bring a complaint against them. For their actual behavior.

Don't punish them for what you believe their beliefs are going to drive them to do, before they get a chance to do it.

 

[mojorising]

Reread the title of the thread, mojo.

The thread title is 'discouraged' not 'banned'.

It's exactly about telling other people how to behave

Not 'telling' people, 'suggesting' to people

simply because you're offended.

It is not just because I am personally offended. The future of humanity is ultimately one without religion but without active discouragement it could take a very long time for it to significantly decline.

I think religion is detrimental to the well-being of society so this action is suggested as a means of encouraging the decline of religion.

And telling them they don't get to practice their religion annoys religious people. Luv-all.

Practice it in private then. Not in everybody else's face. That is a reasonable compromise which I think religious practitioners could be encouraged to accept.

Religion should be encouraged to be viewed negatively by society in general, like smoking.

I shouldn't control your diet to match my religious beliefs, or your clothing, or your choices of who you get to have sex with, if it's just my religion vs. yours.

We are not controlling, just suggesting behavioural improvements.

I think public displays of religious belief are ignorant and culturally backward.

I think it is in the best interests of the human species that religion be actively encouraged into decline.

I think it is reasonable to make it known explicitly to the religiously deluded that their advertising their beliefs in public is ugly, insensitive and not appreciated by other people.

I am not proposing banning religious clothing just actively discouraging it in progressive secular society. Maybe through advertising campaigns and suggested guidelines to the public.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Banning any type of dress is restrictive. In the West fashion is changing all the time. The (black) Burqa could easily become a Gothic fashion one day. Headscarves in Europe were popular in the 1950s though the reasons were different. Some used them when their hair was in curlers before the invention of personal hair dryers. Some are concerned in that women are in some cases being forced to wear certain types of dress, hence banning it for those who want to wear can be considered as equally bad.

 

[mojorising]

I am not proposing banning religious clothing. It is not a practical proposition anyway since you would have to prove that the clothing was being worn for religious reasons. I am advocating discouraging religious clothing through public information notices to the worst offending communities that the west sees dressing religiously in public as ignorant and backward and would prefer if they did not dress like that in public if they want to assimilate more easily into the secular and progressive western way of life.

Basically, let them know how we feel instead of pussyfooting round them all the time.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Championing the rights of people we disagree with is pussyfooting?

 

[mojorising]

Why would you champion the 'rights' of someone to advertise their religious allegiance in a primitive display of tribalism causing disharmony and friction.

I don't think this is a human right in the modern secular western world. It is ugly and uncultured but in our magnanimity we continue to tolerate it - for the time being at least.

I did not realise anybody was championing them.

I thought I was proposing actively countering them and you were neutral to their behaviour.

Are you saying you actively support the advertising of religious beliefs and would like to see it encouraged?

 

[Keith&Co.]

I don't care that they're wearing something tribal.
I care that someone thinks their personal offense is sufficient to deny other people self expression.
Because it would be much easier and more popular for the Faithful to decide that we faithless were to be 'encouraged' to wear religious clothing or symbols, simply because our secularism offends them.

Are you saying you actively support the advertising of religious beliefs and would like to see it encouraged?

I'm saying i support the civil right to self expression OVER trumped up claims that mostly boil down to you being offended.
Same as i supported civil rights to choose one's sexual partners over your indignation or nausea.

 

[mojorising]

I care that someone thinks their personal offense is sufficient to deny other people self expression.

I have already explained this:-

It is not just because I am personally offended. The future of humanity is ultimately one without religion but without active discouragement it could take a very long time for it to significantly decline.

I think religion is detrimental to the well-being of society so this action is suggested as a means of encouraging the decline of religion.

Because it would be much easier and more popular for the Faithful to decide that we faithless were to be 'encouraged' to wear religious clothing or symbols, simply because our secularism offends them.

It is not simply about offence, as I have already explained twice. Even if it were, your argument would not work.

Thre is no uniform of secularism with which to offend other people.

I'm saying i support the civil right to self expression OVER trumped up claims that mostly boil down to you being offended.

Clutching at straws for the third time Keith. It is not just about offence. It is primarily about the progress of the human race as a species.

Society's attitude towards religion needs recalibration. Just as we used advertising to give cigarettes a negative connotation so we can do the same thing for religion. It is in the best interests of everyone that religion be encouraged out of existence.

My plan is to help religious people understand that religion is essentially a personal and private matter between them and their imaginary deity. Other people do not need to be dragged into the sorry arrangement and it is in the best interests of society as a whole if they keep their fictional beliefs of a private club of divine salvation to themselves.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I have already explained this:-

You've rationalized it. I doubt your sincerity.

. The future of humanity is ultimately one without religion

We seem to have evolved for religion. I doubt we can ever exterminate the need for something like it in our society.

But if we can, what we need to eliminate is the need for religion in the first place, not the trappings of being religious.
You're going after the symptoms. That won't produce a cure.

but without active discouragement it could take a very long time for it to significantly decline.

