Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are:
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Like Salemicus said, no one of those things are persecutions. The closest of your examples is Bertrand Russell's firing, but even you admit that wasn't over his materialism.
By way of contrast there were in fact places in the developed world during the 1930's-1940's where one could be prosecuted for not being a materialist. And by prosecuted, I mean religious people were being semi-systematically arrested and/or executed (not necessarily in that order).
Saying "people in this time period are persecuted for their religion" implicitly limits it to Western democracies unless you specifically are talking about something else. It's like claiming that "in the 1980's, women weren't allowed to vote". That's literally true, because there are countries where in the 1980's (or even today) women could not vote, but it's not what most people would mean by saying such a thing.
Furthermore, the existence of laws implies persecution. If school prayer is compulsory, that means that people in schools ... (read more)