Is Religious Freedom also a Freedom to Indoctrinate and Coerce?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Is Religious Freedom also a Freedom to Indoctrinate and Coerce?

Why so often is the freedom to believe connected to the freedom to indoctrinate and coerce? If every religion thinks they are right and have such persuasive truth what do almost all religious force their beliefs on children telling them this is what we believe as in you have little to no choice to believe once given all the evidence and be allowed to accept or reject freely without threats or coercion or as it seems are threats, coercion, and indoctrination the only real tools you have and don’t try to pull the “its tradition” but I thought its all about beliefs.

As if it’s just tradition, then why call it something real to believe in? say its traditional mythology and only to be believed as such? Or separate traditional practices you like as they can be done for some aesthetic value and don’t need lies to support them or if you believe they connect with some believed religious truth and don’t want me or anyone else to force you bot to believe, extend that same thought to children not forcing then to believe too just because you believe things without sufficient proof.

But sadly that is just it, all religions manly have is believe things without sufficient proof and the coercion of children who hardly ever get a free chance to decide for themselves. Instead, children the world over are most often stuck with the common religion of one’s family, ethnicity, society or geography and not because they chose to believed or were supported to see if some other religion or no religion was better for them.

Religions and Violence?

Religions are on the whole connected to violence/harm and are almost always a thing that can inspire violence/harm or hold the threat of violence/harm. The most common harm is child indoctrination and it’s a violation of child rights. As it’s in the very nature of religions “an order of unsubstantiated beliefs” or as I like calling them centers for indoctrination of Dogmatic-Propaganda, who promote and protect lies. Thus, as lies hate challenge and exposure so to do religions because if the lies are realized and affirmed they would require an honest thinker to stop believing them as in this way religions whether conceived with violence hold a high likelihood to result to violence as they must force what they exclusively believe in as true without epistemically rational evidence on a world that holds no such value in things devoid of proof or their exclusive clams of truth without epistemic rationale supported evidence.

Forced Conversion

“Forced conversion is the adoption of a different religion or irreligion under duress. Some who have been forced to convert may continue, covertly, with the beliefs and practices originally held, while outwardly behaving as converts. Crypto-Jews, crypto-Christians, crypto-Muslims, and crypto-Pagansare historical examples of the latter.” ref

Religion and Power

“In general, anthropologists have shown that the relationship between religion and politics is complex, especially when viewed over the expanse of human history. While religious leaders and the state generally have different aims, both are concerned with power and order; both use reason and emotion to motivate behavior. Throughout history, leaders of religious and political institutions have cooperated, opposed one another, or attempted to co-opt each other, for purposes both noble and base, and have implemented programs with a wide range of driving values, from compassion aimed at alleviating current suffering to brutal change aimed at achieving longer-term goals, for the benefit of groups ranging from small cliques to all of humanity. The relationship is far from simple. But religion has often been used coercively, and has used coercion.” ref

Judaism

“Forced conversions occurred under the Hasmonean Kingdom. The Idumeans were forced to convert to Judaism, by a threat of exile or death, depending on the source. In Eusebíus, Christianity, and Judaism, Harold W. Attridge claims that “there is a reason to think that Josephus‘ account of their conversion is substantially accurate.” He also writes: “that these were not isolated instances, but that forced conversion was a national policy, is clear from the fact that Alexander Jannaeus (around 80 BC) demolished the city of Pella in Moab, ‘because the inhabitants would not agree to adopt the national custom of the Jews.’” Josephus, Antiquities. 13.15.4.” ref

“Maurice Sartre has written of the “policy of forced Judaization adopted by Hyrcanos, Aristobulus I and Jannaeus“, who offered “the conquered peoples a choice between expulsion or conversion,” William Horbury has written that “The evidence is best explained by postulating that an existing small Jewish population in Lower Galilee was massively expanded by the forced conversion in c.104 BC of their Gentile neighbors in the north.” ref

“In 2009 the BBC defended a claim that in AD 524 the Yemeni Jewish Himyar tribe, led by King Yusuf Dhu Nuwas, had offered Christian residents of a village in what is now Saudi Arabia the choice between conversion to Judaism or death and that 20,000 Christians had then been massacred. The BBC stated that “The production team spoke to many historians over 18 months, among them Nigel Groom, who was our consultant, and Professor Abdul Rahman Al-Ansary [former professor of archaeology at the King Saud University in Riyadh].” Inscriptions documented by Yousef himself show the great pride he expressed after massacring more than 22,000 Christians in Zafar and Najran.” ref

“After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, elements of Roman civilization continued on in the Byzantine Empire. The Jews of Greece began to come under increasing attention from Byzantium’s leadership in Constantinople. Some Byzantine emperors were anxious to exploit the wealth of the Jews of Greece, and imposed special taxes on them, while others attempted forced conversions to Christianity.” ref

“Jews fled Rome and Greece to Khazaria to avoid forced conversion to Christianity. They adopted Islam when forced but repudiated it when safe.” ref

“The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people with a confederation of Turkic-speaking tribes that in the late 6th century CE established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia. The native religion of the Khazars is thought to have been Tengrism, like that of the North Caucasian Huns and other Turkic peoples. The Khazar Khaganate appears to have been a multiconfessional mosaic of pagan, Tengrist, Jewish, Christian and Muslim worshippers. The ruling elite of the Khazars was said by Judah Halevi and Abraham ibn Daud to have converted to Rabbinic Judaism in the 8th century, but the scope of the conversion within the Khazar Khanate remains uncertain.” ref

“At the time, when great fanatism and deep ignorance contested their dominion over Western Europe, the Khazar state was famous for its justice and tolerance. People persecuted for their faiths flocked into Khazaria from everywhere. The history of Khazaria presents us with a fascinating example of how Jewish life flourished in the Middle Ages. In a time when Jews were persecuted throughout Christian Europe, the kingdom of Khazaria was a beacon of hope. Jews were able to flourish in Khazaria because of the tolerance of the Khazar rulers, who invited Byzantine and Persian Jewish refugees to settle in their country. Due to the influence of these refugees, the Khazars found the Jewish religion to be appealing and adopted Judaism in large numbers.” ref

Christianity

“Christianity was a minority religion during much of the middle Roman Classical Period, and the early Christians were persecuted during that time. When Constantine I converted to Christianity, it became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire. Already under the reign of Constantine I, Christian heretics had been persecuted; beginning in the late 4th century, the ancient pagan religions were also actively suppressed. In the view of many historians, the Constantinian shiftturned Christianity from a persecuted religion into one capable of persecution and sometimes eager to persecute.” ref

“On 27 February 380, together with Gratian and Valentinian II, Theodosius I issued the decree Cunctos populos, the so-called Edict of Thessalonica, recorded in the Codex Theodosianus xvi.1.2. This declared Trinitarian Nicene Christianity to be the only legitimate imperial religion and the only one entitled to call itself Catholic. Other Christians he described as “foolish madmen”. He also ended official state support for the traditional polytheist religions and customs.” ref

“The Codex Theodosianus (Eng. Theodosian Code) was a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors since 312. A commission was established by Theodosius II and his co-emperor Valentinian III on 26 March 429 and the compilation was published by a constitution of 15 February 438. It went into force in the eastern and western parts of the empire on 1 January 439.” ref

“It is Our will that all the peoples who are ruled by the administration of Our Clemency shall practice that religion which the divine Peter the Apostle transmitted to the Romans…. The rest, whom We adjudge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas, their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches, and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of Our own initiative (Codex Theodosianus XVI 1.2.).” ref

“Forced conversions of Jews were carried out with the support of rulers during Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages in Gaul, the Iberian peninsula and in the Byzantine empire.” ref

