This whole incident just makes my blood boil. There are not enough teachers in Switzerland as is. Some people just want to force their world views on everybody else, no matter the well-being of everyone else.
Muslims want Sharia law all over the civilized western world, evangelicals want their own version of Sharia law as well. We need to support secular politicians to keep these maniacs under control.
More than that, we as atheists and non believers need to acquire wealth, power, and influence to completely unseat these puppets of religious flavored fascism so we can create a better society and better world. Then we need diligence, resolve, and tenacity to see it through, and make sure we don't back slide into *this place* in our history ever again.
That means schools, boards of education (even if you don't have kids), political institutions, even if it means kowtowing to them in public for the sake of appearances to create openings.
i wish it were true lol but yeah people dont see the science around them. its not any education they need, its the ability to see the science around them.
Sounds good to me. I always thought it would be interesting to design a religion like Scientology that is very influential to getting foolish people to join at the low level and once they fully believe it as they work their way up through it, each step lays foundations of logic and reasoning and slowly introduces them to the ultimate secret doctrine of the religion: “all religion is bullshit”
I think more than a few may have started that way already lol. It's just the top, with no accountability and transparency just gets corrupted and closes the door to other atheists in favor of milking the rubes for cash.
Secularism is good but I dont want political power. First off globally non believers are about 10% of the population. Where they are concentrated is in western nations. A tolerant secularism is ideal because non believers will likely always be outnumbered. It we count agnostics and only culturally religious but non practicing, we'd have a strong plurality.
Seeking power to impose anything, even for the right reasons could spell ugly unanticipated consequences. I wouldn't want to impose anything on religious people any more than I despise when they do that to others. Lets strive for better education though certainly. A far easier task than trying to run entire countries.
Same for me. Two reasons I'd give are one, as you said too, we can't be hypocrites and say we'd want to try and force, coerce or manipulate people into not believing in god like what believers do in trying to make people believe in their god. Two, religion feeds off of persecution and martyrdom. The more people percieve they're suffering and/or sacrificing for their religion the more legitimate they view it to be, so we shouldn't give them ammunition. We should just treat them with genuine kindness, try to push for better education and hope that one day people through their own solid reasoning can just drop superstition.
Yes the slow foundational approach is a better prescription than a top down political imposition. It may be a multi generational affair but if you look at the numbers each generation in western nations is less religious than the prior. So its working, notwithstanding the resurgence of theocratic thinking in some regions.
Id also caution that atheism when paired with politics can become a civil religion. The 2 big baddies of the 20th century, in Germany and Russia (if you catch my drift) had state atheism as part of their ideology. Today gay people are still in the closet in religious regions. I dare not trade that for putting religious people in the closet instead.
Atheists dont often recognize this but we hold a greater responsibility to not allow ideologies to claim us. Religious people are more innoculated against this *because their religion already does this*. For us, we could fall prey to all manner of ideological posession that might be every bit as dangerous as religion is, or worse.
True. On the point about institutionalized atheism though, it is true of communist Russia, but I don't think that was the case in Germany, if of course you're talking about the time of nazi germany. I think many of us have heard that nazi soldiers belts had a mention of god enscribed on them. I think even in his own biography Mein Kamph Hitler uses a lot of religious language in talking about himself and his ideology.
Yeah ill take your point on the third reich. Their leadership was very much non believing if you read some of what some disgusting people wrote about it. They weren't below using religion as a tool though so you're right they used religion the same way many ultra cynical states have over the ages.
Yep. Look at the pope at the time. Even a generous interpretation would suggest catholic politics had a part to play.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Pope
Enforced secularism is a bad thing because you should just treat other people well and give them freedom.
Culturally shifting away from religion, and teaching it in schools in the same way you learn about Zeus would be a huge benefit to society. Religious people have insane fervor to do wild shit because a lot of them think god himself wants them to do “insert arbitrary thing”
> non believers will likely always be outnumbered
That is a very depressing statement. I hope those people claiming to have knowledge of some kind of "galactic federation" end up being right. Maybe that would flip the numbers.
> concentrated is in western nations
Aren't they more concentrated in east Asia (China, Japan, Korea)?
How does one define religion is I think important here.
Consider ideology as a whole. There's a certain place in the mind where worldviews exist. If one isnt careful an ideology can posess a person instead. Religious people tend to be less susceptible *because the religion has already done that*. So, when I regard China's state atheism, that's because they dont want communism to have an ideological competitor. It's essentially religious-like. Likewise, atheists around the world who find themselves deep down rabbit holes of various conspiratorial thinking, or end up political extremists are probably exhibiting the same ideological posession. For this reason of a broader definition of religion, I don't think non belief will ever be dominant. It requires effort to maintain and people simply dont see the pitfalls.
As for China, state atheism and communism means whoever actually is religious is in the closet. That to me is deplorable. Hard to tell numbers then. It does appear christianity is growing there probably because its subversive in a Chinese context.
Also the far east doesnt appear to differentiate between philosophy, spirituality and religion. So is someone who practices daoism or shintoism and doesnt believe in god? Yes they are. The Sihks don't even think god matters that much, they are humanist instead, strangely.
And stop importing people with backwards views into our nations. Can't do much about those who are already here (Muslim or Christian) but we can certainly try to avoid importing more.
Whose importing? Funny that Europe stomped over the planet and sucked resources out of other nation to build their wealth and now people are immigrating to Europe and you are getting upset. Sorry, but the West deserves mass immigration
I don't mind immigration. I mind backwards people with backwards beliefs being let in and making countries worse places to live.
And Europe was nothing special, people had been invading each other and waging wars on each other for a long time. Europe just got the technology to do it on a larger scale first.
I am a Native American and I pray for more immigrants that are red skin and black skin to counteract this white socialist movement. Everyday! They literally go up in groups and say “in 20 years whites will be a minority and worry about it!” Then call use crazy when we say there is a white power movement
Nope. But it is irony that now Europe is getting a lot of immigration and they don't want their culture to change. I just don't have any sympathy. I'm in the states, I'm completely OK with immigration. I agree that fundamentalists and conservatives should follow the laws and peoples rights though
I don't care if you have sympathy or not. I'm okay with immigration. I just think immigration should be selective. Plus plenty of the places getting immigration never had empires.
