Intelligent believers in democracy often have a conundrum – possibly the majority of voters are not smart enough to choose the right people. Yet they accept it, because everyone, regardless, should get to vote.

The same goes for religion. It does a lot of harm and tends to trend towards telling others how to live. But atheists allow it, because everyone should have the right to their own beliefs.

Yet as society becomes more informed, and in many lands the left and right are not getting on so well – the right tend to be religious, because they don’t like change, and Christianity is 2000 years old – there is significant tension.

The atheists, not so blindly self-righteous, and not backed by a god, are not the type to take arms. And yet they are losing, whether they are in Kashmir, the southern US, or Saudi Arabia. So what can be done, to not have the religious dictate the lives of the non-religious?

Separatism – in the US, while not easy to achieve, many will shift where they live to somewhere that does not have a majority of religious people. Meanwhile someone in Portland might move to Texas to ensure they have lots of grandkids.

Damnation – shame the wrongs of religion in social media, and out any religious hypocrites (like the many fans of banning abortions who actually had one…)

Ridicule – suggest that they adhere to everything the Bible decrees

But whatever we do, don’t take arms. We would lose a war, and the other team gets off on martyrs.

But here’s the reason I wrote this:

Parallel Societies

We all know that apartheid was bad, but that was one-sided. What if both sides decided they didn’t want anything to do with each other?

I’m not joking. Let’s have schools and buses and shopping malls and football leagues and banks that are either for the righteous or the damned.

Let’s start with an absolute schism, everything cut in half. And then let folk decide that (in most of society) they would rather live and let live, because it is easier. Learn to love and respect our differences.

OR…

Maybe start excluding religious people?

(legally)

A business could ask customers to promise to be pro-choice. That is not religious discrimination… Not any more than Chick-fil-A not opening on Sundays.