I describe myself as being atheist but on reflection believe that a more accurate description would be a-religious or antireligious. Religion is in most cases an accident of birth. Those born in any area stand a good chance of being born to a family that practices the predominant local religion. Children are indoctrinated in or introduced to the family beliefs and taboos. The religious meme is extremely good at self-replication. The younger children are extremely receptive to the teachings of their parents and elders so where religion is the subject to the very young it falls on fertile ground.
Just how badly the children are infected is obvious in the more misogynic religions and sects where girls are taught that they have a role different and in most cases subservient to their male counterparts. There have had two recent occurrences that show how strongly implanted the religious meme is. A film trailer was posted to You-Tube some months back. The subject of the film was the founder of one of the religions. In a remarkably well organized spontaneous (yes! contradiction) demonstration of anger at the depiction of the holy man demonstrations were held on the anniversary of a terrorist strike that cost over 3000 lives. The widespread nature and the intensity of these protests give the impression of planning and premeditation that was enabled by the obedience of the members of the religion to the calls or instructions of the religious leaders.
The other case that bears some attention was the attempted assassination of Malala Yousufzai a 14 year old Pakistani girl who was critical of the actions and policies of the Taliban who had taken over the area where she lived. Her advocacy for education for girls in the face of Taliban instructions against it resulted in her being shot in the head and neck. Her crime is not as important as the principals involved she defied the radical group whose misogynic policy is to deny girls and women education. For most women brought up in these conditions this is normal and accepted. Of the total population of the world (slightly over 7.046 billion) 22.43% or 1.580 billion are adherents of this faith. Women make up roughly 50% of the population or in this case 790 million people who are treated as being different (inferior?) to the males. In some of the states where this religion is the main faith FGM (female genital mutilation) is practiced as a means to prevent the women from straying! In many of the states the female form has to be covered due to the males not being able to control themselves!
The following quote is from http://www.indexmundi.com/world/demographics_profile.html Index mundi. It is noticeable that the majority mentioned are from states where the Islamists hold sway. The only state that is not known for being Islamic is China!
“Literacy
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 83.7%
male: 88.3%
female: 79.2%
note: over two-thirds of the world's 793 million illiterate adults are found in only eight countries (Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Pakistan); of all the illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds are women; extremely low literacy rates are concentrated in three regions, the Arab states, South and West Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, where around one-third of the men and half of all women are illiterate (2005 est.)”
This misogynic religion appears to be still in the dark ages in terms of modern human rights and morals. That together with the radical Christian groups who refuse modern medicine, rely on prayer for healing, believe in infection by evil and take an absolute acceptance in the inerrancy of a book that has been shown to be inaccurate in many aspects, are the reason for moving from atheism to anti-religion or a-religious.
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