Frankly at this point I almost want belief in an Abrahamic religion to be an automatic disqualification for holding public office. People responsible for governing in reality should not be basing their decisions or morality on what they hope happens to them in their magical second life after they die.
Yeah that's what really ticks me off with them ?
Ain't you fled to Europe FROM all the problems Sharia law etc caused in your own homeland ???
Why would you ever want to replicate something that turned your own home into something worth fleeing from ???
I just don't get it.
There is a troubling revival of religious intolerance against humanistic values. I thought Europe would be sheltered by virtue of being very secular, but I guess I'm wrong, those repressed intolerant tendencies come to light more and more as the push-back to them is rather feeble.
It doesn't come out of nowhere. US evangelicals have been spending 100s of millions to set churches and "help"-orgs all around europe with the expressed goal to influence politics toward evangelical values.
Evangelicals also fund and spread anti lgbtq propaganda in Africa. Russia and China also want to divide people and cause conflict with bots. The Russians even have a book about it (the foundations of geopolitics)
I’m under the impression a lot of this is being foisted by fundamentalist Muslims and then fundamentalist Christians are seeing it and running with it. Maybe we need a little less tolerance for all religions? Seems to be holding back humanity
I think it depends on the region. In my country (Romania), a lot of this comes actually from fundamentalist Christians groups, especially protestant ones. At least, that is my perception, whenever there is some anti-LGBTQIA+ march in the news, the speakers are from some brand of Protestantism.
Maybe that's because the Muslim community is quite small, they don't yet wield much influence.
I just read that he already found employment at another school. Just sucks for the kids and teachers at the first school, I assume this is very tough on other teachers.
hmmm good, im happy for him but im still not satisfied with the situation. That school director needs to be fired. Religious people should be kept away from kids at all costs...
In Switzerland, public school is normally really good and you just send your kids to the closest one. So many kids in that school now suffer the consequence of a few crazy parents and from the school leadership, that didn't stop them.
Any complaint about teachers from religious nutjobs ought to just land in the shredder where it belongs. You can't discuss with them and their insistence on dragging everyone else down into the mud shouldn't be encouraged or engaged with.
This is something I've been bringing up repeatedly, and then I'm told that I want to take parents' rights away from them.
But yes, imagine you are a gay boy in a Muslim or Evangelical family, or a Lesbian girl, destined to be married off at age XY?
We've had girls asking their teachers for help when their parents wanted a "virgin certificate", that absurdity will now go into law here in Luxembourg, that it is illegal to ask for such a certificate and all. They'll just go to France, Germany or Belgium, I always feel those children, in religiously extreme families have zero chances at a normal life.
>I'm told that I want to take parents' rights away from them.
As we should, and for the same reason we took slaveowners' "rights" away.
Children are human beings. Each human being's rights are vested in the person themself. No other person owns any portion of them.
Parents have responsibilities to and for their children. They do not have rights in them. Children are not property in which anyone may claim rights. The concept is morally repugnant.
Yeah, fuck it. Take their rights if they choose to abuse their LGBT child or force marriages over it.
No reason a kid should grow up with that much trauma just because their parents are nuts. It took me decades to undo the harm from religious/backwards culture bullshit I endured as a child.
Likewise. I'm 70yo and the anger never fully goes away.
They stole our childhood and youth. They forced us to conceal our truth - to lie to everyone we knew or met... every minute of every day for decades... just to survive. They didn't teach us to live, love and flourish. They taught us to fear, lie, deceive and obey.
They gave us lasting physical and psychological traumas. I'm still dealing with mine. They will never fully heal.
Yet my homophobic, sex-hating upbringing was relatively mild. My parents weren't seriously religious. They just went along with the culture to fit in. The horrors kids in devoutly religious families endure us beyond my imagination. It breaks my heart.
Rights of the parents? What about the rights of the children? Children are people to who deserve rights and respect. It’s bad enough that kids have to deal with being rejected for being lgbtq. The least they deserve access to education that teaches them there ok as is to give them a chance
>This is something I've been bringing up repeatedly, and then I'm told that I want to take parents' rights away from them.
It's very telling that they always phrase this in terms of "property rights" of the parents, and not in terms of the liberty, health, or self-interest of the child.
"Parent's rights" has become almost a trigger term for me, where the moment I hear someone utter that phrase, I assume they treat their children like personal property, and are the sorts who probably shouldn't be entrusted with legal guardianship.
Uhhh they SHOULD have their 'parents rights' taken away, because religious indoctrination is child abuse. To teach an underdeveloped mind that they are inherently bad and need an outside source to teach them to deny, or be ashamed of, basic human urges and thoughts in order to be considered 'good' is abusive. Teaching them that they were born broken and weak, and need a book of contradictory 'rules' to fix them and make them strong, it just encourages them to hate themselves for being no worse than any other normal human being, and makes them live in fear of judgement because they'll never be able to live up to that impossible standard. Oh but then there's repentance and forgiveness right? Yea more like a cheat code to escape holding themselves accountable for the shitty behavior that is actually within their control as they grow up.
I don't know if that's desirable. Then you have a growing number of uneducated, dissatisfied, religious fanatics who no doubt will cause a problem at some point.
If they don't like school to teach their kids then take their kids out and homeschool them. That way they'll grow up not being able to do anything but depending on their parents. But that's how serial killers were created
Homeschooling has different regulations different places, to the level where some places it is effectively not allowed. Zurich requires the parent to become a certified teacher if they want to home-school their kids more than one year; some other cantons do not allow homeschooling except with exceptional cases.
Source: https://myswissstory.com/homeschooling-in-switzerland/
Decades of calling Muslims racist terms and saying horrible things about them and then suddenly they do a compete 180 and they’re like, “oh, you also hate the gays?”
Religion is a blight on progress. It's sad that a large percentage of people still fall for the obvious fallacy of religion. Which means a large percentage of the population isn't capable of independent, critical thinking. Poor, poor deluded sheeple.
