In England, during the time of queen Mary, if one wasn't Catholic, or spoke against the Catholic church, they could be imprisoned and killed. Then after Mary died, then Elizabeth(Mary's sister), who was Protestant, became queen. She then stopped the persecution of Protestants. Can anyone think of any other big events when religious persecution was defeated?

The time when Spaniards ruled the Philippines.
They taught about catholicism and spread it around the Philippines. Some Muslim Filipinos are against it, that was why Spaniards killed them and declared war against them. Christian Filipinos have more authority than Muslims.Christian Spaniards thought of Muslims as lowly species.

After the Spaniard Era, U.S. ruled the Philippines. Together wih that, the big gap between Muslims' and Christians' power in the community faded away.

Interesting, I will look into that more. Anyone else have anything? I'll give it a day or two and if not I'll move on to a different topic (still in the range of religious persecution).

k,here is the deal.I am the only atheist at my school and during social studies class we had to talk about our religions out loud.The teacher called my name and i just said"I dont belive in religion"and then everyone made a little "ahh".the teacher told me 2 sit down and I wondered to myself"""why do people belive in religions""".My asked my father that question and we had a long talk.I soon remember of all the religions i learned in social studies class that every religion had something 2 do with the afterlife.He told me that when man started 2 think more loglicly,he thought that after doing all the things he had done in life that he would just die and nothing more will happen.Well,man got afraid and started 2 make a thing called "religion" that said if u act good,u go on 2 the after life.People belived there lies so much that they started to actally belive it.So im askingg u to tell me something,why do u belive in a religion?

Well up until the theory of evolution, everyone thought there was an afterlife, but now many people believe in evolution and no afterlife. People didn't create religion to avoid the idea that there is no afterlife because the idea that there was no afterlife didn't come up until a few hundred years ago. Athiesm can be considered religion, and I believe it is a religion.

Religion: a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

Athiem is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe. There isn't any deity in athiesm, but you don't need a deity to have a religion.

I believe that God created everything because no one has ever shown me any legit evidence on anything else. what about fossils and stuff that appear to be billions of years old? Look for my new thread coming out soon. I'm working on it. I also believe in God because every word of the Bible applies. Also we have a design, and it would be stupid and illogical to say that we do not have a designer. So many things have happened that point toward God. Saying they are coincidence is ignorant.

Originally posted by 2dnoodleman

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Well up until the theory of evolution, everyone thought there was an afterlife, but now many people believe in evolution and no afterlife. People didn't create religion to avoid the idea that there is no afterlife because the idea that there was no afterlife didn't come up until a few hundred years ago. Athiesm can be considered religion, and I believe it is a religion.

Religion: a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

Athiem is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe. There isn't any deity in athiesm, but you don't need a deity to have a religion.

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I disagree with most of what you typed there. Firstly, the belief or disbelief in an afterlife is not relevant. An atheist can believe in an afterlife, or not. An afterlife could exist without your God, and existence of an afterlife cannot be based on how humans think about it or how long they have. Humans are biased, and emotionally inclined to, even in thought, extend their their existence. We have no experience as dead people, and therefore our belief has no bearing on it.

Next matter of business: Using that definition of religion, atheism is not a religion. Atheism has no prescribed beliefs on our purpose, our cause, or moral codes.

And don't take that to mean any more than it does. Atheism may not assert morals, but many atheists still have them, just not based on fear or devotion to a "supreme being".
And if a person doesn't believe in a God or the big bang theory, he is still an atheist. Only one thing in common for us all. Not all atheists believe the same things. Atheism doesn't offer explanations or rules. Not a religion.

I take personal offense from this last part:
"Also we have a design, and it would be stupid and illogical to say that we do not have a designer. So many things have happened that point toward God. Saying they are coincidence is ignorant."

That's bigotry, and there's no argument against it. All I can say is that I hope your kind: the intolerant, unreasonable hate-filled plague on this planet from all religions, or no religion; are bred out of our species soon. Not because of what you believe, but because of the way you are.

Edit: Ok I guess that last bit was unwarranted.I'm sorry, maybe you don't really fall into that category. I just feel pretty strongly about that sort of thing. I don't go around defaming and insulting Christianity, I just live, and I expect the same courtesy from everyone. I believe that for the most part, regardless of differences in beliefs, no groups should insult each other like that. It doesn't open anyone's eyes, or deeply hurt people, or whatever you were aiming at. It just irritates and starts conflict. Just because you're a "soldier of God", you don't have to fight all the time. So I guess if what I said applies to you, take it as if I meant it. Otherwise, I apologize.

