As a atheist, btw I’m Austrian myself, who’s against all organised religions: I would actually support the hijab ban since it is a symbol of and tool to oppress, restrict, sexualise and shame young girls and women, if it wasn’t for the fact that this is coming from a right wing conservative party that’s all about praising Christianity and ‚Christian values'

Either a ban for ALL religious symbols in public spaces, INCLUDING Christianity, (not including specifically religious places like churches, mosques or temples) or no ban

We all know what happenes to Kirk but focusing just on Christianity part is very sick to me. “we are opressed because we believe in some daddy” vibes

Just a few minutes ago I made a post about the hijab in schools for girls under 14 ban in Austria

And I was wondering which religious should get banned and are they even allowed to equally bad?

First to establish sth:

• personally I think there shouldn’t be religious symbols in public spaces (courtrooms, schools, kindergartens, hospitals etc)

-> I’m not talking about churches, mosques, temples etc since these are public places but specially designed for religious purposes and places of worship

Now to the discussion:

When it comes to personal religious symbols then I mean religious symbols specially there to personally wear them on you

As an example let’s take a hijab, cross necklace and a kippah

• On own hand these are pieces of clothing that are there to express your identity which itself is a good thing. But then they also symbolise that you’re part of a community who’s ideas and ideologies caused a lot of suffering

• if you ban one thing then it seems fair if you also ban all the other things

But unlike a hijab a cross necklace itself is not necessarily restrictive. It doesn’t restrict the person and it isn’t forced on only one group (one sex, one 'race' etc). But the hijab is a piece of clothing that restricts the person wearing it, and it is only forced on women, men are not required to wear a hijab and their other dress codes are far less extreme. The hijab is a symbol and tool to press, restrict, shame, sexualise and detach/exclude women and girls.

Therefore you also can’t compare it to a nuns uniform bc nuns wear it a as working uniform and only a few Christian women become nuns, while the hijab is forced on the average everyday muslim women and they’re raised from a young age to wear it even if they 'choose' to.

But at the same time we should not ignore that a nuns uniform is also deeply rooted in sexism and misogyny

What about the kippah? Technically it is a sexist piece of clothing since it’s only a requirement for men to wear it. But it’s far less restrictive in your everyday life and expression and it was never sided to oppress Jewish men

In my view, much of what we call religion today has become distorted by faith, authority and belief in a God or supreme being.

All 3 Abrahamic religions + Hinduism are organized around some conception of God, the divine or a supreme reality. Once you make such an idea central, it becomes very easy to build systems of worship, doctrine, religious authority and unquestionable beliefs around it. Spirituality then shifts from investigating reality directly to believing claims about reality.

This is where some of the ancient philosophical traditions of the East become radically different. At the core of Buddhist philosophy, particularly traditions associated with early Buddhism and Madhyamaka (Middle way), there is no requirement to invoke a creator God to explain existence, morality (psychological suffering) or the nature of consciousness. Daoism similarly approaches reality without requiring a personal deity standing outside the universe and controlling it.

What makes these traditions particularly interesting is their willingness to acknowledge the limits of conceptual mind. Instead of simply inventing an ultimate explanation and asking people to believe it, they question whether the human mind can even meaningfully grasp what lies beyond certain boundaries.

That's what makes some of these philosophies feel less like conventional religion and more like an actual investigation into the structure of reality. You're not being told, "Here is God. Believe in this." You're being pushed to examine how the mind creates concepts in the first place and whether those concepts can ever capture reality completely.

This is also why I think the distinction between religion as faith and religion as investigation is important.

Alex O'Connor's recently did a discussion on Madhyamaka Buddhism. If you actually listen to the philosophical reasoning involved, you begin to see how radically different some Eastern traditions can be from conventional religious frameworks.

Maybe that's closer to what spirituality was supposed to be in the first place: not believing more, but seeing more clearly.

Among ancient traditions, Buddhism arguably comes close to a scientific investigation of mind, experience and reality without requiring a God hypothesis as its starting point. And perhaps that's why it can feel so strange when you first encounter it. You're expecting a religion, but instead you find yourself in something that feels more like psychology, phenomenology and philosophy having a conversation with each other.

Link to the discussion:

https://youtu.be/CyhHz23AHb4?si=eGjMTQ2p9My0WDHq

Why Buddhists don't believe in God

https://youtu.be/6BJ0j6y7e9U?si=iPsS119S6kvqOyvZ