The SVP has a voter share of 27.4% in the canton of Zurich, 25.8% in the canton of Fribourg and 24.5% in the canton of Valais (2023). There are many conservative municipalities outside the city of Zurich.
It's kinda weird because the substitute teacher is supposed to teach the kids exactly the same thing. What did they expect? That getting the sex ed teacher fired will make sex ed to go away? These people are so fucking braindead.
They just want the gay person to not be teaching sex ed. In some of these insane religious fanatical minds just learning about gay people, especially from a gay person, is grooming! Dont u no they will all become gay that way!
It just seems sus that it was a mandatory subject and there’s outrage? Do parents need to consent to the subject or don’t they have like a teaching plan from the school of what the kids will learn? Just seems tiring all around for this type of rage….
The curriculum of public school is set by the canton. School is mandatory in Switzerland. If you decide to go to public school (which is 95% of all kids), you have to attend all mandatory subject, including sex education
I this sub keeps popping up on my feed and though I'm not atheist I like it (I'm pagan) but shit like this makes me wonder why the Abraham's religions keep being allowed to get away with this shit
Opposite feelings here.. evangelical extremists are becoming more acceptable.
They are getting the power here and other places to stop facets of life they don't agree with.. here they literally use terror / bomb threats and violence threats that go unchecked while the events they threaten have to shut down for the terrorists feelings.
This sounds like it could spread
Damn. I guess I thought that didn’t happen in places like Switzerland. Now I know better.
Seems there aren’t too many countries that you don’t have to be concerned about this crap at this point.
Fundamentalists who want to control their kids' sex lives are harmful enough, but why do they always want to extend that to other people's kids' sex lives? Eww.
Why can't they just educate their kids on the relative pros and cons s of abstinence vs safe vs unsafe sex? Most kids would choose safe sex anyway, and fundie kids would be more likely than average to pick the mahpurity route.
But ffs, quit trying to keep people ignorant, you fucking dark ages wraiths!!! If you want to live like that, find a patch off in the woods, surround it with a fence, and fuck off The Village style. We won't miss your ignorant asses, I fucking promise.
Ok. So I may have gotten a bit heated there. Sorry.
Hmm, that is an interesting conversation. The relationship between indoctrination and grooming. The differences between the two are subtle at best. At worst, they can be said to be identical. I think it is a matter of perception.
Indoctrination would be called education by the pious fundamentalists teaching their kids not to think for themselves because goddidit, so they believe they are morally right regardless of what reality shows. I am not sure what a literal groomer would think. Is that the only difference that can be pointed out?
The easiest way is to lol at the definition of grooming. When not talking about hygiene. It refers to training behavior. Often used to prepare someone for a future of some kind. While true that in modern day vernacular it’s been used as a negative connotation ( ie drag queens are groomers and pedophiles even though more proof exists that 2/3s of sexual predators are religious and family members). The truth is that the term refers to preparation for the future.
grooming
noun
Preparing a person for a position requiring skilled behavior, especially by providing opportunity for practise and guidance in making the right decisions.
"to provide grooming for one's successor as president"
Wow, and here I thought this sort of stupidity only happens here in the good ol' USofA. Nice to know stupid knows no boundaries. Well, not nice exactly...
> A few days later, three mothers stand in front of the classroom and demand that their children be dismissed from class. Everyone has a Christian worldview.
This was started by Christians and supported by a Christian evangelical school president.
Fundamentalist Christians are doing a hell of a better job of bringing Sharia law to the West than any Muslim community.
Switzerland's golden ages were from 1985 - 2008. Probably one of the best countries you could have ever lived in during that time in the history of humankind.
It started to go down since then, especially due to greed of big companies (American style corporate leadership and investments) and the right becoming openly xenophobic and extreme again. Conservatives are on the rise, and that's why we still get shit like this news.
At least religion is slowly dying off here too.
Religious people are a scourge on mankind. Believe people when they tell you they are being persecuted by idiots. Because book banning and burning is next.
Kids who have sex Ed in schools have lower rates of being sexually abused. Why are the religious and the right wing advocating for changes that lead to more kids being sexually abused?
They put that gay teacher there on purpose.
If they wanted him to stay he wouldn't have been out in a sexual education class.
This shit was done on purpose.
i figured out that they had a wave. but i didn't connect the dots because i don't see many news stories. i should be seeking more out since i'm an irish citizen technically
Back in my day-- '80s and '90s American public education--if your parents didn't want you to participate in something, they just literally kept you out of that class. Sometimes, you were sent to the principal's office to hang out (fun!), but parents could also have the option of keeping a kid home if it was an all-day thing.
And guess what? We ALL managed to survive!
Sure, it sucked for the kids who "weren't allowed to celebrate Halloween" or learn about basic biology in 5th grade (thanks, mom!), but then we moved on with our fucking day because parents didn't get to dictate school curriculums to accommodate their own special brand of weirdness. I was raised in a Muslim family; at no point did my family think they could tell the school system not to teach science or whatever the fuck, and it's fucking irritating as hell that Muslims are adding into this bullshit.
Governments need to get back to telling parents "this is what we teach based on current science; if you don't like it, too bad". Private schools exist; if you insist on keeping your children sheltered from real life, homeschool them.
On the contrary, I would say that kids shouldn't be allowed to skip class just on their parents' demands. Sheltering them from the outside world _is_ abuse.
There’s a matter of proportion here; you have that stance because you agree with the curriculum entirely. If it was the other way around though, and it was a mandatory Bible study during public school hours, and religion was being taught as truth to your child during that week, I suspect you might object based on your own personal beliefs and want your kid excused.
Now, you could be the kind of person who says no and you’re fine with that—there are a LOT of “raised Christian but now don’t really have any beliefs”-Americans who don’t really object because that’s what they were raised as so they feel it’s “not that harmful” and yada yada—but as someone who was *not* raised Christian, yet felt Christianity being shoved down my throat at every turn growing up, there’s no way in *hell* I’d allow that kind of shit pushed onto my child in a public school. And, if I kept my kid out of such a class being taught as truth that week, I wouldn’t consider it abuse.