“During the Saxon Wars, Charlemagne, King of the Franks, forcibly converted the Saxons from their native Germanic paganism by way of warfare, and law upon conquest. Examples are the Massacre of Verden in 782, when Charlemagne reportedly had 4,500 captive Saxons massacred for rebelling, and the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae, a law imposed on conquered Saxons in 785, after another rebellion and destruction of churches and killing of missionary priests and monks, that prescribed death to those who refused to convert to Christianity.” ref

“Forced conversion that occurred after the seventh century generally took place during riots and massacres carried out by mobs and clergy without the support of the rulers. In contrast, royal persecutions of Jews from the late eleventh century onward generally took the form of expulsions, with some exceptions, such as conversions of Jews in southern Italy of the 13th century, which were carried out by Dominican Inquisitors but instigated by King Charles II of Naples.” ref

“Jews were forced to convert to Christianity by the Crusaders in Lorraine, on the Lower Rhine, in Bavaria and Bohemia, in Mainz and in Worms. (see Rhineland massacres, Worms massacre (1096))” ref

“Pope Innocent III pronounced in 1201 that if one agreed to be baptized to avoid torture and intimidation, one nevertheless could be compelled to outwardly observe Christianity:

“[T]hose who are immersed even though reluctant, do belong to ecclesiastical jurisdiction at least by reason of the sacrament, and might, therefore, be reasonably compelled to observe the rules of the Christian Faith. It is, to be sure, contrary to the Christian Faith that anyone who is unwilling and wholly opposed to it should be compelled to adopt and observe Christianity. For this reason, a valid distinction is made by some between kinds of unwilling ones and kinds of compelled ones. Thus one who is drawn to Christianity by violence, through fear and through torture, and receives the sacrament of Baptism in order to avoid loss, he (like one who comes to Baptism in dissimulation) does receive the impress of Christianity, and may be forced to observe the Christian Faith as one who expressed a conditional willingness though, absolutely speaking, he was unwilling …” ref

“During the Northern Crusades against the pagan Balts and Slavs of northern Europe, forced conversions were a widely used tactic, which received a papal sanction. These tactics were first adopted during the Wendish Crusade, but became more widespread during the Livonian Crusade and Prussian Crusade, in which tactics included the killing of hostages, massacre, and the devastation of the lands of tribes that had not yet submitted. Most of the populations of these regions were converted only after the repeated rebellion of native populations that did not want to accept Christianity even after initial forced conversion; in Old Prussia, the tactics employed in the initial conquest and subsequent conversion of the territory resulted in the death of most of the native population, whose language consequently became extinct.” ref

“After the end of the Islamic control of Spain, Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492. In Portugal, following an order for their expulsion in 1496, only a handful were allowed to leave and the rest were forced to convert. Muslims were expelled from Portugal in 1497, and they were gradually forced to convert in the constituent kingdoms of Spain. The forced conversion of Muslims was implemented in the Crown of Castile from 1500–02 and in the Crown of Aragon in the 1520s. After the conversions, the so-called “New Christians” were those inhabitants (Sephardic Jews or Mudéjar Muslims) who were baptized under coercion and in the face of execution, becoming forced converts from Islam (Moriscos, Conversos and “secret Moors”) or from Judaism (Conversos, Crypto-Jews, and Marranos).” ref

“After the forced conversion, when all former Muslims and Jews had ostensibly become Catholic, the Spanish Inquisition targeted primarily forced converts from Judaism, who came under suspicion of either continuing to adhere to their old religion or having fallen back into it. Jewish conversos still resided in Spain and often practiced Judaism secretly and were suspected by the “Old Christians” of being Crypto-Jews. The Spanish Inquisition generated much wealth and income for the church and individual inquisitors by confiscating the property of the persecuted. The end of Al-Andalus and the expulsion of the Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula went hand in hand with the increase of Spanish and Portuguese influence in the world, as exemplified in the Christian conquest of the Americas and their aboriginal Indian population. The Ottoman Empire and Morocco absorbed most of the Jewish refugees, although a large majority remained as Conversos.” ref

“Upon converting to Christianity in the 10th century, Vladimir the Great, the ruler of Kievan Rus’, ordered Kiev’s citizens to undergo a mass baptism in the Dnieper river. In the 13th century, the pagan populations of the Baltics faced campaigns of forcible conversion by crusading knight corps such as the Livonian Brothers of the Sword and the Teutonic Order, which often meant simply dispossessing these populations of their lands and property. After Ivan the Terrible‘s conquest of the Khanate of Kazan, the Muslim population faced slaughter, expulsion, forced resettlement, and conversion to Christianity. In the 18th century, Elizabeth of Russia launched a campaign of forced conversion of Russia’s non-Orthodox subjects, including Muslims and Jews.” ref

“During the European colonization of the Americas, forced conversion of the continents’ indigenous, non-Christian population was common, especially in South America and Mesoamerica, where the conquest of large indigenous polities like the Inca and Aztec Empires placed colonizers in control of large non-Christian populations. Historians broadly agree that most native populations that converted did so under the threat of violence, often because they were compelled to after being conquered and that the Catholic Church cooperated with civil authority to achieve this end.” ref

“The Portuguese practiced religious persecution in Goa, India in the 16th and 17th centuries. The natives of Goa, most of them Hindus, were subjected to severe torture and oppression by the zealous Portuguese rulers and missionaries, and forcibly converted to Christianity. In 1567, the campaign to destroy temples in Bardez met with success, with 300 Hindu temples destroyed. Prohibition was laid from December 4, 1567, on rituals of Hindu marriages, sacred thread wearing and cremation. All persons above 15 years of age were compelled to listen to Christian preaching, failing which they were punished.” ref

“In 1583, Hindu temples at Assolna and Cuncolim were destroyed by the Portuguese army. “The fathers of the Church forbade the Hindus under terrible penalties the use of their own sacred books and prevented them from all exercise of their religion. They destroyed their temples, and so harassed and interfered with the people that they abandoned the city in large numbers, refusing to remain any longer in a place where they had no liberty, and were liable to imprisonment, torture, and death if they worshiped after their own fashion the gods of their fathers”, wrote Filippo Sassetti, who was in India from 1578 to 1588. An order was issued in June 1684 for suppressing the Konkani language and making it compulsory to speak Portuguese, on pain of severe penalties. All non-Christian cultural symbols and books written in local languages were also ordered to be destroyed.” ref

Islam

“Although Islamic law prohibits forced conversion, following the Quranic principle “no compulsion in religion” (2:256), episodes of forced conversions are recorded in the history of Islam. Historians have qualified such instances as “rare” or “exceptional.” While scholars like Abu Hanifa and Abu Yusuf stated that jizya tax should be paid by non-Muslims whatever their religion, some later and more extremist jurists do not permit jizya for idolators and instead only allowed the choice of conversion to avoid death. Out of the four schools of Islamic law, the Hanafi and Maliki schools allow the dhimmi status for polytheists except for Arab polytheists. The Shafi’i and Hanbali school however only consider Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians to be eligible to the category.” ref

“Wael Hallaq states that in theory, Islamic religious tolerance applied only to monotheistic “People of the Book” like Christians, Jews and Magians if they paid the jizya tax, and pagans faced only two choices between conversion to Islam and fight to the death. In practice, the designation “People of the Book” and the dhimma status was extended even to non-monotheistic religions of conquered peoples, such as Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and other non-monotheists.” ref

“The wars of the Ridda (lit. apostasy), undertaken by the first caliph Abu Bakr against tribes who had accepted Islam but refused to recognize his caliphal authority have been described by some authors as an instance of forced conversion or “reconversion”. The action of these tribes was less a relapse to paganism than termination of a political contract they had made with Muhammad. Two out of the four schools of Islamic law, i.e. Hanafi and Maliki schools, accepted non-Arab polytheists to be eligible for the dhimmi status. Under this doctrine, Arab polytheists were forced to choose between conversion and death. However, according to the perception of most jurists, all Arabs had embraced Islam during the lifetime of Muhammad. Their exclusion, therefore, had little practical significance after his death in 632. In the 9th century, the Samaritan population of Palestine faced persecution and attempts at forced conversion at the hands of the rebel leader ibn Firāsa, against whom they were defended by Abbasid caliphal troops.” ref

