Homeopathy is a religion?

A quicky stream of consciousness post here.

Homeopathy is the practise of using a diluted upon diluted upon diluted upon diluted chemical with the expectation that even though it has been diluted to the point of nothingness the original chemical has transferred its molecular properties to the water. The scientific principles behind it are pretty much non-existent. Well, not pretty much. None at all. Especially when you take into account placebo effects.

Therefore the people who think that homeopathy works must have some faith in the medicine that they are using.

Now faith is a belief that is not based on proof. Exactly what religion is. Therefore you can deduce that is a religion and should be treated as such. Shops such as Holland&Barrett are therefore their temples and should be excluded from business rates and other commercial considerations. They can also use laws against religious hatred to protect them from the ridicule that they get from scientific people.

But then this leads on to other thoughts.

Faith explains why Christians and Muslims and Jews (other religions do exist) believe in their god(s). They have a faith that is based on nothing much more than something which makes them feel good. Some religions use moral superiority as the feel good factor, others use peace and goodwill, whilst others use to explain away all the random acts that nature instills on the world. And because their faith is based on nothingness (just like homeopathy’s nothingness) there is no way you can argue with them to tell them that their belief is stupid and illogical. Nor can you tell them that their faith is wrong and some other faith is the one and true faith.

All that you can do is accept that they have these weird faiths. They should be protected from persecution since physical harm is not to be condoned in any form. Maybe they should be protected from ridicule too, but I don’t think so. If their belief in their faith is strong it will naturally resist all attempts of abuse. Therefore any religious person who demands legal protection by such forms like religious hatred laws is a person who is unsure of their faith. Such people should be helped by their group to better understand their faith. They should not force their religion on others who don’t belive in it. Because asking a person of another faith (or non-faith) to stop the ridicule is basically telling the other person that they have to recognise the faith as something tangible – when it isn’t – it’s based on nothingness. It also requires the other person to acknowledge that the faith of the first person which is pretty much forcing the religion on the other person.

Free speech allows people to speak their mind, which also means people can have weird beliefs. It does not allow people to force their beliefs on others (who might not have any faith or an opposing faith). They can argue and debate, but as part of this give and take, they have to accept that ridicule is part of the debating process.

Ridicule can take on many forms. It can be as simple as jokes. It can also be as complex as the destroying the faith’s principle articles of faith in various manners. So destroying pastilles of Rescue Remedy because you can prove that they don’t actually contain anything other than sugar is just as valid as destroying a book because you can prove that it doesn’t contain any facts. A person who believes in homeopathy shouldn’t care that their precious pills have been shown to contain nothing as that is what they believe in. A person who believes in a god shouldn’t care that a copy of their precious book has been shown to contain nothing of fact as that is what they believe in – non facts.

The world is such a complex place with all manners and forms of faiths being mixed up and forgotten about and created that it is impossible to allow faiths to have any form of protection. It’s not like the past where groups could keep to themselves because there weren’t any forms of easy transportation or communication. Not allowing demonstrations of non faith also means that it could be denying one religion their form of belief. When you have Christians believing that Jesus is the messiah and Jews believing that the messiah hasn’t arrived yet and Muslims believing that Jesus is just a normal person you can see that conflict with religious hatred laws will arise straight off the bat. A Muslim laughing and joking about Jesus not being special could be locked up for religious hatred. A Christian taking the piss out of a Muslim for thinking that Mohammed is special when it should be Jesus could be locked up for religious hatred. A scientist laughing and joking about the Jews belief in the Old Testament could be locked up for religious hatred. In return a scientist should expect to be made a laughing-stock by religious people for thinking that the universe created itself and is made up of strings.

This is what free speech means. The right to be made fun of, to be ridiculed.

So it what longer than a quicky post, but it was a stream of consciousness going from homeopathy to faith to religion to religious hatred to free speech.

Update:
Do practitioners of homeopathy not wash their hands? After all, diluting the germs with water makes them stronger, right? The more you wash, the more powerful they become!