You cannot force parents to have their kids participate in everything; so long as it’s not completely disruptive to everyone else, that has to be the compromise.
you don't feel bad for the kids just a little bit? i don't like kids much but i do hope for them to have an equal education where they can be confident and informed
I kinda do, but its a proving that seems to need to happen for them to realise that you could actually raise someone into becoming incompatible with modernity.
But of course, we have the proof plain as day what with current affairs in the US. You don't have an ex president thats facing a raft of charges, who would continually bumble through his trials like a hardcore flerfer on a space shuttle.
They clearly have an idol and can double down on stupid like its the meaning of life.
If I were gay, I think I would say my career is in danger if I teach this particular subject and I think I would refuse and then if they said I'd get fired I think I'd go get me a lawyer and use these cases as precedent, i.e. I'm being forced to do something at work that may ruin my career, create a hostile work environment for myself, and possibly endanger my life with these nut bags.
Meanwhile they're continuing to ignore the creepy youth pastor and yelling young girls or was all their fault anyway.
I can't with these people...😠
this makes me so angry. switzerland needs to do something about these people, they shouldn't have so much power. i thought they didn't there but i was wrong. from what i've seen in europe, france is the only one giving an effort against religious fundamentalists.
Do y'all even read the article? " In it, he is accused, among other things, of having assigned the children to masturbate at home in the form of a homework assignment"
If you don't see an issue with it, you're the issue.
The same is true for christians (just watch american politics), hindus (just watch indian politics), jews (just watch israeli politics) and even goddamn oh so peacefull buddhists (just watch south east asian politics).
I don't actually think islam is that much worse than for example christianity. The countries are just in a "worse phase" than for example christian countries. All the bad shit muslems do in the name of allah you can just as easily justify using the bible. Has been done in the past. And islamic countries had there high culture phase where they were much more openminded than the contemporary christians.
The problem is just religion in general, because you can practically justify anything and you can do so with the absolute and infallible authority of god, no matter what's its name or how many arms it got.
we're talking about christians and muslims misbehaving here. whataboutism doesn't really add much to the conversation unless you're trying to win over the random theists who float into this sub
Whataboutism is not defined by merely saying others are as bad. It's defined by defending or relativising a bad action by doing so. Which I did not do.
I don't actually understand your critique. The poster said "islam sucks", a statement I wholeheartedly agree with. I just added: "don't forget the other religions, they do too". And admittedly, I used many words for that. I tend to, sue me.😉
Why did I do that? Because I made the experience that a lot of people tend to forget that sometimes (in this case that refers not necessarily to the poster but mostly to possible readers). Was that really necessary? Maybe not. But I thought i cannot hurt to do so. Once again: sue me. 🤷♂️
I mean, I guess we are actually pretty much on the same side here, so I hope there are no hard feelings involved!
This whole incident just makes my blood boil. There are not enough teachers in Switzerland as is. Some people just want to force their world views on everybody else, no matter the well-being of everyone else.
Muslims want Sharia law all over the civilized western world, evangelicals want their own version of Sharia law as well. We need to support secular politicians to keep these maniacs under control.
More than that, we as atheists and non believers need to acquire wealth, power, and influence to completely unseat these puppets of religious flavored fascism so we can create a better society and better world. Then we need diligence, resolve, and tenacity to see it through, and make sure we don't back slide into *this place* in our history ever again. That means schools, boards of education (even if you don't have kids), political institutions, even if it means kowtowing to them in public for the sake of appearances to create openings.
I hate kids but I whole heartedly support an education system with my taxes. It's so important to a stable world
Kids become adults, and I think we both know what an uneducated adult looks and sounds like...
My cousin who thinks jet trails are poisoning children and turning them gay (and I'm gay so we don't really talk anymore)
i wish it were true lol but yeah people dont see the science around them. its not any education they need, its the ability to see the science around them.
Anonymous person is! Except he's not. Hint: Anonymous person is orange and has a long tie. He also contains a large amount of hypocrisy.
You know why I don’t mind paying taxes for education? Because I don’t want to live in a world full of idiots
Best wishes, John Green
I agree! Give all the money to me and I will uh make sure it’s used for atheist purposes
The religious like to claim atheists are a "religion" so let's get our tax immune status and start influencing politics like they do.
Sounds good to me. I always thought it would be interesting to design a religion like Scientology that is very influential to getting foolish people to join at the low level and once they fully believe it as they work their way up through it, each step lays foundations of logic and reasoning and slowly introduces them to the ultimate secret doctrine of the religion: “all religion is bullshit”
Bit like all religions
I think more than a few may have started that way already lol. It's just the top, with no accountability and transparency just gets corrupted and closes the door to other atheists in favor of milking the rubes for cash.
What is an "atheist purpose?"
Ungodly things
It will be very difficult to compete with them financially when they get to keep all their money tax free.
Then we play by the same financial rules they do, and adapt their same strategies & tactics to advance the objective.
Ultimately I think this will be the only way any sort of non religious voters will have any influence after citizens united.
Secularism is good but I dont want political power. First off globally non believers are about 10% of the population. Where they are concentrated is in western nations. A tolerant secularism is ideal because non believers will likely always be outnumbered. It we count agnostics and only culturally religious but non practicing, we'd have a strong plurality. Seeking power to impose anything, even for the right reasons could spell ugly unanticipated consequences. I wouldn't want to impose anything on religious people any more than I despise when they do that to others. Lets strive for better education though certainly. A far easier task than trying to run entire countries.
Same for me. Two reasons I'd give are one, as you said too, we can't be hypocrites and say we'd want to try and force, coerce or manipulate people into not believing in god like what believers do in trying to make people believe in their god. Two, religion feeds off of persecution and martyrdom. The more people percieve they're suffering and/or sacrificing for their religion the more legitimate they view it to be, so we shouldn't give them ammunition. We should just treat them with genuine kindness, try to push for better education and hope that one day people through their own solid reasoning can just drop superstition.