“There were forced conversions in the 12th century under the Almohad dynasty of North Africa and Andalusia, who suppressed the dhimma status of Jews and Christians and gave them the choice between conversion, exile, and being killed. Christians under their rule generally chose to relocate to the Christian principalities in the north of the peninsula, while Jews decided to stay in order to keep their properties, and many of them feigned conversion to Islam, while continuing their religious practices in secrecy. During the Almohad persecution, the Jewish philosopher Maimonides wrote his Epistle on Apostasy, in which he permitted Jews to feign apostasy under duress, though strongly recommending leaving the country instead. There is dispute amongst scholars as to whether Maimonides himself converted to Islam in order to freely escape from Almohad territory, and then reconverted back to Judaism in either the Levant or in Egypt. He was later denounced as an apostate and tried in an Islamic court, but the judge ruled that his conversion had been forced and therefore invalid.” ref

“In the late 1160s, the Yemenite ruler ‘Abd-al-Nabī ibn Mahdi left Jews with the choice between conversion to Islam or martyrdom. Mahdi also imposed his beliefs upon the Muslims besides the Jews. This led to a revival of Jewish messianism, but also led to mass-conversion. The persecution ended in 1173 with the defeat of Ibn Mahdi and conquest of Yemen by the brother of Saladin and they were allowed to return to their faith.” ref

“According to two Cairo Genizah documents, the Ayyubid ruler of Yemen, al-Malik al-Mu’izz al-Ismail (reigned from 1197-1202) had attempted to force the Jews of Aden to convert. The second document details the relief of the Jewish community after his murder and those who had been forced to convert reverted to Judaism. While he didn’t impose Islam upon the foreign merchants, they were forced to pay triple the normal rate of poll tax.” ref

“A measure listed in the legal works by Al-Shawkānī is of forced conversion of Jewish orphans. No date is given for this decree by modern studies nor who issued it. The forced conversion of Jewish orphans was reintroduced under Imam Yahya in 1922. The Orphans’ Decree was implemented aggressively for the first ten years. It was re-promulgated in 1928.” ref

“A form of forced conversion became institutionalized during the Ottoman Empire in the practice of devşirme, a human levy in which Christian boys were seized and collected from their families (usually in the Balkans), enslaved, converted to Islam, and then trained as elite military unit within the Ottoman army or for high-ranking service to the sultan. From the mid to late 14th, through early 18th centuries, the devşirme–janissary system enslaved an estimated 500,000 to one million non–Muslim adolescent males.[ These boys would attain a great education and high social standing after their training and conversion.” ref

“In the 17th century, Sabbatai Zevi, a Sephardic Jew whose ancestors were welcomed in the Ottoman Empire during the Spanish Inquisition, proclaimed himself the Messiah and called for abolishing major Jewish laws and customs. After he attracted a large following, he was arrested by the Ottoman authorities and given a choice between execution or conversion to Islam. He chose the latter option. And during the persecution of Greeks in the 20th century, there were cases of forced conversion to Islam.” ref

“Ismail I, the founder of the Safavid dynasty, decreed Twelver Shiism to be the official religion of state and ordered executions of a number of Sunni intellectuals who refused to accept Shiism. Non-Muslims faced frequent persecutions and at times forced conversions under the rule of his dynastic successors. Thus, after the capture of the Hormuz Island, Abbas I required local Christians to convert to Islam, Abbas II granted his ministers authority to force Jews to become Muslims, and Sultan Husayn decreed forcible conversion of Zoroastrians. In 1839, during the Qajar era the Jewish community in the city of Mashhad was attacked by a mob and subsequently forced to convert to Islam.” ref

“In an invasion of the Kashmir valley (1015), Mahmud of Ghazni plundered the valley, took many prisoners and carried out conversions to Islam. In his later campaigns, in Mathura, Baran, and Kanauj, again, many conversions took place. Those soldiers who surrendered to him were converted to Islam. In Baran (Bulandshahr) alone 10,000 persons were converted to Islam including the king. Tarikh-i-Yamini, Rausat-us-Safa, and Tarikh-i-Ferishtah speak of construction of mosques and schools and appointment of preachers and teachers by Mahmud and his successor Masud. Wherever Mahmud went, he insisted on the people to convert to Islam. The raids by Muhammad Ghori and his generals brought in thousands of slaves in the late 12th century, most of whom were compelled to convert as one of the preconditions of their freedom. Sikandar Butshikan (1394-1417) demolished Hindu temples and forcefully converted Hindus. Christianity thrived along the west coast during the 15th and 16th centuries following forced conversions carried out by Portuguese colonists.” ref

“Aurangzeb employed a number of means to encourage conversions to Islam. In a Mughal-Sikh war in 1715, 700 followers of Banda Singh Bahadur were beheaded. Every day, 100 Sikhs were executed and not even one of them apostatized from Sikhism. Banda Singh Bahadur was offered a pardon if he converted to Islam. Upon refusal, he was tortured and was killed with his 5-year-old son. Following the execution of Banda, the emperor ordered to apprehend Sikhs anywhere they were found. 18th-century ruler Tipu Sultan persecuted the Hindus, Christians, and Mappla Muslims. During Sultan’s Mysorean invasion of Kerala, hundreds of temples and churches were demolished and ten thousands of Christians and Hindus were killed or converted to Islam by force.” ref

“In Bangladesh, the International Crimes Tribunal tried and convicted several leaders of the Islamic Razakarmilitias, as well as Bangladesh Muslim Awami league (Forid Uddin Mausood), of war crimes committed against Hindus during the 1971 Bangladesh genocide. The charges included forced conversion of Bengali Hindus to Islam. In the 1998 Prankote massacre, 26 Kashmiri Hindus were beheaded by Islamist militants after their refusal to convert to Islam. The militants struck when the villagers refused demands from the gunmen to convert to Islam and prove their conversion by eating beef. During the Noakhali riots of Hindus in 1946, several thousand Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam by Muslim mobs.” ref

“In 2001 the Indonesian army evacuated hundreds of Christian refugees from the remote Kesui and Teor islands in Maluku after the refugees stated that they had been forced to convert to Islam. According to reports, some of the men had been circumcised against their will, and a paramilitary group involved in the incident confirmed that circumcisions had taken place while denying any element of coercion.” ref

“The rise of Taliban insurgency in Pakistan has been an influential and increasing factor in the persecution of and discrimination against religious minorities, such as Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, and other minorities. In 2003 a six-year-old Sikh girl was kidnapped by a member of the Afridi tribe in Northwest Frontier Province; the alleged kidnapper claimed the girl was actually 12-years-old and had converted to Islam so therefore could not be returned to her non-Muslim family. Again forced conversions have been threatened or carried out in the context of war, insurgency, and intercommunal violence. Cases affecting thousands of people are reported to have occurred during the Partition of India, the Bangladesh Liberation War, in areas controlled by ISIS, and in Pakistan. Disputed allegations of forced conversion of young women have generated public controversy in Egypt and the UK.” ref

“In 2006 two journalists of the Fox News Network were kidnapped at gunpoint in the Gaza Strip by a previously unknown militant group. After being forced to read statements on videotape proclaiming that they had converted to Islam, they were released by their captors.” ref

“In May 2007, members of the Christian community of Charsadda in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, close to the border of Afghanistan, reported that they had received letters threatening bombings if they did not convert to Islam, and that the police were not taking their fears seriously. There have been a number of reports of attempts to forcibly convert religious minorities in Iraq. The Yazidi people of northern Iraq, who follow an ethnoreligious syncretic faith, have been threatened with forced conversion by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, who consider their practices to be Satanism. UN investigators have reported mass killings of Yazidi men and boys who refused to convert to Islam. In Baghdad, hundreds of Assyrian Christians fled their homes in 2007 when a local extremist group announced that they had to convert to Islam, pay the jizya or die. In March 2007 the BBC reported that people in the Mandaean ethnic and religious minority in Iraq alleged that they were being targeted by Islamist insurgents, who offered them the choice of conversion or death.” ref

