Religious intolerance on the rise worldwide, says US report

[cbayer]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/20/religious-intolerance-on-rise-worldwide?newsfeed=true

Pew Research Centre report says the US and UK are among countries showing a worrying rise in religious discrimination

Peter Beaumont
The Guardian, Thursday 20 September 2012 10.31 EDT


Police officers stand guard during a protest against the film Innocence of Muslims outside the US embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. Photograph: Tatan Syuflana/AP

Three-quarters of the world's 7 billion population live in countries with high levels of government restriction on religion or where there exist serious "social hostilities" involving faith issues, according to researchers, with the US and the UK among countries showing a worrying rise in religious discrimination.

A research project conducted by the US thinktank Pew Research Centre's Forum on Religion and Public Life, whose findings were published on Thursday under the title The Rising Tide of Restrictions on Religion, identified a sharp rise in religious restrictions worldwide. It reports a staggering 6% increase in restrictions in the four years until 2010.

The survey is the second successive one by Pew to note rising intolerance worldwide.

Painting a stark picture of a "rising tide" of intolerance and government restrictions on religious matters, the report cites evidence including "crimes, malicious acts and violence motivated by religious hatred or bias, as well as increased government interference with worship or other religious practices".

more at link

[cleanhippie]

1. Aren't these governmental restrictions being DRIVEN by religious oppression?

What it boils down to is one religion trying to oppress the rest, no? Its NOT secular governments doing this, its THEOCRATIC ones, right?

[Goblinmonger]

4. Yep. The key phrase from the OP is

crimes, malicious acts and violence motivated by religious hatred or bias

I don't think these are atheists attacking people because of their religion. As much as people in this forum have a hard on to think that is the case.

[cleanhippie]

6. They spend so much time looking OUT the window for intolerance, they never turn around to see

who is standing behind them with duct tape.

[trotsky]

10. A small detail of little consequence.

Religious intolerance is growing! Don't you atheists feel ashamed?

[SarahM32]

31. Yes. It's driven by the "Religious Right," mainly the "Fundamentalist Christian Right," not Atheists

Cleanhippie, you're right. Bigoted Theocrats are causing it, whether they call themselves Christian, Jew or Muslim.

[bowens43]

2. I have no problem with religious intolerance

as long as that intolerance extends to all deity based religions.

[cbayer]

3. You have no problem with religious intolerance?

Are you looking to change our constitution?

Are you ok with racial intolerance as well?

[nichomachus]

5. In the US, the churches are the ones most guilty of religious intolerance

[cleanhippie]

7. I think that is true world-wide. Religious intolerance COMES from religion, not from non-religion.

It's a problem of their own making.

[Goblinmonger]

8. Just look at the majority of the SCOTUS cases regarding 1st Amendment religion.

The vast majority are from one religion being pissed that another religion is doing something and NOT because an atheist is pissed about the religious.

[cbayer]

9. And that information comes from where exactly?

I think if you look at the SPLC's information on hate groups, and specifically at those related to religion, you will see that while many of the groups claim some religion basis for their hate, they are not churches.

http://www.splcenter.org/node/3502/activegroups

[cleanhippie]

11. A church need not be on the SPLC's "hate group" list to be intolerant of other religions.

Is Rick Warren's church on that list? Joel Osteen's? I could go on and on. The point is, it need not be labeled a "hate" group for it's religious intolerance to exist.

[nichomachus]

12. The news

[cbayer]

13. What news? While there are some stories about churches preaching and acting

on religious intolerance, that hardly backs up you statement.

[cleanhippie]

15. Pay attention class, this is textbook denial right here.

Come on cbayer, no need to be so obtuse. What is it you are trying to defend?

[Angry Dragon]

16. Years ago I read a newspaper article in the Minneapolis Tribune

about a conference among churches to address religious intolerance.
The Catholic Church came out with a statement stating that they would be tolerant of other religions as long as those other religions acknowledged that the Catholic Church was the only true path to salvation.
I was so taken back by the statement that I clipped out the article and held on to it for years.
Since then it has been misplaced other wise I would post it here.

It is the religions that are the most intolerant of other religions.
And it is not that non-believers or questioning believers are against religions it is that they do not want religions forcing their beliefs on them.

[cbayer]

17. Link? Surely you can find a copy of said article somewhere on the internet.

And beg to differ. There are definitely groups of the non-religious that are anti-theists.