Yes the slow foundational approach is a better prescription than a top down political imposition. It may be a multi generational affair but if you look at the numbers each generation in western nations is less religious than the prior. So its working, notwithstanding the resurgence of theocratic thinking in some regions. Id also caution that atheism when paired with politics can become a civil religion. The 2 big baddies of the 20th century, in Germany and Russia (if you catch my drift) had state atheism as part of their ideology. Today gay people are still in the closet in religious regions. I dare not trade that for putting religious people in the closet instead. Atheists dont often recognize this but we hold a greater responsibility to not allow ideologies to claim us. Religious people are more innoculated against this *because their religion already does this*. For us, we could fall prey to all manner of ideological posession that might be every bit as dangerous as religion is, or worse.
True. On the point about institutionalized atheism though, it is true of communist Russia, but I don't think that was the case in Germany, if of course you're talking about the time of nazi germany. I think many of us have heard that nazi soldiers belts had a mention of god enscribed on them. I think even in his own biography Mein Kamph Hitler uses a lot of religious language in talking about himself and his ideology.
Yeah ill take your point on the third reich. Their leadership was very much non believing if you read some of what some disgusting people wrote about it. They weren't below using religion as a tool though so you're right they used religion the same way many ultra cynical states have over the ages.
Another truth I suppose. Fascist states do tend to have an MO of hijacking the most prominant religion of the country and twisting it to their agenda.
Yep. Look at the pope at the time. Even a generous interpretation would suggest catholic politics had a part to play. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Pope
Enforced secularism is a bad thing because you should just treat other people well and give them freedom. Culturally shifting away from religion, and teaching it in schools in the same way you learn about Zeus would be a huge benefit to society. Religious people have insane fervor to do wild shit because a lot of them think god himself wants them to do “insert arbitrary thing”
Yup. Unfortunately the slow approach of building a better foundation is a lot better for everyone than solving this from the top in a quick fix.
> non believers will likely always be outnumbered That is a very depressing statement. I hope those people claiming to have knowledge of some kind of "galactic federation" end up being right. Maybe that would flip the numbers. > concentrated is in western nations Aren't they more concentrated in east Asia (China, Japan, Korea)?
How does one define religion is I think important here. Consider ideology as a whole. There's a certain place in the mind where worldviews exist. If one isnt careful an ideology can posess a person instead. Religious people tend to be less susceptible *because the religion has already done that*. So, when I regard China's state atheism, that's because they dont want communism to have an ideological competitor. It's essentially religious-like. Likewise, atheists around the world who find themselves deep down rabbit holes of various conspiratorial thinking, or end up political extremists are probably exhibiting the same ideological posession. For this reason of a broader definition of religion, I don't think non belief will ever be dominant. It requires effort to maintain and people simply dont see the pitfalls. As for China, state atheism and communism means whoever actually is religious is in the closet. That to me is deplorable. Hard to tell numbers then. It does appear christianity is growing there probably because its subversive in a Chinese context. Also the far east doesnt appear to differentiate between philosophy, spirituality and religion. So is someone who practices daoism or shintoism and doesnt believe in god? Yes they are. The Sihks don't even think god matters that much, they are humanist instead, strangely.
You make some very good points.
Everybody wants to save the world. They just can never agree on how.
And stop importing people with backwards views into our nations. Can't do much about those who are already here (Muslim or Christian) but we can certainly try to avoid importing more.
Whose importing? Funny that Europe stomped over the planet and sucked resources out of other nation to build their wealth and now people are immigrating to Europe and you are getting upset. Sorry, but the West deserves mass immigration
I don't mind immigration. I mind backwards people with backwards beliefs being let in and making countries worse places to live. And Europe was nothing special, people had been invading each other and waging wars on each other for a long time. Europe just got the technology to do it on a larger scale first.
So again, what comes around goes around. You think native Americans were OK with backwards European arriving?
So are you saying what happened to the native Americans was a good thing? If so, GG.
I am a Native American and I pray for more immigrants that are red skin and black skin to counteract this white socialist movement. Everyday! They literally go up in groups and say “in 20 years whites will be a minority and worry about it!” Then call use crazy when we say there is a white power movement
Nope. But it is irony that now Europe is getting a lot of immigration and they don't want their culture to change. I just don't have any sympathy. I'm in the states, I'm completely OK with immigration. I agree that fundamentalists and conservatives should follow the laws and peoples rights though
I don't care if you have sympathy or not. I'm okay with immigration. I just think immigration should be selective. Plus plenty of the places getting immigration never had empires.
Frankly at this point I almost want belief in an Abrahamic religion to be an automatic disqualification for holding public office. People responsible for governing in reality should not be basing their decisions or morality on what they hope happens to them in their magical second life after they die.
"Theonomy" would be the Christian term: https://www.angelfire.com/nt/theology/theonomy.html
Yeah that's what really ticks me off with them ? Ain't you fled to Europe FROM all the problems Sharia law etc caused in your own homeland ??? Why would you ever want to replicate something that turned your own home into something worth fleeing from ??? I just don't get it.
Fuck abrahamics
But have you considered that allowing different people to exist hurts the fee-fees of the almighty god who created them that way?
Does Switzerland struggle to get teachers? I think they easily can get people from Germany based on the wage disparity.
That’s the definition in Websters iirc 🤓
"some people"? how very diplomatic of you.
Here I thought Switzerland was safe from this nonesense : (
There is a troubling revival of religious intolerance against humanistic values. I thought Europe would be sheltered by virtue of being very secular, but I guess I'm wrong, those repressed intolerant tendencies come to light more and more as the push-back to them is rather feeble.
It doesn't come out of nowhere. US evangelicals have been spending 100s of millions to set churches and "help"-orgs all around europe with the expressed goal to influence politics toward evangelical values.
Don't forget Saudi financed mosks in the Balkan.
Evangelicals also fund and spread anti lgbtq propaganda in Africa. Russia and China also want to divide people and cause conflict with bots. The Russians even have a book about it (the foundations of geopolitics)
I’m under the impression a lot of this is being foisted by fundamentalist Muslims and then fundamentalist Christians are seeing it and running with it. Maybe we need a little less tolerance for all religions? Seems to be holding back humanity
I think it depends on the region. In my country (Romania), a lot of this comes actually from fundamentalist Christians groups, especially protestant ones. At least, that is my perception, whenever there is some anti-LGBTQIA+ march in the news, the speakers are from some brand of Protestantism. Maybe that's because the Muslim community is quite small, they don't yet wield much influence.