“In June 2009, International Christian Concern (ICC) reported the rape and killing of a Christian man in Pakistan, for refusing to convert to Islam. Rinkle Kumari, a 19-year Pakistani student, Lata Kumari, and Asha Kumari, a Hindu working in a beauty parlor, were allegedly forced to convert from Hinduism to Islam. Their cases were appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Pakistanwhere they said that they wanted to live with their parents and not their ‘so-called’ husbands. In August 2009, International Christian Concern reported that four Christians working to help orphans in Somaliawere beheaded by Islamist extremists when they refused to convert to Islam. Allegations of Coptic Christian girls being forced to marry Arab Muslim men and convert to Islam in Egypt have been reported by a number of news and advocacy organizations and have sparked public protests. According to a 2009 report by the US State Department, observers have found it extremely difficult to determine whether compulsion was used, and in recent years no such cases have been independently verified. ” ref

“In 2010 also, 57 Hindus were forced to convert by their employer as his sales dropped after Muslims started boycotting his eatable items as they were prepared by Hindus. Since the impoverished Hindus had no other way to earn and needed to keep the job to survive, they converted. Many Hindus voluntarily convert to Islam for easily getting Watan Cards and National Identification Cards. These converts were also given land and money. For example, 428 poor Hindus in Matli were converted between 2009 and 2011 by the Madrassa Baitul Islam, a Deobandiseminary in Matli, which pays off the debts of Hindus converting to Islam. Another example is the conversion of 250 Hindus to Islam in Chohar Jamali area in Thatta. Conversions are also carried out by Deen Mohammad Shaikh mission which converted 108,000 people to Islam since 1989. In the early 2010s, the Nigerian extremist group Boko Haram is reported to have forced a kidnapped Christian woman to convert to Islam at knifepoint.” ref

“In 2014 alone, 265 legal cases of forced conversion were reported mostly involving Hindu girls. Many Hindu girls living in Pakistan are kidnapped, forcibly converted and married to Muslims. According to the Pakistan Hindu Council, religious persecution, especially forced conversions, remains the foremost reason for the migration of Hindus from Pakistan. Religious institutions like Bharchundi Sharif and Sarhandi Pir support forced conversions and are known to have support and protection of ruling political parties of Sindh. According to the National Commission of Justice and Peace and the Pakistan Hindu Council (PHC) around 1000 Christian and Hindu minority women are converted to Islam and then forcibly married off to their abductors or rapists. This practice is being reported increasingly in the districts of Tharparkar, Umerkot and Mirpur Khas in Sindh. According to another report from the Movement for Solidarity and Peace, about 1,000 non-Muslim girls are converted to Islam each year in Pakistan. According to the Amarnath Motumal, the vice chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, every month, an estimated 20 or more Hindu girls are abducted and converted, although exact figures are impossible to gather.” ref

“In 2017, the Sikh community in Hangu district of Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province alleged that they were “being forced to convert to Islam” by a government official. Farid Chand Singh, who filed the complaint, has claimed that Assistant Commissioner Tehsil Tall Yaqoob Khan was allegedly forcing Sikhs to convert to Islam and the residents of Doaba area are being tortured religiously. According to reports, about 60 Sikhs of Doaba had demanded security from the administration. Sikhs in Hangu district were being pressured to convert to Islam by a government official in 2017. And also in 2017, many members of the Indonesian Orang Rimba tribe, especially children, were being forced to renounce their folk religion and convert to Islam. A Christian woman in 2018 was raped repeatedly by a Boko Haram terrorist for refusing to convert to Islam and her son was killed.” ref

Hinduism

“Indian Christians have alleged that “radical Hindu groups” in Orissa, India have forced Christian converts from Hinduism to “revert” to Hinduism. These “religious riots” were largely between two tribal groups in Orissa, one of which was predominantly Hindu and another predominantly Christian, over the assassination of a Hindu leader named Swami Lakshmanananda by Maoistsoperating as terrorist groups in India (see Naxalite). In the aftermath of the violence, American Christian evangelical groups have claimed that Hindu groups are “forcibly reverting” Christians converts from Hinduism back to Hinduism. It has also been alleged that groups have converted poor Muslims and Christians to Hinduism against their will and through allurements. Similarly Hindus claim that Christian missionaries used money and free education to lure Hindus for conversion.” ref 

“In 2014 the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India criticized forced conversions of Christians to Hinduism. On these forced ‘reconversions’ to Hinduism: Some Hindu leaders have said they are simply reclaiming people. Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, major archbishop of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, said in a statement Dec. 23 that he was gravely concerned that “conversion events are being held under the label of ‘homecoming.’” He urged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene to address concerns surrounding “forcible conversions” across India, citing reports of such actions in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Kerala states. Some Hindu leaders have said that India is a Hindu nation, and the “reconversions” are simply reclaiming people who originally were Hindu. Some have called for a ban on conversions, since they say Indians should be Hindus. “Those who strayed were lured away. They were looted from us,” said Mohan Bhagwat, head of the National Volunteer Corps, known as the ideological fountainhead of Hindu nationalism. “When the thief is being caught and my property has been recovered, when I am taking back my own property, what is new in it?” Reports surfaced Dec. 9 that 57 migrant Muslim families were “reconverted” under the watchful eyes of members of a Hindu fundamentalist group in Uttar Pradesh.” ref

“Other reports referred to “ghar vapasi,” or reconversion, of Christians by Hindu fundamentalist groups in December. On Dec. 20, the World Hindu Council claimed to have reconverted 500 members of 100 tribal Christian families in a program in western Gujarat state. More than 40 Christians were reconverted a day later in two communities in southern Kerala state, and another 30 Christians “embraced Hinduism” in a ceremony at a Hindu temple, according to various broadcasts. “The government should take stringent steps to stop (such) coercive conversions,” Cardinal Thottunkal said. He also criticized calls for a law to ban conversions from Hinduism to other religions altogether, saying such a move would be “contrary to the rights enshrined in the constitution of the country.” Three Catholic bishops in New Delhi, representing India’s three Catholic rites, joined other Christian delegates in a meeting with Modi Dec. 24. They expressed disappointment after they said Modi told them there is no need for him to speak out against what is happening concerning conversions. Delhi Archbishop Anil Couto told CNS that Modi assured the leaders he would ensure the safety of Christians. The National United Christian Forum, of which the Catholic Church is a member, expressed “serious concern about the current situation of the minorities” Dec. 20. “We strongly oppose the call for a national ban on conversions,” the forum said. It said this amounted to “a direct attack on individuals’ freedom of conscience to choose one’s faith and on the freedom to profess, practice and propagate the faith of one’s choice” as enshrined in India’s constitution.” The forum also deplored India designating Dec. 25 as “good governance day” to celebrate the birthday of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The forum called the move an insult to Christians and an attempt “to undermine the importance of Christmas.” The government also withdrew a Dec. 9 announcement that would have kept schools across India open on Christmas Day after some members of the Indian Parliament questioned the move and Christians and secular groups protested.” ref

“Reports of forced conversions of Muslims girls to Hinduism in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh paint a sorry picture of the state of religious freedom in India 2017. A country that self-avowedly subscribes to the principles of a particular brand of secularism in which the state does not keep out of matters of faith but rather treats all faiths equally has failed to uphold its founding basis if forced conversions of the country’s religious minorities are carried out with impunity. Indeed there is a strong class factor to all of this as well as it is often the poor in the countryside who have to face such treatment; very few would dare to forcefully convert a family member of the rich and powerful. And it is also true that those belonging to underprivileged socioeconomic classes are less open to the idea of interfaith marriages or conversions, and hence in some cases an elopement may be passed by them as a forced conversion. However, even if forced conversions do not make up for the majority of the cases of religious conversions and marriages, they still merit the utmost condemnation and the state as well as the central government of India should be held accountable for it.” ref

