Religious freedom shrinking worldwide

[rug]

Looks like the screaming was wrong. On both sides.

A decade back, the religious right said secularists would sacrifice freedom of religion to a tyrannical, God-denying state.

Meanwhile, secularists were warning that "fundamentalists" would seize power and suffocate freedom of speech, even thought.

What’s actually happened, according to a new Pew study, is that governments and social movements are combining to limit religious freedom worldwide.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/religion/faith-and-values/sfl-fv-blog-religious-rights,0,6026121.story

[darkstar3]

1. So religious groups have seized power and are squelching out the freedom of others to speak?

Sounds like the "secularists" called it.

[rug]

2. Yeah, that's exactly what the report concluded.

http://pewforum.org/Government/Rising-Restrictions-on-Religion%282%29.aspx

[darkstar3]

3. It is, if you think about it.

1. Who is doing the restricting? Religious-backed governments around the world.
2. What are they restricting? Other religions.
3. What is religion? One of the more basic forms of speech.

So religious assholes have seized governmental power and are using it to suffocate freedom of speech. As I said, it really reads to me as though the "secularists" called it.

[rug]

4. What religion is backing China?

[darkstar3]

5. The same one backing France: "All of them" as bogeyman.

But of course, that's the outlier and not the rule. If you'd bothered to look at the tables of the report you'd see that the most restrictive countries, both those that have been historically restrictive and those that have seen an increase, have a clear common thread once you remove the outliers of China and France. Care to guess what it is?

I swear to fuck if I said that water was wet you'd find a way to disagree with me and then run off singing "trolololol-lollol-lol-lol."

[rug]

6. It's not credible to claim a country of 1.2 billion is an outlier.

[darkstar3]

13. It's not credible to claim that a single data point on a graph is representative.

Look at the data points in the study provided. What are they?

Countries.

Now, I didn't make the rules of data analysis. If you have a group of data points, and they all fit into the same field or trendline except for one or two, those one or two are referred to as outliers.

That's what China and France are in this group of data points. They do not fit into the field that encompasses all the rest, like Egypt, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, etc.

Furthermore, the entire topic of the study has to do with worldwide decreases in religious freedom. China is one blip on that map.

You might also consider that China allows state-sponsored religions to thrive, as long as they toe the Communist Party lines set out for them. So once again, we have some religions being subjugated in favor of others, just as the "secularists" predicted.

And water is wet.

[rug]

14. 1.2 billion people is a hell of a data point.

Saudi Arabia must dwarf it.

[darkstar3]

15. "trololololol-lollol-lol-lol"

[LeftishBrit]

11. Communism

All right, it's an ideology not a religion. But in the case of China it's treated EXACTLY like a religion in some other authoritarian countries. The powers that be use the trappings of Communism as a tool for suppressing freedom - but if anyone suggested that the party elites should give up some of their wealth and privileges in the interest of greater equality of their citizens, they would be just as outraged as Christian tyrants at the idea that their religion asks them to sell what they have and give to the poor, and tells them that they can't serve God and Mammon, or Muslim tyrants at being told that the Koran tells them to be charitable to those in need and not to be boastful or arrogant. Brutal authoritarianism mixed with pure hypocrisy in all these cases.

[rug]

12. I think it's more state power as an ideology unto itself than communism.

China has long abandoned the ideology of socialism, let alone communism which, after all, results from the "withering away" of the state after a socialist society has been achieved, in the classic Marxist formulation. Your post below noting authoritarianism as the source of repression, not just religious repression, is accurate. The common thread running through the most repressive governments is authoritarianism, which will use any ideology handy to maintain itself, whether that ideology be religious or secular.

[AndyTiedye]

7. Agree that the Secularists Were Right All Along

The fact that fundies of various stripes have been using governmental power to force their religion on others is no surprise at all. That is what they do.

[rug]

8. You disagree with the report then.

[proudlib8134]

9. +1

[LeftishBrit]

10. Interesting and sad

But I disagree that it is a paradox that 'Restrictions have grown in many countries that have laws against blasphemy and religious defamation.' Authoritarianism of any sort, whether it enjoins worship of gods or of governments (e.g. China, North Korea) or both (e.g. Iran, Saudi Arabia), implies restriction, and those who restrict the rights of secularists are very likely also to restrict the rights of minority religions.

"While such laws are sometimes promoted as a way to protect religion, in practice they often serve to punish religious minorities whose beliefs are deemed unorthodox or heretical."

Indeed.

As do any laws that suppress freedom of speech or opinion - e.g. laws against criticism of the government.

[cleanhippie]

16. Of course it is, but its NOT due to non-believers, its because OF the majority religion.