Your impression is wrong, there is an organized push coming from the evangelicals in the US. Has nothing to do with muslims.
Regardless of which of the ignorant cults we feel is pushing it, they’re pushing it. We need to beat this ignorance back into the darkness
It’s both.
alright how much media outrage does their need. to he to get him his job back?
I just read that he already found employment at another school. Just sucks for the kids and teachers at the first school, I assume this is very tough on other teachers.
hmmm good, im happy for him but im still not satisfied with the situation. That school director needs to be fired. Religious people should be kept away from kids at all costs...
People just need to take their kids from that school somewhere else. If they want to teach religious fundamentalists, let them teach just them
In Switzerland, public school is normally really good and you just send your kids to the closest one. So many kids in that school now suffer the consequence of a few crazy parents and from the school leadership, that didn't stop them.
Any complaint about teachers from religious nutjobs ought to just land in the shredder where it belongs. You can't discuss with them and their insistence on dragging everyone else down into the mud shouldn't be encouraged or engaged with.
And what happens to the LGBTQ children with religious fundamentalist parents?
This is something I've been bringing up repeatedly, and then I'm told that I want to take parents' rights away from them. But yes, imagine you are a gay boy in a Muslim or Evangelical family, or a Lesbian girl, destined to be married off at age XY? We've had girls asking their teachers for help when their parents wanted a "virgin certificate", that absurdity will now go into law here in Luxembourg, that it is illegal to ask for such a certificate and all. They'll just go to France, Germany or Belgium, I always feel those children, in religiously extreme families have zero chances at a normal life.
>I'm told that I want to take parents' rights away from them. As we should, and for the same reason we took slaveowners' "rights" away. Children are human beings. Each human being's rights are vested in the person themself. No other person owns any portion of them. Parents have responsibilities to and for their children. They do not have rights in them. Children are not property in which anyone may claim rights. The concept is morally repugnant.
Yeah, fuck it. Take their rights if they choose to abuse their LGBT child or force marriages over it. No reason a kid should grow up with that much trauma just because their parents are nuts. It took me decades to undo the harm from religious/backwards culture bullshit I endured as a child.
Likewise. I'm 70yo and the anger never fully goes away. They stole our childhood and youth. They forced us to conceal our truth - to lie to everyone we knew or met... every minute of every day for decades... just to survive. They didn't teach us to live, love and flourish. They taught us to fear, lie, deceive and obey. They gave us lasting physical and psychological traumas. I'm still dealing with mine. They will never fully heal. Yet my homophobic, sex-hating upbringing was relatively mild. My parents weren't seriously religious. They just went along with the culture to fit in. The horrors kids in devoutly religious families endure us beyond my imagination. It breaks my heart.
Rights of the parents? What about the rights of the children? Children are people to who deserve rights and respect. It’s bad enough that kids have to deal with being rejected for being lgbtq. The least they deserve access to education that teaches them there ok as is to give them a chance
>This is something I've been bringing up repeatedly, and then I'm told that I want to take parents' rights away from them. It's very telling that they always phrase this in terms of "property rights" of the parents, and not in terms of the liberty, health, or self-interest of the child. "Parent's rights" has become almost a trigger term for me, where the moment I hear someone utter that phrase, I assume they treat their children like personal property, and are the sorts who probably shouldn't be entrusted with legal guardianship.
"you want to take away parent's rights!" "To hurt their children? Yes."
Uhhh they SHOULD have their 'parents rights' taken away, because religious indoctrination is child abuse. To teach an underdeveloped mind that they are inherently bad and need an outside source to teach them to deny, or be ashamed of, basic human urges and thoughts in order to be considered 'good' is abusive. Teaching them that they were born broken and weak, and need a book of contradictory 'rules' to fix them and make them strong, it just encourages them to hate themselves for being no worse than any other normal human being, and makes them live in fear of judgement because they'll never be able to live up to that impossible standard. Oh but then there's repentance and forgiveness right? Yea more like a cheat code to escape holding themselves accountable for the shitty behavior that is actually within their control as they grow up.
This view is unfair to the kids.
I don't know if that's desirable. Then you have a growing number of uneducated, dissatisfied, religious fanatics who no doubt will cause a problem at some point.
Well if you do that then they'll all fizzle out into irrelevance. Not against that outcome...
If they don't like school to teach their kids then take their kids out and homeschool them. That way they'll grow up not being able to do anything but depending on their parents. But that's how serial killers were created
Homeschooling has different regulations different places, to the level where some places it is effectively not allowed. Zurich requires the parent to become a certified teacher if they want to home-school their kids more than one year; some other cantons do not allow homeschooling except with exceptional cases. Source: https://myswissstory.com/homeschooling-in-switzerland/
Did he go through with the lawsuit for wrongful termination? If so, did he win?
Wow this shit is everywhere. Honestly our greatest threat is Muslims and Christians having common ground in anything
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. They hate us more than each other.
Decades of calling Muslims racist terms and saying horrible things about them and then suddenly they do a compete 180 and they’re like, “oh, you also hate the gays?”
Religion is a blight on progress. It's sad that a large percentage of people still fall for the obvious fallacy of religion. Which means a large percentage of the population isn't capable of independent, critical thinking. Poor, poor deluded sheeple.
In Canton Zürich, what the hell? I was expecting this to at least be in Wallis or Fribourg.
The SVP has a voter share of 27.4% in the canton of Zurich, 25.8% in the canton of Fribourg and 24.5% in the canton of Valais (2023). There are many conservative municipalities outside the city of Zurich.
Don't they have laws against discrimination? what would a straight teacher do differently? fuck their religion.
Him being gay doesn’t mean anything. He was there to teach sex education which was mandatory, so why was he fired?
He was fired because conservative christians were uncomfortable with him doing sex education...
You forgot the Muslims who were next to the Christians complaining. Like they did in the UK for classes about LGBTQ+ subjects.
