This is the issue I have with the suposed religious people.

a reply to: Grimpachi


Just saying to your point that its not like the non-church world has been beaten into silence or anything. On the contrary.

originally posted by: GrimpachiThe church can keep spewing their crap for all eternity. Most people don't care. Just stay out of politics where you guys try to force your beliefs on others.

No one really has to stay out of politics in this country. Just be glad there isn't an official church, government approved ect in this country. That part is unconstitutional.

originally posted by: xuenchen

originally posted by: Grimpachi

I know it is for religious beliefs hence me bringing up the "congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion".

", or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

It is a good thing one right doesn't override others or we would have people running around killing off non-believers and accused witches going by history and some religious texts.

originally posted by: Logarock
a reply to: Grimpachi


Just saying to your point that its not like the non-church world has been beaten into silence or anything. On the contrary.

Every non-believer probably knows that better than you.

a reply to: Grimpachi


But we do have school teacher spouting off about burring the pizza shop to the ground for views contrary to her own.

originally posted by: Logarock
a reply to: Grimpachi


But we do have school teacher spouting off about burring the pizza shop to the ground for views contrary to her own.

From what you describe it sounds like she is probably breaking the law and should be picked up for it.

I am pretty sure there are laws against inciting violence.

originally posted by: Grimpachi
a reply to: theCheddar

Errr....wrong.

I know it is for religious beliefs hence me bringing up the "congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion".

Congress? This is at a state level... BUT, Congress ALREADY made a law respecting the establishment of a religion. It's in the BILL OF RIGHTS. If you're going to quote the First Amendment, quote the whole thing... it explains itself:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

See? Right behind what you quoted... It literally says I can exercise whatever religion/faith/spirituality/atheism/agnosticism/scientology/anything else or none of the above I want.

So it gives special privileges to people who claim to be religious. No mention of deeply held convictions so if a humanist, atheist or purely secular person tries to pull the same crap as a self-proclaimed Christian they are screwed.

The BILL OF RIGHTS did give the religious MORE rights than the non-religious. Because EVERYONE in America was Christian when it was written... Indiana literally granted, to the people who did NOT originally have, those rights. Pretty simple. And the media ran with some dumb-asses horrible reading comprehension. 2 + 2 = 4, Bob's your uncle, demonstrations on the capital building, stupidity takes the day.

I understand it perfectly you however, do not.

...

I am not a supporter of the corporations are people bulls#t either so I certainly do not support extending their powers.

Generally at this point the person I am conversing with will say something along the lines of "tough, the ruling states corporations are people" I am not saying you will, but for those who may be thinking the same I will say even though I disagree with it I accept it and when SCOTUS returns with an expected ruling that the LGBT community as a federally protected class I hope it is taken in stride as well.

You can argue that corporations are not people, it has no bearing on this argument, because the federal government does see them as people... your opinion on the matter doesn't matter.

If you want to change discrimination laws, change the protected classes laws.

originally posted by: theCheddar

Are you dense?

Businesses can already refuse service to anyone they damn well please, Straight, Gay, Black, White, Martian, whatever.

It amazes me how this law has basically been in effect, well, FOREVER, and nobody gave a single # about it until some liberal lgbt activist decided to take offense.

Next, my right to not allowing someone in my home will be infringed upon by a gay couple who wants to # on my couch.

Can you prove to me how you can legally refuse service to a gay person in California?

What law is it you say allows you to do this?

originally posted by: theCheddar

See? Right behind what you quoted... It literally says I can exercise whatever religion/faith/spirituality/atheism/agnosticism/scientology/anything else or none of the above I want.

Oh course you can.

There is no law denying anyone of belief, any belief.

Acting on that belief - - well, that's different.

originally posted by: Rocker2013

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: Onslaught2996

The Bible is a compilation of 66 works, written over thousands of years. It includes poetry, prose, history, commentary, law, songs, wisdom, prophecy and theology (amongst other topics).

And is comprised of selected texts, chosen by a board, picking out the bits to go in it and throwing out everything they "didn't like". After this was done, parts were rewritten, facts changed and even entire locations and settings adjusted to excuse numerous inaccuracies and inconsistent claims within it.

Still, numerous inconsistencies remained for hundreds of years, including supposed "relics" recognized around the world as being genuine - several existing at once all purporting to be the same one thing.

If Christians actually studied their religion, rather than allow selected bits of it to be preached at them, maybe they would discover early on that it's a fantasy?

