THW ban religion

IntroductionAccording to a study from the Pew Research Centre, 84% of the world’s population is religious. [1] Religions are important to their devotees’ lives; they help answer questions that science can’t. It is odd that my opponent, who claims that his proposal would make the world a better place, would take something that important from a majority of the people. SignpostIn order to prove that religion shouldn’t be banned, I shall make two constructive points: that better alternatives exist, and that putting my opponent’s proposal in place would be costly. But before that, I shall reconstruct one of my previous points and then refute my opponent’s points.ReconstructionIn my first round, I stated that religious freedom shouldn’t be trampled over because it is a human right. To add to that, we analyse relevant views from the French Revolution, a revolution that created a model for modern Western society. The Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen put forward by the National Assembly was a great influence in modern ideas of human rights, and it states that “liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else.”[2] Since most religions do not cause their adherents to harm anyone else—in fact, many have virtues and ideals that are beneficial to society—we ought to not ban them.RebuttalsNow, I shall move on to addressing my opponent’s arguments. While I would otherwise put them all in prose, I fe;t that using the same numbering system my opponent used for the rebuttals would be more clear.1. My opponent argued that religious fanaticism caused numerous terrorist attacks, but has not shown that the fact that religious fanaticism exists justifies a banning of all religion; most religious people have moderate views that do not cause problems in society. Even if all violence would cease and rainbow unicorns start flying everywhere when religion disappears, banning religion does not help eradicate religion. In fact, it would only exacerbate the problem of religious fanaticism because it might cause people to join in a holy war against the anti-religious government.2. My opponent argued that religion was created to control and divide the working class, and that could cause corruption because it makes society chaotic. While this may be true, most religions no longer control and divide the working class. Plus, many religions weren’t created to control the working class; for instance, Sikhism, created in a time of religious and caste disputes, rejects discrimination based on social status, creed, or gender. [3] Banning it would not be right, as it does not cause harm to non-devotees, and therefore people should be able to believe in it, following the logic put forward in my reconstruction. 3. Despite the religiousness of the medieval Islamic world, their scientists and scholars’ inventions and discoveries were numerous and still affect modern science.[4] My opponent’s claim that the Islamic world stalled doesn’t seem true. Even if it were true, my opponent would still need to prove a cause-and-effect connection between religiosity and a stall in progress.4. This may be true if you neglect to consider the fact that religious people may convert away from the religion they were raised in, atheist parents can birth Christian children, and so on and so forth. While religion, just like political ideologies and preferences in music, may be passed on from generation to generation, it is still an issue of choice. 5. Even if religion is not an improvement to one’s lifestyle, one should still be allowed to pursue it if it isn’t at the detriment of others. This has been analyzed in the reconstruction above.6.My opponent asserted that all religions are based on lies, but does not give any proof. Again, even if this were true, it would still not justify a banning of religions that do not cause their adherents to harm others. 7. Even if religion is a major cause of violence, and making religion disappear is a solution to said violence, that doesn’t mean banning religion is the way to achieve that goal, since doing so would not make religion disappear and would only cause more violence, as stated in the previous round. Plus, banning any basic human right would cause violent backlash, so this isn’t a problem limited to religion.Constructive ArgumentsAlternativesBetter alternatives exist to banning religion, so we should not ban religion. In one possible alternative plan, the government raids cults promoting violent acts and uses intelligence agencies and the military to squash terrorist groups, bans religious groups promoting dangerous behaviour such as refusing medical treatment in favour of faith healing, and makes public education secular. This alternative is better than banning religion altogether because it only targets problem-makers and therefore does not cause 84% of society to turn against the government in a bloody coup, has the support of most people, including religious ones, and does not impact human rights.CostsBanning all religion and bulldozing all churches would be a costly thing to do. Firstly, in order to squash out any and all house churches operating underground, the government would need to hire a special “thought police for religion” to search houses, monitor the internet, and review secret camera feeds to search for possible religious activity. Concerns about privacy aside, this would also be costly for taxpayers, as it would require the hiring of a whole new police force and setting up of surveillance programs. Also, my opponent supports bulldozing all churches to the ground. This would be costly to governments, since there are around 37 million churches in the world. [5] Bigger cathedrals are even costlier to demolish, as they cannot be bulldozed and must be blown up.ConclusionThrough my debate, I have shown that banning all religion is unjustified since most religions do not cause harm to others, and banning religion would not solve the problems caused by religion due to its ineffectiveness and the possibility that it would cause violent backlash against authorities. As such, be it resolved that this house would not ban religion. Sources[1]http://www.washingtontimes.com...\[2]http://avalon.law.yale.edu...[3]https://en.wikipedia.org...[4]https://en.wikipedia.org...[5]http://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com...