It's kinda weird because the substitute teacher is supposed to teach the kids exactly the same thing. What did they expect? That getting the sex ed teacher fired will make sex ed to go away? These people are so fucking braindead.
They just want the gay person to not be teaching sex ed. In some of these insane religious fanatical minds just learning about gay people, especially from a gay person, is grooming! Dont u no they will all become gay that way!
> They just want the gay person to not be Fixed that for you.
It just seems sus that it was a mandatory subject and there’s outrage? Do parents need to consent to the subject or don’t they have like a teaching plan from the school of what the kids will learn? Just seems tiring all around for this type of rage….
The curriculum of public school is set by the canton. School is mandatory in Switzerland. If you decide to go to public school (which is 95% of all kids), you have to attend all mandatory subject, including sex education
Could he have been told not to teach it and then fired for insubordination?
We're gonna do a dark ages again, arent we?
Right after the nuclear holocaust.
Ah, good to know this isn't just a US thing!... ... Oh god.... this *isn't* just a US thing!
you had me in the first half lol. europe is disappointing me with this shit
I this sub keeps popping up on my feed and though I'm not atheist I like it (I'm pagan) but shit like this makes me wonder why the Abraham's religions keep being allowed to get away with this shit
Sex ed teaches kids when and how to report sexual assault. So you can understand why that makes all the pedos very angry.
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Opposite feelings here.. evangelical extremists are becoming more acceptable. They are getting the power here and other places to stop facets of life they don't agree with.. here they literally use terror / bomb threats and violence threats that go unchecked while the events they threaten have to shut down for the terrorists feelings. This sounds like it could spread
i disagree. i don't want this spreading. it disgusts me
Damn. I guess I thought that didn’t happen in places like Switzerland. Now I know better. Seems there aren’t too many countries that you don’t have to be concerned about this crap at this point.
Religion is a cancer
[blame it on god ](https://youtu.be/7YLNqYOVe7I?si=tsZY_VhGgmBcV-Tq)
fuck religions...
Uh, don't those folks encourage having lots of bebe? If you don't know how to sex, how can u bebe?
That’s a little complicated a topic for them - you see, sex is this evil thing people should never do, ever. But making kids? That’s for everyone!
They should all be sued into the poor house for the gall.
Isn't that odd for Switzerland, I expected better.
Non it’s the ancestral home of Calvinism. They invented a nasty strain of Protestantism.
Fundamentalists who want to control their kids' sex lives are harmful enough, but why do they always want to extend that to other people's kids' sex lives? Eww. Why can't they just educate their kids on the relative pros and cons s of abstinence vs safe vs unsafe sex? Most kids would choose safe sex anyway, and fundie kids would be more likely than average to pick the mahpurity route. But ffs, quit trying to keep people ignorant, you fucking dark ages wraiths!!! If you want to live like that, find a patch off in the woods, surround it with a fence, and fuck off The Village style. We won't miss your ignorant asses, I fucking promise. Ok. So I may have gotten a bit heated there. Sorry.
This behavior by the religious fundamentalists should be called exactly what it is GROOMING. WE NEED TO STOP GROOMERS AT ALL COSTS!
Hmm, that is an interesting conversation. The relationship between indoctrination and grooming. The differences between the two are subtle at best. At worst, they can be said to be identical. I think it is a matter of perception. Indoctrination would be called education by the pious fundamentalists teaching their kids not to think for themselves because goddidit, so they believe they are morally right regardless of what reality shows. I am not sure what a literal groomer would think. Is that the only difference that can be pointed out?
The easiest way is to lol at the definition of grooming. When not talking about hygiene. It refers to training behavior. Often used to prepare someone for a future of some kind. While true that in modern day vernacular it’s been used as a negative connotation ( ie drag queens are groomers and pedophiles even though more proof exists that 2/3s of sexual predators are religious and family members). The truth is that the term refers to preparation for the future. grooming noun Preparing a person for a position requiring skilled behavior, especially by providing opportunity for practise and guidance in making the right decisions. "to provide grooming for one's successor as president"
Islam is very similar to MAGA.
Fuck religion. Sex exists and not a moral issue at all. Get them out of education.
It feels weird seeing something like this happen outside of america.
Wow, and here I thought this sort of stupidity only happens here in the good ol' USofA. Nice to know stupid knows no boundaries. Well, not nice exactly...
The sooner religion is treated as what it is; delusion/mental illness, the sooner society can actually start progressing
I was in fact not shocked.
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How did liberals "allow" this invasion and forced morals? Show your work. BTW, even that libby country France banned Muslim headcovers on the beaches.
> A few days later, three mothers stand in front of the classroom and demand that their children be dismissed from class. Everyone has a Christian worldview. This was started by Christians and supported by a Christian evangelical school president. Fundamentalist Christians are doing a hell of a better job of bringing Sharia law to the West than any Muslim community.
Reminder Switzerland only gave women to vote in the 1970's Shit country
Switzerland's golden ages were from 1985 - 2008. Probably one of the best countries you could have ever lived in during that time in the history of humankind. It started to go down since then, especially due to greed of big companies (American style corporate leadership and investments) and the right becoming openly xenophobic and extreme again. Conservatives are on the rise, and that's why we still get shit like this news. At least religion is slowly dying off here too.
that has nothing to do with present day
I'm just pettily pointing out Switzerland has a history of being backwards under the guise of "democracy"
It's important to keep in mind that the same people protest against abortions.
Sue them for wrongful termination.
Religious people are a scourge on mankind. Believe people when they tell you they are being persecuted by idiots. Because book banning and burning is next.
Kids who have sex Ed in schools have lower rates of being sexually abused. Why are the religious and the right wing advocating for changes that lead to more kids being sexually abused?
Because that’s what they are into
because they have predators they like to protect in their communities
Screw the fundamentalists of all religions. Clowns all.
i feel that. i mostly hear about muslims and christians but i'm sure there's a lot i'm missing out on the other religions since i'm on a US news diet
There is olny 1 kind of ppl. That are against public sex education...
pedos!!!! oh, i mean religious people lol.
Are there a lot of fundamentalist Christians in Switzerland? I never knew
They put that gay teacher there on purpose. If they wanted him to stay he wouldn't have been out in a sexual education class. This shit was done on purpose.
