Surely that's not true?
Islam for example is a religion, that you can not leave.
Islam for example is a religion, that you can not leave.
I personally don't know what Islamic teaching says on the matter, but there seems to be a reasonable number of "ex-Muslim" organisations around the world, the existence of which makes an empirical case that, for practical purposes, you can indeed leave.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ex-Muslim_organisation...
To the best of my knowledge, apostasy in Islam in the US is no particularly worse than apostasy in Mormonism on the scale of denomination.
Obviously, there are plenty of people around who consider themselves ex-Muslims or ex-Catholics, regardless of any such considerations. Likewise, for so-called cults, so I'm not convinced it's really a point of difference.
It's rare in the US, but it does happen in other parts of the world (killed for being apostates).
Not going to comment on anything else, just pointing out the obvious difference in kind here. Death is orders of magnitude worse than having your name on a list.
For instance, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-da-fé
(This wasn't unique to Spain, but Spain was certainly an epicenter, due to a large Jewish population forcibly converted during and after the Reconquista)
The whole "it was the civil authorities not the Church" line doesn't really work there, since the Pope was ultimately in charge of both, even if the two were still nominally distinct.
Even in the case of the Spainish Inquisition, where the Church-va-State distinction was somewhat more real – you have to ask whether the Church encouraged or discouraged the civil authorities from imposing capital punishment on those it convicted of heresy. I think you will find that the answer was very much "encourage", not "discourage" or neutral. "We didn't execute anybody, we just encouraged the government to execute them" is a rather laughable defence.
That's literally why I started off my comment with "I'm not going to excuse the church". You're absolutely right that there ought to have been a reckoning with the consequences.
If you can't, then it's just a waste of my time.
I repeat: Do you actually have any evidence for what you're saying?
If it helps, though, the Roman Inquisition, an organ of the Church, also liked to burn the odd apostate.
Frankly, it sounds as though you are randomly spouting phrases in an attempt to sound educated.
As a Catholic, I regularly attend Church and we have many people (even entire families) who either join after a long period of being away or leave the faith all together. We miss them of course but no one sends them death treats.
Additionally, many people move between denominations.
Perhaps you are confusing those with real cults such as: Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventism ?
I can't however speak for how they operate as I haven't studied them or been involved.
For instance, https://www.notme.ie
I've just never heard of such a thing.
Are you asking the court to make a judgement on theological matters (i.e., the state of your soul)? Surely you can see why they don't care.
>As of 2014, there were eight Muslim-majority countries where apostasy from Islam was punishable by death, and another thirteen where there were penal or civil penalties such as jail, fines or loss of child custody.
I'd say at least in those eight death penalty countries, you practically are not allowed to leave. And if the state letting you live but is taking away your children from you, you'll too think twice about leaving, too...
In some regions, while apostasy is not official punished by law, people will still punish it extra-legally e.g. by committing "honor killings".
Of course, this does not reflect all of Islam/all Muslims, and what people think about how apostates should be dealt with varies a lot regionally.
If it even is legally (under religious laws) possible to leave the religion is a contested issue between theological scholars, however the bulk of theological scholars seem to consider it an absolute crime against God, but may disagree on whether it's up to people to punish the crime, or punishment be left to God.
But even in Western countries there can be significant support within Muslim communities to harshly punish apostates.
> A similar survey of the Muslim population in the United Kingdom, in 2007, found nearly a third of 16 to 24-year-old faithful believed that Muslims who convert to another religion should be executed, while less than a fifth of those over 55 believed the same. [0]
That said, other religions, including an in particular Christianity, historically haven't been nice to apostates, either.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/jan/29/thinktanks.religi...
> As of 2014, there were eight Muslim-majority countries where apostasy from Islam was punishable by death,[17][18][19] and another thirteen where there were penal or civil penalties such as jail, fines or loss of child custody.