Obama: 1in 5 women have been raped in the US

[Elok]

I don't disagree that Christians shouldn't have to hide their beliefs from others, but I do think imposing those beliefs via law is not something our society is supposed to allow. You mention that theocracy is toxic, but I really think there's something to be said for only living with people who accept the same basic metaphysical assumptions that you do. You can argue that a pluralistic culture has some value in and of itself, but making that argument means you've already accepted some tenet that probably transcends your religion. And if you do that, then your religion is not the final arbiter of your moral values, in which case you probably need to rethink your life anyway...

I don't think a pluralistic society (ITO religion) is intrinsically valuable, but it is necessary in that coerced religious belief is meaningless, and faking it for special privileges is if anything worse. At present, we're living through a de-Christianization of the West, as people who formerly identified as Christian in a purely cultural sense abandon the charade. This has the paradoxical effect of enhancing religious fervor, as all the lukewarm people desert and lose their moderating influence. At the same time, the seculars are gradually drifting away from old Christian moral assumptions. This is a recipe for conflict, especially if one side is continually expected to give up its say, by default, in the name of some preconceived notion of good (second-class) citizenship.

As for what we're supposed to allow, supposed by who? The rules--but the rules can change. Our interpretation of the constitution and/or amendments has varied plenty over the years.

[Elok]

I don't think you understand the concept of judgement. Judgement isn't about standing up for principals, it is about deciding what value others have based on their principles.

Well, we like to say "love the sinner, hate the sin" to honor this distinction, but every time we do we get accused of sanctimonious bull****, so I for one have given up saying it. You will perceive us as judgmental no matter what we say or do, because it's a convenient way to dismiss us. For example, basically anybody who opposed gay marriage (I did not, for complex reasons) was assumed to be a raving god-hates-fags type, regardless of any evidence or lack thereof.

It is very convenient for Xians to be able to claim that they aren't picking and choosing which portions of God's Contract with His People are still valid, they are just using "very complex schools of exegesis," which just happens to be indistinguishable from self-serving picking and choosing.

Indistinguishable only to the ignorant. The food laws, for example, can be ignored based on the words of Christ as well as various events in Acts. Ritual obligations, including circumcision, are out because of Acts again and the epistle to the Romans (IIRC). Laws against sexual immorality, idolatry and sorcery are quite explicitly enforced by Scripture, patristics and deuterocanonical works like the first-century Didache.

[Kidlicious]

1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Just a little context makes it obvious. I mean that's all you would have to read to not misquote.

[Lorizael]

The restrictions you refer to are pretty much the only valid restrictions in a society that isn't theocratic. I can understand, in a theoretical way, that there are people who believe that morality comes only from some extrinsic authority (either physical or metaphysical), but i can't really understand that type of thinking. People like that are like some people I know who are absolutely convinced that the moon landings were faked. They simply refuse to accept the idea that conclusions should follow from evidence, and that if evidence changes, conclusions should as well. Like the believers in metaphysical sources of morality, they just know what they know is true, and no facts seem to dissuade them. Note that I am commenting here on my reactions to such thinking; I am explicitly not saying that believers in gods are like believers in moon landing hoaxes.

I think that believers in metaphysical forces should be allowed to guide themselves by their concepts of such forces (barring harm to others), but shouldn't seek to guide others by what their metaphysical gods/forces/spirits say.

As Elok mentioned earlier, all morality rests on some metaphysical assumptions. If you doubt your morality does so, that's probably because you're mistaking your metaphysical assumptions for "the way the world obviously works, you idiot." For example (totally making this up, but it's convenient because you mentioned evidence), if you're the type of person who could be convinced, by evidence, that animals are sentient and shouldn't be eaten, then you have already assigned some value to sentience. Assigning that value requires you to have made some ultimately non-evidence-based judgments about the way the world works.

I don't think a pluralistic society (ITO religion) is intrinsically valuable, but it is necessary in that coerced religious belief is meaningless, and faking it for special privileges is if anything worse. At present, we're living through a de-Christianization of the West, as people who formerly identified as Christian in a purely cultural sense abandon the charade. This has the paradoxical effect of enhancing religious fervor, as all the lukewarm people desert and lose their moderating influence. At the same time, the seculars are gradually drifting away from old Christian moral assumptions. This is a recipe for conflict, especially if one side is continually expected to give up its say, by default, in the name of some preconceived notion of good (second-class) citizenship.

As for what we're supposed to allow, supposed by who? The rules--but the rules can change. Our interpretation of the constitution and/or amendments has varied plenty over the years.

Yeah... it probably does lead to conflict. You can make a good argument that the separation of church and state unfairly targets beliefs that happen to arise in a religious context. I think it's kind of like how we treat BK here. If BK wanders even a little bit into racist/homophobic/misogynistic territory, the ban hammer comes out. If others do, the powers that be usually let it slide. BK has a history, and so does religion.

I think a pluralistic society requires some kind of separation of < crazy assumptions about the world that generate your beliefs > and state. But a pluralistic society also requires some kind of Rousseauian general will that represents more or less everybody; otherwise it can't function at all. I've long believed that this is a futile effort anyway, which is why my default answer to this kind of conundrum is to build space colonies...

[Kidlicious]

I don't disagree that Christians shouldn't have to hide their beliefs from others, but I do think imposing those beliefs via law is not something our society is supposed to allow. You mention that theocracy is toxic, but I really think there's something to be said for only living with people who accept the same basic metaphysical assumptions that you do. You can argue that a pluralistic culture has some value in and of itself, but making that argument means you've already accepted some tenet that probably transcends your religion. And if you do that, then your religion is not the final arbiter of your moral values, in which case you probably need to rethink your life anyway...