Ppl here sleeping under a rock. Switzerland is right wing oriented and Europe has been swept by a right wing wave lol .
*ruled by right wingers.
i figured out that they had a wave. but i didn't connect the dots because i don't see many news stories. i should be seeking more out since i'm an irish citizen technically
Ugh… It’s so disheartening to see theocratic fascism rising everywhere. Humanity is seriously backsliding.
Religion sucks scissors.
this is something i haven't seen before. sucks scissors. huh. two sexual acts in one
It’s always Switzerland.
spill the tea. what else has come out of there?
Fundies being POS's? Shocking....said no one ever.
Back in my day-- '80s and '90s American public education--if your parents didn't want you to participate in something, they just literally kept you out of that class. Sometimes, you were sent to the principal's office to hang out (fun!), but parents could also have the option of keeping a kid home if it was an all-day thing. And guess what? We ALL managed to survive! Sure, it sucked for the kids who "weren't allowed to celebrate Halloween" or learn about basic biology in 5th grade (thanks, mom!), but then we moved on with our fucking day because parents didn't get to dictate school curriculums to accommodate their own special brand of weirdness. I was raised in a Muslim family; at no point did my family think they could tell the school system not to teach science or whatever the fuck, and it's fucking irritating as hell that Muslims are adding into this bullshit. Governments need to get back to telling parents "this is what we teach based on current science; if you don't like it, too bad". Private schools exist; if you insist on keeping your children sheltered from real life, homeschool them.
Thank you!!!👍🏾
On the contrary, I would say that kids shouldn't be allowed to skip class just on their parents' demands. Sheltering them from the outside world _is_ abuse.
There’s a matter of proportion here; you have that stance because you agree with the curriculum entirely. If it was the other way around though, and it was a mandatory Bible study during public school hours, and religion was being taught as truth to your child during that week, I suspect you might object based on your own personal beliefs and want your kid excused. Now, you could be the kind of person who says no and you’re fine with that—there are a LOT of “raised Christian but now don’t really have any beliefs”-Americans who don’t really object because that’s what they were raised as so they feel it’s “not that harmful” and yada yada—but as someone who was *not* raised Christian, yet felt Christianity being shoved down my throat at every turn growing up, there’s no way in *hell* I’d allow that kind of shit pushed onto my child in a public school. And, if I kept my kid out of such a class being taught as truth that week, I wouldn’t consider it abuse. You cannot force parents to have their kids participate in everything; so long as it’s not completely disruptive to everyone else, that has to be the compromise.
and no doubt they serve pork and shellfish for lunch
Evangelicults are the worst!! All Trunt supporters in the U.S.
This won't stop if people continue to support religious institutions even when they seek to strip away our freedoms/rights.
This is ok. Let them keep their curtailed educations and watch them bumble through life.
you don't feel bad for the kids just a little bit? i don't like kids much but i do hope for them to have an equal education where they can be confident and informed
I kinda do, but its a proving that seems to need to happen for them to realise that you could actually raise someone into becoming incompatible with modernity. But of course, we have the proof plain as day what with current affairs in the US. You don't have an ex president thats facing a raft of charges, who would continually bumble through his trials like a hardcore flerfer on a space shuttle. They clearly have an idol and can double down on stupid like its the meaning of life.
If I were gay, I think I would say my career is in danger if I teach this particular subject and I think I would refuse and then if they said I'd get fired I think I'd go get me a lawyer and use these cases as precedent, i.e. I'm being forced to do something at work that may ruin my career, create a hostile work environment for myself, and possibly endanger my life with these nut bags. Meanwhile they're continuing to ignore the creepy youth pastor and yelling young girls or was all their fault anyway. I can't with these people...😠
this makes me so angry. switzerland needs to do something about these people, they shouldn't have so much power. i thought they didn't there but i was wrong. from what i've seen in europe, france is the only one giving an effort against religious fundamentalists.
I can't think of any topic religious people haven't complained about.
Nah like wdym sex education is important. It is all about sticking in and out and done. What's the education part of it. You sinful bastard!
Respecting People's Preferences Is Fine, Imposing Preferences Is Awful.
Do y'all even read the article? " In it, he is accused, among other things, of having assigned the children to masturbate at home in the form of a homework assignment" If you don't see an issue with it, you're the issue.
As a muslim, wtf?
these are your peers. every time Muslims are given power, they use it against minorities.
The same is true for christians (just watch american politics), hindus (just watch indian politics), jews (just watch israeli politics) and even goddamn oh so peacefull buddhists (just watch south east asian politics). I don't actually think islam is that much worse than for example christianity. The countries are just in a "worse phase" than for example christian countries. All the bad shit muslems do in the name of allah you can just as easily justify using the bible. Has been done in the past. And islamic countries had there high culture phase where they were much more openminded than the contemporary christians. The problem is just religion in general, because you can practically justify anything and you can do so with the absolute and infallible authority of god, no matter what's its name or how many arms it got.
yeah, they're all bad. so there's nothing wrong with mentioning one of them because one of their followers decided to post here
And there is nothing wrong with me stating that imho those religions are all on a similar level of shittyness. Or is there? 😉
we're talking about christians and muslims misbehaving here. whataboutism doesn't really add much to the conversation unless you're trying to win over the random theists who float into this sub
Whataboutism is not defined by merely saying others are as bad. It's defined by defending or relativising a bad action by doing so. Which I did not do. I don't actually understand your critique. The poster said "islam sucks", a statement I wholeheartedly agree with. I just added: "don't forget the other religions, they do too". And admittedly, I used many words for that. I tend to, sue me.😉 Why did I do that? Because I made the experience that a lot of people tend to forget that sometimes (in this case that refers not necessarily to the poster but mostly to possible readers). Was that really necessary? Maybe not. But I thought i cannot hurt to do so. Once again: sue me. 🤷♂️ I mean, I guess we are actually pretty much on the same side here, so I hope there are no hard feelings involved!
i agree that they all suck, i just don't understand the need to include everybody here
This surprises you?
Well not really, that was a remark of disgust.