Atheism and Religion

In a current blog post "Cults and Religions: Should a Mormon be President?", Mano Singham writes:

"With mainstream religions, there is really no secrecy as to what being a member involves. You can know before going into it what being a Christian or Hindu or Buddhist or Muslim or Jew means. And you can leave the group later if you want to, without being shunned or ostracized or threatened or worse."

I invite anyone who believes it is easy to leave a "mainstream" religion to read the posts at ExChristian.net. ""There are countless heart wrenching accounts of people who after fighting their religious demons and managing to emancipate themselves have to then confront the frowning faces of their friends and families. For many, the only friends they have are people from their church group. To them, apostasy is almost as hard to admit to friends and family members as homosexuality would be. People are terrified of the consequences. And they have good reasons to be.

All the Abrahamic holy books still contain strong prohibitions against apostasy, up to and including death by stoning. The Muslims seem particularly keen on this bronze age rite. Short of that there is often intense psychological pressure to recant and return to the fold.

So much for apostasy. The second assertion that you can know what you are getting into is flat wrong in many cases. Since depressingly large numbers of adherents are brainwashed as children, do they really know what they are getting into? Did they really make an informed choice as their parents solemnly led them by their little hand into an imposing structure called a holy place?

The answer is no and this forced indoctrination of children is precisely why we must find a way to end this abuse of vulnerable children.