“In April and May 2017, at least two instances of Muslims being converted to Hinduism have been recorded in Faizabad. Nineteen Muslims were converted on April 23, while 24 more were converted on May 20. Both sets of conversions took place in a temple in Faizabad, according to Surendra Kumar, an RSS worker in Ambedkar Nagar district, who helped organize the ceremony. And on October 2, 2018, 13 members of a Muslim family in Badarka village of Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, were converted to Hinduism. Akhtar Ali, 68, was renamed Dharam Singh. Three sons of Akhtar Ali, now Dharam Singh, also converted and changed their names from Dilshad to Diler, Naushad to Narendra and Irshad to Kavi. Those converted also included Akhtar’s three daughters-in-law, two grandsons and four granddaughters. Hindu Yuva Vahini activists said it was a case of “ghar wapsi” and conducted a havan as part of their “re-induction ceremony” at a local temple. Vahini’s district president Yogender Tomar said, “It is not a case of conversion, but reconversion. This family’s ancestors had converted to Islam some 5-6 generations ago. Now, they are back into Hinduism.” This is the latest case of conversion of Muslims by Hindu extremist organizations backed by Prime Minister Narinder Modi, who came into power in 2014 on the agenda of Hinduvita, which “forms the basis of an exclusionary national narrative focused exclusively on the rights of Hindus.” In simple terms, the key tenets of the Hindutva ideology are that (1) Hindus are the rightful rulers of India, which is a Hindu nation; (2) the Christian and, especially, Muslim minorities are viewed with ambivalence because their religious allegiances are not indigenous to India (in a way that those of Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains are).” ref

“In February this year, George Marlin of National Review wrote: “India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also belongs to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), widely considered to be the BJP’s parent entity and considered the world’s largest missionary organization. Modi’s rise to power has gone hand in hand with growing Hindu intolerance of Christianity and Islam. Fanatic adherents of radical Hindu nationalism regard both faiths as foreign imports that do not belong on Indian soil. The Dharama Jagran Samanvay Vibhag, an offshoot of the RSS, in December 2014 distributed pamphlets seeking donations from the public to help pay a Muslim Rs 5 lakh while in the case of a Christian Rs 2 lakh for conversion. The RSS has set a target of annually converting 100,000 each of Muslims and Christians to Hinduism.  According to Hindutva, the ideology of Indian nationalists determined to make their nation exclusively Hindu, every Indian is in some sense a Hindu even if he is Muslim or Christian. Hindutva is the driving force behind campaigns by the RSS and the Hindu World Council to aggressively reconvert the country’s Christians and Muslims. On Christmas Day 2014, close to 4,000 Christians and 1,000 Muslims were “reconverted.” The RSS has set its sights in particular on India’s northeastern states and its largely tribal populations. That is where the Church is having remarkable success at evangelization.” ref

Morality is about safety or comfort?

To me, morality is about safety/respect/pro-social behavior. I have heard it said that morality is reducible to well-being. This cannot be the case as this would mean morality is about comfort rather than safety. Think what would it look like if everything we do was expected to be comforting or unethical? Well-being is a great goal but the behavior of ethical standards is the safety, not comfort they involve. I do think that the safety of ethical standards can and often will add in well-being.

Deconstructing Pseudo-Morality with Axiology Understanding?

Get Behind Me With your Pseudo Religious-Morality

You look down on me without just cause, ranting your religious beliefs as if they have real value. However, your Pseudo Religious-Morals don’t even interest me, as if they have a real universal benefit to humanity, which they do not! So, yes, to you and your pseudo-moralistic thinking, I may express fallen morals. However, in this charge, I am proudly fallen, from such vile mental pollution as your pseudo-morality. And in so doing, I communicate respect and value for real morality indeed. But may I remind you, not only do I not need your fallen Pseudo Religious-Morals, I am demonstrably better off without them as I have TRUE reason uplifted universal-ethics, and that is something you don’t seem to demonstrate with any real accuracy, and for this, I look down on you with just cause. I hope I am always strong enough to put my morality at the forefront in all I do, so much so, that it is obvious in the ways I think and behave.

Axiological Morality Critique of Pseudo-Morality/Pseudomorality?

To me, “Pseudo Morality” is seen when holy books or people “cognitively reconstruct” an inhumane idea or behavior to make it into something different from that it is, to something more moral than what it actually is. Or turn something highly immoral into something highly moral. One way to do that is to cloak the behavior “in moral wrappings” or “in divine authority” such as god hates gays, gays are evil, thus killing gays is doing good by destroying evil. This thinking is obviously pseudomorality as gays are not evil but killing them is evil and inhumane idea or behavior thus very immoral. The god justified immorality into what is then called moral is some of the most common pseudomorality, though political leaders and others in power tend to employ it as well. They all are using “pseudomoral justifications” to describe something immoral as moral.

To better grasp, a naturalistic morality, one should see the perspective of how there is a self-regulatory effect on the self-evaluative moral emotions, such as shame and guilt. Broadly conceived, self-regulation distinguishes between two types of motivation: approach/activation and avoidance/inhibition. one should conceptually understand the socialization dimensions (parental restrictiveness versus nurturance), associated emotions (anxiety versus empathy), and forms of morality (proscriptive versus prescriptive) that serve as precursors to each self-evaluative moral emotion. Babies and morality: “They believe babies are in fact born with an innate sense of morality, and while parents and society can help develop a belief system in babies, they don’t create one. A team of researchers at Yale University’s Infant Cognition Center, known as The Baby Lab, showed us just how they came to that conclusion.” Ref

As an Axiological Atheist, I wish for Human Flourishing. 

“Eudaimonia (commonly translated as happiness or welfare; however, “human flourishing” is likely more accurate. It is a central concept in Aristotelian ethics and political philosophy, along with the terms “virtue” or “excellence”, and “practical or ethical wisdom”. In Aristotle’s works, eudaimonia was (based on older Greek tradition) used as the term for the highest human good, and so it is the aim of practical philosophy, including ethics and political philosophy, to consider (and also experience) what it really is, and how it can be achieved. One of the central concerns of ancient ethics involved discussion of the links between the virtue of character and happiness (eudaimonia). As with all other ancient ethical thinkers, Socrates thought that all human beings wanted eudaimonia more than anything else. seems to have thought that virtue is both necessary and sufficient for eudaimonia. Socrates is convinced that virtues such as self-control, courage, justice, piety, wisdom and related qualities of mind and soul are absolutely crucial if a person is to lead a good and happy (eudaimon) life. Virtues guarantee a happy life eudaimonia. For example, in the Meno, with respect to wisdom, he says: “everything the soul endeavours or endures under the guidance of wisdom ends in happiness” Ref

Real Morality vs. Pseudo Morality

+Morals (Personal Morality relating to a “self” morality): are not held by all in the same way since all are not held to Orthodox faith and though most start with good and bad or right and wrong values, which usually are personally, familially, socially or religiously give or in some way otherworldly defined, thus not universal.

+Ethics (Social Morality relating to a “others” morality): Ethics are not constrained by a given religion’s value systems to motivate its ideas of right and wrong instead it relies on universal truths found in universal principles of just human action. Ethics is set standers uses to personally engage with others and universal truths assist goals of universal ethical standards. Thus, ethics are general prosocial prescription we as morality aware beings in a rather universal way tend to have some awareness of and it is not just an awareness as in one who holds to ethics often get it applies to all peoples. Some may wish to devalue people but to do so is not really unethical, though often it can lead to unethical behavior. So what I am trying to highlight is how in the behavior that the ethics violation could occur as the internal attitude of devaluing others would only be a possible morals violation such as one who valued virtue and not getting it but failing by the persuasion of devaluing the life of other humans. This simple internal devaluing of humans, that they may be doing is vile. But ethics would not be involved until public behaviors with others, as such ethics is not so much a persuasion as an adherence to a standard(s) that should cover all thus it is highly applicable to utilize in environmental decision making.

