I've noticed over the years that little seems to deter others from their religious beliefs. No fact or science or modern education allows these followers to see reason.

To an atheist it seems utterly obvious that religious people are either confused or misguided or just down right foolish! Although its said that an atheist does not need to prove the non existence of any God, since that onus is on the one who states they have blind faith and who have 'experienced' or 'found' the 'Lord'. It still makes me feel like we asking crazy people for crazy answers! And this only from the ones that do, or are able to, debate or question their own beliefs.

If misguided others tell a child that they will go to Hell if they don't take Jesus or Allah or the great spaghetti monster into their hearts, then how could you then undo this wrong? Do we just wait until they are older and able to comprehend science and reality more clearly? Isn't this a bit late for some?

To me there seems to be only one way to do this effectively. On top of science and reason we need to publicly SHAME these religious institutions and individuals. We need to shame their nonsense Bible and Qur'an and all other signage and symbols, and everything they represent. All religion needs to be publicly advertised exactly how ridiculous it is.

We could have a TV series ongoing documentary of comedians attending churches and literally laughing at the nonsense inside. I'd watch it, millions would every day. Eventually most will see religion as it really is > foolishly shameful.

I suppose I just wanted others thoughts on this. Is this wrong? Is it needed?

This slow process of education is literally killing people. We need to take action now and show the world the shameful nonsense of religious belief.

You believe in WHAT? That's a shame, I wanted to have a reasonable conversation.

I like the idea. I'm advocating a similar idea of taxing churches for the harm done by religion. That is, forcing responsibility. If/when that ever happens, we'll all be amazed at the new and urgent revelations from their gods.

The shame idea is fine, too, but these folks often have different values than liberals/freethinkers and it's tough to win a war based on different values.

Thanks for the reply.

The valid taxing idea on these enterprises is a great idea too. As a computer technician I once set up $250,000 server (and terminals) in a religious organization. (They needed this to keep records of people and decisions usually financial decisions of the church) As we all know the church is literally a billion dollar business (or more, I don't have the 'wall street' price on it at hand)

I also created this topic because I wanted to reference this religious 'shame' , generally to non religiously inclined people. As I feel that one day religions will be fully ridiculed as the nonsense it is, and only one other topic came close (on atheist-community.org) and that was specifically on the 9/11 'shame' topic.

So I'm hoping and providing some reference to future atheists and children growing up who finally have a voice, that reason and rationality DO find religion (all of them) shameful, and as you say accountable for the harm they do in the name of religion in our society.

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." (Shakespeare). You cannot make a fool be ashamed of his foolishness, because a fool denies he is a fool. You will only make him angry. And when a fool admits his ignorance, he stops being a fool.

As for the taxation idea, I think, ignorance and stupidity are already taxed very heavily. The only problem that everyone has to pay the tax. I don't think, this situation can be improved.

I don't think, religion holds a monopoly on ignorance, so these efforts seem to be a bit misdirected. It's easy call others unreasonable and blame "them" for doing harm. It's harder to see logic in other's beliefs and actions and see absurdity in our own.

As for the obsession with "reason" and "rationality", you might want to read Hume "AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING", sections 4 and 5. [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9662/9662-h/9662-h.htm#section4]. Hume considers the question "What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience?" and concludes that it is NOT reason or rationality. It appears that our ability to discover cause and effect and draw conclusions about reality is not much different from the ability of Pavlov's dog to draw connection between light and food.