Ryan was talking about how his father said humans made up the idea of an afterlife to escape the idea of no afterlfie. I was talking about athiests that do not believe in an afterlife. I understand that athiests vary in their beliefs.

'We have no experience as dead people, and therefore our belief has no bearing on it.'

I agree to some extent. WE have no experience as dead people, but if there is a God, which I believe there is, then He could tell us what happens after death because He made it.

Athiesm seems to be turning into a sort of religion, at least to me. Some people try to fit in a cause and purpose into it. Like, as you said, some athiests believe in an afterlife, giving them cause and purpose to life. Other than those people, there are some athiests that try to give life cause and purpose within itself. So athiests have to find a cause and purpose for themselves, which I should have been more clear on. Athiesm does not offer a cause and a purpose, but one has to set out to find it.

The last part I put wasn't supposed to upset or offend anyone.
It is my opinion and many would agree. Let me clear up what I meant. Think about houses, look them up if you want lol. They obviously have a design, so it's safe to say they have a designer. Saying that it just randomly appeared doesn't seem very likely. The same applies for humans, or the solar system for that matter. Earth was placed in perfect orbit, if we were any farther away from the sun we'd freeze and if we were any closer to the sun we'd burn up. The moon keeps the earth alive, without it we would die. God placed the earth PERFECTLY. Eventually, global warming may destroy us all, just like the Bible says(heat death).

Thanks, God Bless

Most of that was alright with me. I disagree with the designer theory (google watchmaker), but I understand. Then I neared the end of your post. The moon does what now?

All the moon does is light the night sky by reflecting sunlight to Earth. How exactly does that keep Earth alive?

Moon controls the tides, tides are very important to our ecosystem.

Going back a bit... example of the end of persecution: When events at Ft. Hood led to the U.S. government recognizing Wicca as a religion and thus granting First Amendment rights to Wiccans.

Oh, and Mary was never Queen of England, only Scotland. You also left out the persecution of Catholics by their father, Henry VIII, after he himself formed the Church of England and broke away from the Catholic church because the Pope would not let him divorce his first wife.

Mary, Queen of Scotts... now I remember lol brain fart. Didn't Henry XVIII persecute the protestants?

nope, he broke away from the catholic church.... just like Elara said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England

second paragraph at the top.

Well then, nevermind what I had said. lol

[nod] I generally don't argue Elara when it comes to historical facts.... it's just not worth it. Most of the time she is right and I just end up looking foolish.

Well, since I'm Mormon I'm going to bring up the persecution against my people when we were still a fairly new church. The main group of members lived in Missouri from about 1832-1838 and near the end of that time an extermination order against the members living in the state. "The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace."

It is the only extermination order ever given in the history of the United States against a church.

The result of this persecution resulted in the main body of the Mormon Church moving up the Mississippi river to Commerce (later Nauvoo) Illinois to resettle there. Because the order was issued in October the main group of people left in the middle of winter to make their way out of the state.

That's my example of religious persecution that many of you have not ever heard about.

I learned about that in middle school. Good times...

lol anyway, sometimes people aren't ready for change. When the mormon belief spread, they wanted to stop it. This happens all the time. yep...

It is really sad to see religious people persecuted. Although in my opinion and research; Christians have had to endure greater persecution than any other belief. I once heard a finding that since Christianity started a little over 2,000 years ago; 70,000,000 Christians have been killed for their faith and even more were just persecuted with out being killed.

I would like to not have people persecute me for my beliefs. It is dangerous to express non-x-tian beliefs in the south. I wish they w9ould all grow up and stop having sex with their family members.

That is another error of yours about Christians. People should be more afraid of persecution from atheists than atheists being persecuted by Christians.

I love how we can't seem to make one religious thread without going off-topic or talking about personal experiences with evil x-tians.

Anyway, if you really want to read about religious persecution, for Christians anyway, I'd recommend checking out The Voice Of The Martyrs. It's an organization with a newsletter basically devoted to the persecuted church and people who were actually converted by persecution.

The founder of Voice Of The Martyrs actually founded it after he was persecuted himself. He was placed in solitary confinement for his beliefs for years. The only thing that held him together was prayer and communication with a man in an adjacent cell, who he communicated with via Morse code. Even being imprisoned alone in a cell he was still able to witness to people: apparently if he yelled loud enough he could send messages to the people using the toilet one floor above him XD

The organization isn't about instances of defeated persecution; it's sort of a cry for help for those who still are being persecuted.

Here's the US website if you want to see it: Persecution
If you're interested in international websites, here's a list: Wikipedia

Crawldragon : Unfortunately it always gets off topic when you get into a discussion about God. Any discussion about anything that has to do with God almost always ultimately comes down to one thing, unless you're a christian talking to another christian.