Real Morality is referring to “ethics” (Social Morality relating to a “others” morality) as opposed to +Morals (Personal Morality relating to a “self” morality) because we use Real Morality or need to to assist in judging the behaviors in a social dynamic behavioral event or interaction and can only accrue in a social dynamic (social behavioral realm) as such all morality propositions removed from a social dynamic and which accrue only in a personal dynamic lack attachment to “Real Morality” referring to the social nature of “ethics.” In other words, if you are by yourself and do something only to yourself, it is neither ethical nor immorality; thus, doing a behavior that is only personal (a believed moral or otherwise) by yourself and only something to yourself, is amorality to everyone but that chosen person doing a behavior that is only personal.

One can choose to personally value some moral standard for themselves but because morals (the personal valued behaviors) as opposed to ethics (the interpersonal/social valued behaviors; which there is business never business morals as ethics is about our social-behaviors we can hold others to, whereas, morals are only something we can hold ourselves to). I hold the assumptions that to understand morality more fully we need to understand its synthesis and properties by emphasizing its relations to conceptual tools understanding motivation and behavior such as Biopsychosocial model, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, Care Ethics, Consequentialism, and Formal Axiology interactions across multiple levels.

Real Morality is an emergent aspect limited to a sphere of social dynamics (social) result in human progress and social evolution understood in mental processes of high cognitively developed beings (biological) with developed psychological quality of awareness (psychological) and the so-called moral facts and the values that support or motivate them is limited to the realm of possible harm psychological or physical (actual external world or experiential internal world).

Pseudo Morality is seen when holy books or people “cognitively reconstruct” an inhumane idea or behavior to make it into something different from that it is, to something more moral than what it actually is. Or turn something highly immoral into something highly moral. One way to do that is to cloak the behavior “in moral wrappings” or “in divine authority” such as god hates gays, gays are evil, thus killing gays is doing good by destroying evil. This thinking is obviously pseudo morality as gays are not evil but killing them is evil and inhumane idea or behavior thus very immoral. The god justified immorality into what is then called moral is some of the most common pseudo-morality, though political leaders and others in power tend to employ it as well. They all are using “pseudo-moral justifications” to describe something immoral as moral. True morality is not as simple as the golden rule.

True Morality Not the Golden Rule

“True morality is not as simple as the golden rule” 

True morality is a valued behavior we do that interacts with others; it is not really related to what we do to ourselves. Which is why I do not agree with the so-called golden rule as it is what you don’t want do to others but this fails in that its focused on ourselves which is us focused and true morality needs to be other focused on what valued behavior we do that interacts with others. I say treat others the way they should be treated. People have self-ownership, self-rights, right to dignity, freedom, and equality. True morality is a valued behavior we do that interacts with others starting with the conception that people matter, they have worth and value, It is in this way they should be treated. Real Morality is referring to “ethics” we use in judging the behaviors in a social dynamic behavioral event or interaction and can only accrue in a social dynamic (social behavioral realm) as such all morality propositions removed from a social dynamic and which accrue only in a personal dynamic lack attachment to “Real Morality” referring to the social nature of “ethics.” In other words, if you are by yourself and do something only to yourself, it is neither ethical nor immorality; thus, doing a behavior that is only personal (a believed moral or otherwise) by yourself and only something to yourself, is amorality to everyone but that chosen person doing a behavior that is only personal. I would like to offer my understanding of how I see the layout of morality, values, morals, and ethics as I see them.

I see the term “morality” proper as the main moniker to a philosophic group (values, morals, and ethics) or the main heading that involves the subheadings of values, morals, and ethics. Values, morals, and ethics, in a basic observational way, should be understood as falling under branches expressing different but similar thinking and behavioral persuasion. Values are the internal catalyst often motivating our thinking and behaviors. Such as a value of all human life, would tend to motivate you to not wantonly end human lives. Just as a lack of value for all human life, may tend to motivate you do not have an issue with the wanton ending of human lives. Morals to me, are the personal persuasion that you value, such as having a desire for truthfulness. Then we have ethics and we know this is a different branch of the morality tree, as there is business ethics/professional ethics but not really business morals or professional morals; other than one’s self-chosen persuasion which may be adopted from business ethics/professional ethics. Ethics are as I have expressed our social universal prescriptions/persuasions public morality whereas morals to me are personal morality. Therefore, we can hold others to universal ethics standards (public morality) and not our moral proclivities that are not universal on others, as morals are for us (personal morality).

Religions Promote Pseudo-Morality 

If you are a religious believer in your religions exclusive brand of confessed morality, may I remind you that faith in the acquisition of knowledge is not a valid method worth believing in. Because, what proof is “faith”, of anything religion claims by faith, as many people have different faith even in the same religion? All religions have some form of self-shaming institution, such as “sin” or its equivalents such as karma or something else often used to describe actions that create negative self-outlook or other-outlook where truly there is none. This idea of sin points out how religions promote pseudo-morality. The easiest aspect to grasp about pseudo-morality is when it is claimed that you can do something immoral to yourself that is pseudo-morality. True morality is how one conducts themselves with others. There is no ethical violation of self. To understand this concept considers how consent violations are unethical and how one does not need to get consent from oneself. Thus, there cannot be a consent violation against self and the aspect of sin is pseudo-morality, which promotes that there can be a violation of the self. Some will try to say that the violation is of a god but this is wrong because this is saying that someone else has control over what ethical things you do to yourself and what you do to yourself under your own consent.

Likewise, another aspect of pseudo-morality is how religions seem to take the position that those people over there are different. Once you separate yourself from others, it is a short step from that to dehumanizing them. Once you do that, you open the door to hate people and dehumanizing hate tends to lead to violence. Imagine you are god with all the normal powers claimed by religions: What would you do, to (for) the world, if you were god for a day? What wrongs would you right? What diseases would you wipe out? Who would you help? What peoples would you bless such that they were able to turn themselves around and really prosper? Now ask yourself: why does the religionist’s claimed god(s) not DO these things? Answer: because most humans just like you are more moral and caring than god(s) that is why

As an axiological atheist, I understand and utilize value or actually “Value Consciousness” to both give a strong moral “axiological” argument (the problem of evil) as well as use it to fortify my humanism and positive ethical persuasion of human helping and care. Value-blindness gives rise to sociopathic evil.

• Axiology, Morality and the Dignity Being:  “Human Entity”
• MORALITY: values, morals, and ethics
• Axiological Ethics not Pseudo Morality
• Morality: all subjective or all objective?
• Think there is no objective morality?
• I have questions for someone believing all morality is subjective
• Reason, Morality, and Emotions?
• Real Morality: Emotional Shame?
• Believe in Good, Humanist Morality?
• Natural Morality?
• Atheist Morality = Scientific Morality?
• Bible Morality and a Genocidal god of Watery Death?
• Axiological Atheism Morality Critique: of the bible god
• How Do I Gain a Morality Persuasion or Make a Change to it?
• Justice in the Workplace: morality/ethical dimensions
• No God: No evidence, No intelligence, and No goodness = Valid Atheism Conclusion

Faith and the Three Stooges: bhagavad-gita, bible & quran

Let us look at how faith plays out in the three stooges: the bhagavad-gita, bible, and quran.