Well, the current Hebrew Bible (Masoretic version) agrees very, very closely to the Dead Sea Scrolls version, so the Old Testament part of the Bible has, provably, not been appreciably changed over the last 2,400 years.

Oh, and before then, the average lifetime of a single scroll in use is (and historically has been) 800 years (the priests were not allowed to touch them by hand and had special tools to handle the master scrolls), so from Moses time, to the Dead Sea Scrolls time, only requires two master copies, in use and referenced continually. There was no time to rewrite and corrupt the primary religious text and most public document of the time.

Honestly, this 'editing' and messing with what is considered scripture and what isn't, simply didn't happen, and we have the historical artifacts (manuscripts, tablets,inscriptions and scrolls) to prove it.

a reply to: Onslaught2996
Oh look another anti religion/anti Christian thread. Haven't seen one of those in the last 10 minutes.

Pointing out that religious people are hypocrites is like pointing out that water is wet. All people regardless of whether they are religious or not are hypocrites to some degree. There are nasty horrible people who claim to be religious and there are nasty horrible people who claim to be atheists. It's human nature and there really is nothing you can do to change that. This is the human condition.

a reply to: theCheddar

Two things:

Are you stating that you have precognition?

If not, you're full of beans when you're pretending to know that no one is going to use IRFRA to discriminate ... against anyone, gay, Christian, Muslim, Atheist, butcher, baker (heh) or the candlestick-maker.

Do you realize that there was actual history after the Constitution was ratified?

For example, the very same Supreme Court that was set up in said Constitution actually interpreted laws made by the very same Congress that was set up in said Constitution that expanded upon ... you guessed it, that very same Constitution.

To Wit (Limits of Religious Freedom - Havard Institute of Politics:

In Reynolds v. United States (1878), the Mormon Church sued over the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act in an attempt to continue their polygamist practices. The majority opinion declared that the law was constitutional since it neither interfered with religious belief nor selectively outlawed religious practice. “To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land,” wrote Chief Justice Morrison Waite, “and, in effect, permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government could exist only in name under such circumstances.”

Over one hundred years later in Employment Division v. Smith (1990):

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, observed that the Court has never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that government is free to regulate. Allowing exceptions to every state law or regulation affecting religion "would open the prospect of constitutionally required exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind." Scalia cited as examples compulsory military service, payment of taxes, vaccination requirements, and child-neglect laws.

So, uh, horsefeathers, the Constitution does not allow, or had not allowed rather, the "free exercise of religion" to be inflated to allow "anyone to do anything they chose."

IRFRA fixes that problem, though.

As long as you can claim religion to hide behind. You know, like the staged event with the pizza group

/shrug

a reply to: chr0naut

Hmmm. Interesting. I'd love to see some actual backup for your learned expositions ... but here's the thing:

Rocker specifically referenced Christians ... and if I'm not mistaken, they actually have their own part of the Book, no?

Are you claiming that the bits and scraps of what was cobbled together to create the New Testament is also flawlessly reproduced over the last 2400 years?

If not ... why did you just toss that big ol' slab of red herring on the table for discussion, hmm?

a reply to: Logarock

Actually, if you were to really study the history of the First Amendment, the proceedings of the Convention make it clear that the idea was to keep more powerful religious factions from abusing and/or limiting what smaller religious factions could do.

For example, Church of England against the Quakers, the Anabaptists, et. al.

Since, you know, in England the head of the government and the head of the church were the same person ... our Founders seemed to think it best to keep religion out of government as well as government out of religion.

See the writings of Jefferson, Franklin, Monroe, Adams, etc. etc. for the backup.

How can anyone who discriminates, have thoughts of killing, look down on those less fortunate and still call themselves a good person

And hating anyone who doesn't have the same economic system, or nationality, or flag etc, etc.

originally posted by: Onslaught2996

I am not sure what I believe, but I do know I will never follow any man made book that was created to control/brainwash others.

I listen to a lot of supposed "good people" that preach the opposite of what this good person was supposed to have said.

How can anyone who discriminates, have thoughts of killing, look down on those less fortunate and still call themselves a good person.

Why are they allowed to dictate what they consider to be good moral values?

If your a a real good person..our voices should be the ones heard..not the hypocritical religious folk.