And by discouraging symptoms, not the condition itself, you'll make those that have a religion more militant in self defense, extending their attachment to the condition.

I think religion is detrimental to the well-being of society so this action is suggested as a means of encouraging the decline of religion.

I think your action is just going to backfire.

Because it would be much easier and more popular for the Faithful to decide that we faithless were to be 'encouraged' to wear religious clothing or symbols, simply because our secularism offends them.

It is not simply about offence, as I have already explained twice. Even if it were, your argument would not work.

Thre is no uniform of secularism with which to offend other people.

I kinda like wearing t-shirts that question authority, question religion, promote anarchy, atheism, science. Some or all of these offend some people.
Hell, someone's seriously defined Star Trek as a Satanic exercise.

If the Faithful decide to really, really organize their opposition to the various things they think are 'eroding our culture,' they seriously outnumber any given group of more rational thinkers.

If we start deciding that we can discourage things that are detrimental to society, they can, too. I think I'd prefer to let everyone express themselves than try to establish a one-sided view of what is and isn't detrimental. Seems a bit arrogant, unless the One And Only God is on your side.

I'm saying i support the civil right to self expression OVER trumped up claims that mostly boil down to you being offended.

Clutching at straws for the third time Keith. It is not just about offence. It is primarily about the progress of the human race as a species.

Still seems like you're rationalizing your ruffled feathers.

Society's attitude towards religion needs recalibration. Just as we used advertising to give cigarettes a negative connotation so we can do the same thing for religion. It is in the best interests of everyone that religion be encouraged out of existence.

See? Rationalization.
Unless you have actual studies to use which show that second-hand religion is as harmful as second-hand smoking?

My plan is to help religious people understand that religion is essentially a personal and private matter between them and their imaginary deity. Other people do not need to be dragged into the sorry arrangement and it is in the best interests of society as a whole if they keep their fictional beliefs of a private club of divine salvation to themselves.

Show some studies that support this, then. That not wearing turbans or bindis or ash on Ash Wednesday actually benefits society's interests?

 

[laughing dog]

I am fine with banning all clothing in public.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I am fine with banning all clothing in public.

Do you remember Marge Schott?

 

[laughing dog]

I am fine with banning all clothing in public.

Do you remember Marge Schott?

Yes. I didn't say it would be pretty.

 

[mojorising]

Unless you have actual studies to use which show that second-hand religion is as harmful as second-hand smoking?

Second hand religion is at least as harmful as smoking.

Just think of the number of people who have died in religious conflict throughout history.

If we accept that religion is deleterious to the health of society then it behooves us to actively oppose it rather than simply rise above it in an ironic kind of holier than thou atheism.

Religious believers are so loud about their idiotic beliefs it is obnoxious. There is nothing wrong, as I see it, with letting them in on an alternative perspective on their hysterical and unhealthy delusions.

Virtually every person who dresses up in religious costume is effectively telling everyone outside their religion that they believe those people are less worthy of consideration as equal human beings since they will not be around in the fictional afterlife and so are tactically discountable as rival goal-seeking agents.

Holy micro-aggression Batman!

 

[Keith&Co.]

Unless you have actual studies to use which show that second-hand religion is as harmful as second-hand smoking?

Second hand religion is at least as harmful as smoking.

In your opinion.
I also remember you were quite insistent about possible, unnamed harms from gay couples raising kids, which was actually countered by actual research.

Religious believers are so loud about their idiotic beliefs it is obnoxious.

Obnoxious? And you said it wasn't about your being offended.

There is nothing wrong, as I see it, with letting them in on an alternative perspective on their hysterical and unhealthy delusions.

But all you have for it being 'unhealthy' is your opinion.
I think they already know that some people disagree with their beliefs.
Outlawing their self-expression is just going to make them double-down, not see their beliefs as hysterical and/or unhealthy, or delusions.

Virtually every person who dresses up in religious costume is effectively telling everyone outside their religion that they believe those people are less worthy of consideration as equal human beings since they will not be around in the fictional afterlife and so are tactically discountable as rival goal-seeking agents.

Wow. Maybe we should outlaw such projection?
So, you're biased against religion. How does that equate to someone not having the right to wear a visible cross?

How in the fuck does their belief that you or I won't go to heaven affect you or I?
We can police their discrimination, if they act upon that, but fighting such discrimination would work both ways. They can't treat you different for not being in a tribe, same as you can't treat them different for being in that tribe.

Stamping out their religious dress will not help them come to treat the non-religious any better.

 

[mojorising]

But all you have for it being 'unhealthy' is your opinion.

There is mountains of evidence that religions causes harm to the health of other people. Islamic extremism is the most obvious example.

Outlawing their self-expression is just going to make them double-down

You keep misrepresenting my proposal. We are not banning anything. We are just making our feelings clear through advertising our opposition to the practice of religious dress in public.

Stamping out their religious dress will not help them come to treat the non-religious any better.

It is one step along the way to effecting a fundamental societal attitude change towards religion. One of the steps on the road to changing the perception of religious belief to being something to be ashamed of, which it is.

That is progress.