1. The bhagavad-gita and faith: bhagavad-gita 1.18-22, promotes faith without understanding. bhagavad-gita 2.41, promotes faith as steadfast trust. bhagavad-gita, 4.39, promotes faith knowledge without human knowledge. bhagavad-gita 6.23 promotes that faith allows knowledge. bhagavad-gita 6.37, promotes lack of faith is reality focused. And bhagavad-gita 17.2-3, promotes position of faith makes position in life.
2. The bible and faith: Proverbs 1:7, promotes fear of god as the way to faith knowledge. Proverbs 3:5 promotes faith without understanding. Romans 10:10, promotes faith as justification. 1 Corinthians 2:5, promotes faith without human reason. 2 Corinthians 5:7, promotes faith without proof. And Hebrews 11:1, promotes faith as substance and evidence even if lacking both in reality.
3. The quran and faith: quran 48:4, promotes feelings as adding faith to faith. quran 9:87, promotes that without faith there is no proof. quran 58:22, promotes feelings of god as the way to faith. quran 16:22, promote trust in self as the reason faith is lacking. quran 2:108, promotes losing faith as not understanding by faith. And quran 3:160, promotes trusting faith whether good or bad happens.

Reason vs. Faith

Some WRONGLY think that valuing reason takes faith. So then somehow through uncritical thinking, reason is no better than faith. Which I aggressively attack as worthless, as any kind or type of method in the navigation or acquisition relating to the confirmation of anything at all.

To me, faith is literally as useful to knowledge establishment as blowing as hard as you can to stop a windstorm. Yes, after all, is said and done faith is just mental hot air. Moreover, back from the dark depths of faith and into the light of reason, there is not even a need for faith in choosing reason.

This is valid as reason is reliable and demonstratable. Reason can also do things faith cannot, such as offering improved outcomes and enhanced adherence to facts thus increased accuracy.

“Rational Thinking” not just “Empty Believing”

I do not favor the thinking that what is seen as rational for us to believe is something only dependent on how it fits or appears fit within one’s worldview or perspective on the world. Such as, if I believe the “Jolly Green Giant” fits or appears fit within one’s worldview or perspective on the world does not change its irrationality status in relation to reality thus we who want to be epistemically rational in our habits of beliefs, their qualities or inefficiencies, understanding or misunderstanding, agreement or rejection, refutation or ownership.

Therefore, we are benefited in removing “world perspective or worldview subjectivism” when thinking about what is seen as rational, a maximization of rationality, or how we may be inclined to reflect at the moment of discernment in belief acquisition, a reassessment in belief maintenance or prudence in belief relinquishment. I believe this is especially so in relation to what one would be inclined to believe as a result of epistemically rational reflection and honest open-minded evidence-gathering. The quandary should be less when should I look for new evidence before making a decision that I wish to always be open to new evidence as to me this is holding to the ethics of belief, epistemic rationality and the correspondence theory of truth, or simply saying our beliefs fit or connect to a high standard in relation to provable reality.

If you are a religious believer, may I remind you that faith in the acquisition of knowledge is not a valid method worth believing in. Because, what proof is “faith”, of anything religion claims by faith, as many people have different faith even in the same religion?

Theism is presented as adding love to your life…

But to me, more often it peddles in ignorance (pseudo-science, pseudo-history, and pseudo-morality), tribalism (strong in-group loyalty if you believe like them and aversion to difference; like shunning: social rejection, emotional distance, or ostracism), and psychological terrorism; primarily targeting well being both safety and comfort (you are born a sinner, you are evil by nature, you are guilty of thought crimes, threats of misfortune, suffering, and torture “hell”).

Why would we not reject this or not be against the promotion of woo-woo pseudo-truth, when I am very against all pseudo-science, pseudo-history, and pseudo-morality and the harm they can produce. Along with the hate, such as sexism and homophobia are too often seen or the forced indoctrination of children. And this coercive indoctrination of the world religions, with their pseudo-science, pseudo-history, and pseudo-morality mainly furthered by forced Hereditary Religion (family or cultural, religious beliefs forced on children because the parent or caregiver believes that way). This is sadly done, even before a child can be expected to successfully navigate reason; it’s almost as if religious parents believe their “woo-woo pseudo-truth” lies will not be so easily accepted if they wait on a mind that can make its own choice.

Because we do see how hard it is for the ones forced into Hereditary Religion. It seems difficult for them to successfully navigate reason in relation to their woo-woo pseudo-truth, found in a religion they were indoctrinationally taught to prefer, because after being instructed on how to discern pseudo-truth as truth than just wishing that their blind servitude belief in a brand of religious pseudo-truth devoid of justified, valid or reliable reason and evidence. I care because I am a rationalist, as well as an atheist.

Thus, this religious set of “woo-woo pseudo-truth” pushed on the simple-minded as truth bothers me greatly. So, here it is as simple as I can make it you first need a good thinking standard to address beliefs one may approach as a possible belief warranted to be believed. I wish to smash that lying pig of religion with the Hammer of Truth: Ontology, Epistemology, and Axiology Questions (a methodological use of philosophy). Overall, I wish to promote in my self and for others; to value a worthy belief etiquette, one that desires a sound accuracy and correspondence to the truth: Reasoned belief acquisitions, good belief maintenance, and honest belief relinquishment. May we all be authenticly truthful rationalists that put facts over faith.

I have made many mistakes in my life but the most common one of all is my being resistant to change. However, now I wish to be more, to be better, as I desire my openness to change if needed, not letting uncomfortable change hold me back. May I be a rationalist, holding fast to a valued belief etiquette: demanding reasoned belief acquisitions, good belief maintenance, and honest belief relinquishment.

I want a war of ideas where the loser is ignorance or hate and the victor is kindness and a rational mind. Not another religious war with people where the loser is always humanity no matter the victor. What I hope for with my discussions or expressed ideas is not so much to strive to change people’s mind. But instead, I wish to inspire your mind to reason and to thrive on the search for valid and reliable evidence as well as a high standard n your ethics of belief. This ethics of belief I hope everyone adopts is something like this: reasoned belief acquisitions, good belief maintenance, and honest belief relinquishment. Sadly the professed thing of hope, “Religion” can be an and too often is an easy excuse to do horrible things, which is clear throughout history.

A Rational Mind Values Humanity

A truly rational mind sees the need for humanity, as they too live in the world and see themselves as they actually are an alone body in the world seeking comfort and safety. Thus, see the value of everyone around them, as they too are the same and therefore, rationally as well a humanistically, we should work for this humanity we are part of. Moreover, we simply can either dwell in or help its flourishing (the humanity we are part of), as we are all in a metaphoric way, are in the hands of each other and communally need each other.

We rise by helping each other and we may fail if we keep going as hurtful as humans too often are to each other. May we be good humans. We can be builders of life or its destruction. The person is political so the actions of my life are the expression of my political values even before I tell you what brand I may claim. We are not our past, though we are bound to it. We are also not our future self yet.

So, just be the best you in the here and now. May the actions of my life be written deep with the poetry of my humanity. What do your actions say?

I want to make a difference in the world and try to bring hope and new thinking to others where I can. I also wish to champion kindness as often as I champion challenge in thinking and hope for wisdom as much as reason or doubt. I see it is easier to break others down than help them see a way back up. More than just my disbelief in religion and gods or all woo-woo, I hope people get how much I care about humanity and all the different people who are apart of it. We rise by helping each other. May I be thoughtful and care, as well as seek knowledge and share. May we all be good humans to ourselves and others.

A Value-Driven Life

I once thought which is better? Being liked, respected or valued. I realized that one could be liked without being respected or valued. I also realized one could be respected yet not liked or valued. Then I realized that if one is valued this holds the highest quality for being both liked and respected. So, I started seeing how important value was and decided to be a person worthy of value.

“Religion brings comfort in a world ripped apart from religion”

And whether religion unites as well as to polarizes it holds the main theme of still an ideology not based on reality.

“Reality is fine and all, but I think it usually becomes better when we have some way of making it meaningful to us through storytelling in religions.” – commenter 

My response, Do you think this “meaning through storytelling” is so important you would champion inventing religions if they were never invented? Or would you support something built on our current understanding of the world?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

I was a Christian as I was raised until 2006 at 35, I turned atheist, after two religious study classes, especially after learning archaeology and historical facts as well as understanding religion and science better.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref 

Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey 

“How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“These ideas are my speculations from the evidence.”

