Humans are "evolving" all the time, it is difficult to "tolerate" religion, the followers remind me of cigarette smokers, they need the "kick", it is not really doing them any good but they just can't give it up.

I am all for freedom for religion. I am even more strongly in favour of freedom from religion.

Who can deny that religious belief is capable of fostering and preserving the most bigoted and uncompromising zealotry? One has only to consider some of the following examples to appreciate that much of religion inspired practice is a threat to secular Western Values.

The intolerance of Wahhabism and other fundamental Islamic sects is well known. Sharia law is to my mind both horrific and barbaric. Intolerance of course is not confined to Islam, for several centuries the Catholic Church run the inquisition. The current Royal commission has made it clear that intolerance and brutality is endemic in many church run institutions such as orphanages. Of note is the extreme intolerance of certain Jewish sects, such as the Sabbath stoning of cars in the streets of Jerusalem.

Religion has the propensity to lay down laws on the permissibility or otherwise of sex and/or marriage. Judaism and Islam provide rules on what foods can and cannot be eaten and on what occasions. Are these rules not an intolerable attack on personal freedom? On the right of each individual to make up his or hers own mind on matters of life style.

What is the evidence for all the prohibitions in the name of God? There is no empirical evidence whatsoever. For that matter where is the empirical evidence that the world is populated with Gods, Goddesses, demons, angles, archangels, or the spirit of the dead?

Let me restate, people may hold whatever beliefs they like, no matter how illogical and ridiculous is their belief system. On the other hand nobody is entitled to foster their belief system on to others. Nor are they, as is so often the case, free to enforce their belief systems on others by means of physical or mental violence

' On the other hand nobody is entitled to foster their belief system on to others. Nor are they, as is so often the case, free to enforce their belief systems on others by means of physical or mental violence '
why not anti green? who gave you the right to make up the laws?

Runner:
I am not making up laws. I am just supporting a philosophical position that grants preference to individual liberty and freedom.

and where might your philosophical position come from anti green? The good of your heart? certainly atheist throughout history have demonstrated the opposite. They even kill the unborn guilt free.

Anti Green nails the proposal succinctly - freedom FROM religion.
A belief in some kind of supreme being removes much of personal responsibility for mankind's thought, words, and actions.
It is disturbing to see how much pressure is brough to bear on free-thinking people to conform to the foibles of religion-driven societies.
Tolerance does not necessarily indicate personal approval.
So should it be with larger groups of society.