Well you say it's wrong to impose your beliefs on society, but that's what Christians are suppose to do. Of course it's no good if people only obey the law and don't believe the law is just. So I think it's more about arguing for what's right. And you can do that politically. But there's no sense in doing that if the society isn't pluralistic.

[N35t0r]

For example, basically anybody who opposed gay marriage (I did not, for complex reasons) was assumed to be a raving god-hates-fags type, regardless of any evidence or lack thereof.

To be fair, I see vegans who would gladly forbid everyone else from eating animal products in a similar light

[Elok]

Yeah... it probably does lead to conflict. You can make a good argument that the separation of church and state unfairly targets beliefs that happen to arise in a religious context. I think it's kind of like how we treat BK here. If BK wanders even a little bit into racist/homophobic/misogynistic territory, the ban hammer comes out. If others do, the powers that be usually let it slide. BK has a history, and so does religion.

The more I read of history, the more I feel that "religion made people go crazy" is a gross misunderstanding of what actually happened in most situations. For example, the furious fights over fairly minute differences in wording about the nature of Christ that split the Eastern Empire before Islam showed up were primarily a matter of politics; bishops in Alexandria resented the authority of the hierarchs in Constantinople, and vice versa. Most historians looking back at the controversy seem to say, "yeeaahh, the religious disputes were mostly a mask for a power grab." Likewise the Spanish Inquisition (seven-century-old grudges mixed with paranoia about fifth columns), Albigensian Crusade (threat to Pope's by-then considerable political authority), the destruction of the Templars on bizarre charges (King of France wanted their money), etc. Then as now, most people were kind of faking it when it comes to religion. But it was the ideological bedrock of everything, so everything got expressed in religious terms.

Secular ideas don't have this same history because secular beliefs are relatively new to power, and because the past couple of centuries have been much more stable than the Middle Ages. Which is no coincidence, but I think most people have it backwards; it's not "secularism advances peace and security" so much as "peace and security lead people to abandon religion." If you have nothing left to pray for, why pray at all?

[Kidlicious]

Socialism is a religion. There are no free societies, not in absolute terms. Socialists have just determined that gays, along with other victims, are oppressed, not that we are all oppressed by all these laws and taxes.

[Lorizael]

The more I read of history, the more I feel that "religion made people go crazy" is a gross misunderstanding of what actually happened in most situations. For example, the furious fights over fairly minute differences in wording about the nature of Christ that split the Eastern Empire before Islam showed up were primarily a matter of politics; bishops in Alexandria resented the authority of the hierarchs in Constantinople, and vice versa. Most historians looking back at the controversy seem to say, "yeeaahh, the religious disputes were mostly a mask for a power grab." Likewise the Spanish Inquisition (seven-century-old grudges mixed with paranoia about fifth columns), Albigensian Crusade (threat to Pope's by-then considerable political authority), the destruction of the Templars on bizarre charges (King of France wanted their money), etc. Then as now, most people were kind of faking it when it comes to religion. But it was the ideological bedrock of everything, so everything got expressed in religious terms.

Secular ideas don't have this same history because secular beliefs are relatively new to power, and because the past couple of centuries have been much more stable than the Middle Ages. Which is no coincidence, but I think most people have it backwards; it's not "secularism advances peace and security" so much as "peace and security lead people to abandon religion." If you have nothing left to pray for, why pray at all?

I don't think religion makes people crazy. I think religion is just a very useful, powerful tool for doing crazy things. You can argue, of course, that absent religion, we will find other tools. But it is possible that those other tools might not be as effective. (You know, like how arguing that you shouldn't ban guns because people will just use knives. Well, dammit, guns are deadlier than knives!) But you can also argue that the real tool for psychotic behavior is the human psyche... which is simply being, as you said, expressed in religious terms.

[giblets]

Socialism is a religion. There are no free societies, not in absolute terms. Socialists have just determined that gays, along with other victims, are oppressed, not that we are all oppressed by all these laws and taxes.

Capitalism is a religion because I say so /s

[ricketyclik]

I don't think religion makes people crazy. I think religion is just a very useful, powerful tool for doing crazy things. You can argue, of course, that absent religion, we will find other tools. But it is possible that those other tools might not be as effective. (You know, like how arguing that you shouldn't ban guns because people will just use knives. Well, dammit, guns are deadlier than knives!) But you can also argue that the real tool for psychotic behavior is the human psyche... which is simply being, as you said, expressed in religious terms.

I agree, but how's a space colony going to help you with this?

Also, I think xenophobia is the powerful tool for making people do crazy things - religious, "race", sexual orientation, political beliefs, drug habits, etc, can all be used to cause some people to view other people as lesser humans worthy of their contempt. It's schoolyard politics 101. Also see Machiavelli.

[Kidlicious]

Capitalism is a religion because I say so /s

Most people defend capitalism because it works, not because of a value judgement, like "it's bad to keep your money when other people have less, but it's ok to take from people and give to others because you think they are more deserving."

[Elok]

I don't see how, after the events of the twentieth century, one can argue convincingly that purely secular ideologies are less effective than religious ones in inspiring sociopathic behavior. The stuff that went down in the camps, gulags and prisons is pretty well neck-and-neck with the worst of the Middle Ages.

[Sava]

Capitalism is a religion because I say so /s

for every single word that exist, "X" is "Y" because someone, at some point, said so

the trick is getting others to agree

[giblets]

Most people defend capitalism because it works, not because of a value judgement, like "it's bad to keep your money when other people have less, but it's ok to take from people and give to others because you think they are more deserving."

How can you claim something "works" without making a value judgement?