I am still researching the “god‘s origins” all over the world. So you know, it is very complicated but I am smart and willing to look, DEEP, if necessary, which going very deep does seem to be needed here, when trying to actually understand the evolution of gods and goddesses. I am sure of a few things and less sure of others, but even in stuff I am not fully grasping I still am slowly figuring it out, to explain it to others. But as I research more I am understanding things a little better, though I am still working on understanding it all or something close and thus always figuring out more. 

Sky Father/Sky God?

“Egyptian: (Nut) Sky Mother and (Geb) Earth Father” (Egypt is different but similar)

Turkic/Mongolic: (Tengri/Tenger Etseg) Sky Father and (Eje/Gazar Eej) Earth Mother *Transeurasian*

Hawaiian: (Wākea) Sky Father and (Papahānaumoku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*

New Zealand/ Māori: (Ranginui) Sky Father and (Papatūānuku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*

Proto-Indo-European: (Dyḗus/Dyḗus ph₂tḗr) Sky Father and (Dʰéǵʰōm/Pleth₂wih₁) Earth Mother

Indo-Aryan: (Dyaus Pita) Sky Father and (Prithvi Mata) Earth Mother *Indo-European*

Italic: (Jupiter) Sky Father and (Juno) Sky Mother *Indo-European*

Etruscan: (Tinia) Sky Father and (Uni) Sky Mother *Tyrsenian/Italy Pre–Indo-European*

Hellenic/Greek: (Zeus) Sky Father and (Hera) Sky Mother who started as an “Earth Goddess” *Indo-European*

Nordic: (Dagr) Sky Father and (Nótt) Sky Mother *Indo-European*

Slavic: (Perun) Sky Father and (Mokosh) Earth Mother *Indo-European*

Illyrian: (Deipaturos) Sky Father and (Messapic Damatura’s “earth-mother” maybe) Earth Mother *Indo-European*

Albanian: (Zojz) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*

Baltic: (Perkūnas) Sky Father and (Saulė) Sky Mother *Indo-European*

Germanic: (Týr) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*

Colombian-Muisca: (Bochica) Sky Father and (Huythaca) Sky Mother *Chibchan*

Aztec: (Quetzalcoatl) Sky Father and (Xochiquetzal) Sky Mother *Uto-Aztecan*

Incan: (Viracocha) Sky Father and (Mama Runtucaya) Sky Mother *Quechuan*

China: (Tian/Shangdi) Sky Father and (Dì) Earth Mother *Sino-Tibetan*

Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian: (An/Anu) Sky Father and (Ki) Earth Mother

Finnish: (Ukko) Sky Father and (Akka) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*

Sami: (Horagalles) Sky Father and (Ravdna) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*

Puebloan-Zuni: (Ápoyan Ta’chu) Sky Father and (Áwitelin Tsíta) Earth Mother

Puebloan-Hopi: (Tawa) Sky Father and (Kokyangwuti/Spider Woman/Grandmother) Earth Mother *Uto-Aztecan*

Puebloan-Navajo: (Tsohanoai) Sky Father and (Estsanatlehi) Earth Mother *Na-Dene*

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Sky Father/Sky Mother “High Gods” or similar gods/goddesses of the sky more loosely connected, seeming arcane mythology across the earth seen in Siberia, China, Europe, Native Americans/First Nations People and Mesopotamia, etc.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Hinduism around 3,700 to 3,500 years old. ref

 Judaism around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (The first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew” dated to around 3,000 years ago Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley. And many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed around 2,500) ref, ref

Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)

“Judaism is an Abrahamic, its roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Some scholars argue that modern Judaism evolved from Yahwism, the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, by the late 6th century BCE, and is thus considered to be one of the oldest monotheistic religions.” ref

“Yahwism is the name given by modern scholars to the religion of ancient Israel, essentially polytheistic, with a plethora of gods and goddesses. Heading the pantheon was Yahweh, the national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah, with his consort, the goddess Asherah; below them were second-tier gods and goddesses such as Baal, Shamash, Yarikh, Mot, and Astarte, all of whom had their own priests and prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees, and a third and fourth tier of minor divine beings, including the mal’ak, the messengers of the higher gods, who in later times became the angels of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yahweh, however, was not the ‘original’ god of Israel “Isra-El”; it is El, the head of the Canaanite pantheon, whose name forms the basis of the name “Israel”, and none of the Old Testament patriarchs, the tribes of Israel, the Judges, or the earliest monarchs, have a Yahwistic theophoric name (i.e., one incorporating the name of Yahweh).” ref

“El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning “god” or “deity“, or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ‘ila, represents the predicate form in Old Akkadian and in Amorite. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil-, meaning “god”. Specific deities known as ‘El or ‘Il include the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Mesopotamia’s Early Dynastic Period. ʼĒl is listed at the head of many pantheons. In some Canaanite and Ugaritic sources, ʼĒl played a role as father of the gods, of creation, or both. For example, in the Ugaritic texts, ʾil mlk is understood to mean “ʼĒl the King” but ʾil hd as “the god Hadad“. The Semitic root ʾlh (Arabic ʾilāh, Aramaic ʾAlāh, ʾElāh, Hebrew ʾelōah) may be ʾl with a parasitic h, and ʾl may be an abbreviated form of ʾlh. In Ugaritic the plural form meaning “gods” is ʾilhm, equivalent to Hebrew ʾelōhîm “powers”. In the Hebrew texts this word is interpreted as being semantically singular for “god” by biblical commentators. However the documentary hypothesis for the Old Testament (corresponds to the Jewish Torah) developed originally in the 1870s, identifies these that different authors – the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and the Priestly source – were responsible for editing stories from a polytheistic religion into those of a monotheistic religion. Inconsistencies that arise between monotheism and polytheism in the texts are reflective of this hypothesis.” ref

Jainism around 2,599 – 2,527 years old. ref

Confucianism around 2,600 – 2,551 years old. ref

Buddhism around 2,563/2,480 – 2,483/2,400 years old. ref

Christianity around 2,o00 years old. ref

Shinto around 1,305 years old. ref

Islam around 1407–1385 years old. ref

Sikhism around 548–478 years old. ref

Bahá’í around 200–125 years old. ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Expressions of Atheistic Thinking:

• Around 2,600 years ago, Ajita Kesakambali, ancient Indian philosopher, who is the first known proponent of Indian materialism. ref
• Around 2,535 to 2,475 years ago, Heraclitus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor or modern Turkey. ref
• Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, according to The Story of Civilization book series certain African pygmy tribes have no identifiable gods, spirits, or religious beliefs or rituals, and even what burials accrue are without ceremony. ref
• Around 2,490 to 2,430 years ago, Empedocles, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. ref
• Around 2,460 to 2,370 years ago, Democritus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher considered to be the “father of modern science” possibly had some disbelief amounting to atheism. ref
• Around 2,399 years ago or so, Socrates, a famous Greek philosopher was tried for sinfulness by teaching doubt of state gods. ref
• Around 2,341 to 2,270 years ago, Epicurus, a Greek philosopher known for composing atheistic critics and famously stated, “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?” ref

This last expression by Epicurus, seems to be an expression of Axiological Atheism. To understand and utilize value or actually possess “Value Conscious/Consciousness” to both give a strong moral “axiological” argument (the problem of evil) as well as use it to fortify humanism and positive ethical persuasion of human helping and care responsibilities. Because value-blindness gives rise to sociopathic/psychopathic evil.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):

Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist, Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Jeweler, Poet, “autodidact” Philosopher, schooled in Psychology, and “autodidact” Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Pre-Historian (Knowledgeable in the range of: 1 million to 5,000/4,000 years ago). I am an anarchist socialist politically. Reasons for or Types of Atheism

My Website, My Blog, & Short-writing or Quotes, My YouTube, Twitter: @AthopeMarie, and My Email: damien.marie.athope@gmail.com