[Angry Dragon]

18. It was a long time ago

Yes there are anti-theist groups however we were talking about degrees and the religions are the worst and many of them

The news is full of Christians attacking other religions and I see very few of their churches coming out and condeming them for their comments and saying that they do not talk for our church and if they continue that they will kick them out.

[cbayer]

19. The internet has a long memory.

When you make blanket statements, you should be prepared to back them up.

Attacks are sexy and the media loves them. Those coming out in support of tolerance, civil liberties and social justice - not so much.

You seem to see the "church" as a big monolithic structure in which some can be "kicked out".

That's not the case.

[Angry Dragon]

20. I see each church as a monolithic structure

The Catholic Church has had no problem over the years threating to excommunicate members for speaking out against the church or making statements that the church did not endorse.

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pamphlet 1998 calls the Mormon Church anti-Christian nature of Mormonism. I am looking at this pamphlet right now. Calls them an anti-Christian cult.

What statements have I made tha tI did not back up??

[cbayer]

22. "The Catholic Church came out with a statement stating that they would be tolerant of other religion

as long as those other religions acknowledged that the Catholic Church was the only true path to salvation." I can't find anything to back that up.

We are talking here about ""crimes, malicious acts and violence motivated by religious hatred or bias, as well as increased government interference with worship or other religious practices". You have made statements that churches are most responsible for this kind of intolerance and that no one speaks up against it.

I have supplied hard data from the SPLC about who they have identified specifically as hate groups against muslims. While many claim religious justifications, they are not churches.

Many denominations and churches have spoken out against these kinds of hate groups. News of that gets posted here frequently, but you may have missed those.

The Lutherans saying that the Mormons are anti-Christian may be intolerant, but not at the level the Pew Study is looking at.

Groups like Westboro Baptist Church are under no one's jurisdiction and can't be "thrown out" of anything. I don't know of any large, established denominations that would tolerate hate groups in their midst, though they may have doctrine which flies in the face of what we consider liberal/progressive goals.

[Angry Dragon]

23. I stand by my reading of the article. Unless you want to call me a liar.

I can picture the article in my mind and can tell you when I read it it was an article that was continued on another page with a picture of the person that made the comment. The reason I remember it is because I found at the time it really pissed me off.

Intolerance breeds fear, fear breeds hate.

[cbayer]

24. Not calling you a liar at all, I would just like to read it in context.

Intolerance does breed fear and fear does breed hate, that's why I am opposed to anti-theists and those that are intolerant of religion and religious believers.

[Angry Dragon]

25. I read and clipped it many years ago

It was in the Star Tribune of Minneapolis
I have not seen anything from the Catholic Church to dispute that article

[cbayer]

26. Have you seen anything to support it?

[Angry Dragon]

27. I am not sure what you are asking

It was a comment that was made by a person speaking for the Catholic Church ......... he was quoted
I am not sure if he was a spokesman, priest, bishop or cardinal

I have experienced intolerance of the Catholic Church since I was in my teens

[cbayer]

28. I am not questioning your personal experience, Angry Dragon, and I am

sorry, but not surprised, that you have personally experienced such intolerance. It is not my claim that the catholic church exhibits no intolerance. It certainly does.

[cleanhippie]

32. Man, cbayer, you REALLY feel the need to blame it all on non-believers, don't you.

Careful now, YOUR intolerance is showing.

[trotsky]

21. What you apparently want to believe is that it's primarily non-religious groups being intolerant.

Which of those non-religious groups are listed at the SPLC, and which of those (given your specific criteria, that's only fair, right?) specifically name their non-religion (or anti-theism) as the reason for the hate?

Your silence will reveal the hypocrisy and double standard.

[cleanhippie]

14. [phone]

[dimbear]

29. Blair Scott......

Of Alabamaatheist fame: he gets lots of death threats, (thousands) but to his surprise in a country as religiously diverse as America, they essentially all come from Christians.

Other religions? Just not committed, I guess.

http://www.alabamaatheist.org/

[SarahM32]

30. It's no wonder, with the increasing volume of hatemongers on the "Religious Right"

And I don't mean just the "Religious Christian Right." I mean all aggressive, right-wing bigots who masquerade as religious Christians or Jews or Muslims who claim their religion is superior to all others and is destined to rule.

Read Why the "Religious Right" Is Wrong.
.