Oh...if only life were so simple. Lets take one quote from your OP..."look down on those less fortunate". And before I begin, I like the general idea of your post

To "look down on those less fortunate" would be a bad thing for sure. That is assuming a few things like how they became less fortunate. If they are less fortunate because they spend all their money on drugs, drinking, gambling, etc...I would say you can look down upon them. If they make a conscious decision to not attempt to work and instead just take from the system we have in place to support the real "less fortunate"...I would say looking down upon them is basically required. Or how about one of these people who got a full face tattoo and no one will hire? Someone who decided to have more children than they could afford? What about these people who made decisions that lead to them being less fortunate? I would say that everyone has a right to tattoo their face or have as many children as they wish...but I would also say that the responsibility is theirs, not mine. I may look down upon them for being stupid.

If life were only that simple...we could probably all get along. But humans can be real #ty humans and throw a wrench into anything.

originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: chr0naut

Hmmm. Interesting. I'd love to see some actual backup for your learned expositions ... but here's the thing:

Rocker specifically referenced Christians ... and if I'm not mistaken, they actually have their own part of the Book, no?

Are you claiming that the bits and scraps of what was cobbled together to create the New Testament is also flawlessly reproduced over the last 2400 years?

If not ... why did you just toss that big ol' slab of red herring on the table for discussion, hmm?

The New Testament portion of the Christian Bible has particularly strong provenance for the canon books and letters (large numbers of documents and fragments all saying much the same thing, but none earlier than about AD 50 and some very much later).

Textually, it would appear that the entire New Testament was written after 33 AD when Christ was crucified. Also the entire new testament must have been written prior to AD 70 as no works make mention of the fairly major events surrounding the Jewish revolts, siege and fall of Jerusalem and the start of the Diaspora. This only leaves a 37 year 'window' for all books and letters of the New Testament to be written.

As early as these writings were, they also include warnings about heretical teachings, so Christians were wary of possible forgeries and heresies from quite early times.

It is probably worth noting that Christians in 70 AD thought that the fall of Jerusalem was surely the "end times" and so the idea of codifying a canon list for prosperity was just anathema. This immanence of the "end times" continues to be a big thing to many, to this day!

The issue of what made canon and what didn't is not entirely clear but it would appear that there were some listings of revered writings as early as the 1st Century. To give some perspective, 100 AD is only 30 years after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. They already had lists of revered works by then.

While there are those who say that the New Testament was edited by Constantine, and there are possibilities of additions to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark (whose core messages remain the same regardless of the inclusion or rejection of the passages in question), the truth is that the Christian core faith was already clearly codified and agreed upon before AD 70 and was extremely popular (for any sect) from very early days. Constantine did not have to rewrite anything, anyway, he could already make claim to being a believer for political favor (something which still occurs).

Even when the the church rejected certain writings, these writings were not removed totally but were simply noted as being apocryphal. Even today, many Catholic Bibles contain the books of the apocrypha.

Of course heretical works such as those from Gnostic sources were never really considered for inclusion in the canon and most Gnostic works were much too late for inclusion, anyway.

So, to sum up, the New Testament documentary provenance is complicated but still quite strong.

And yes, there have been attempts to pervert and change the Bible, bad translations and those who misquote and use out of context segments to their own end.

But we still have the (almost) originals alongside with a strong tradition of study and criticism which has kept the core canon fairly pure and unaltered.

originally posted by: theCheddar
Congress? This is at a state level... BUT, Congress ALREADY made a law respecting the establishment of a religion. It's in the BILL OF RIGHTS. If you're going to quote the First Amendment, quote the whole thing... it explains itself:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"

originally posted by: theCheddar
See? Right behind what you quoted... It literally says I can exercise whatever religion/faith/spirituality/atheism/agnosticism/scientology/anything else or none of the above I want.

You have the right to express your religion and practice your religion, you DO NOT have the right to inflict this religion on others, or break or disregard other laws under the notion of religious freedom.
If there is a law criminalizing an act, you do not get to ignore that law because your interpretation of your religious beliefs says you can.
Laws passed, when conflicting with previous laws, nullify those previous laws.

originally posted by: theCheddar
The BILL OF RIGHTS did give the religious MORE rights than the non-religious. Because EVERYONE in America was Christian when it was written... Indiana literally granted, to the people who did NOT originally have, those rights. Pretty simple. And the media ran with some dumb-asses horrible reading comprehension. 2 + 2 = 4, Bob's your uncle, demonstrations on the capital building, stupidity takes the day.

No, you've read the second part as if it stands alone, doing exactly what you claim the other poster did in selectively picking out a line, when they picked out the correct line relevant to this story.

It states, as you have pointed out by your own admission, that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". This means that there shall be no establishment of preferential treatment of religious over non-religious citizens, and no single religion shall have any preference over the fundamental principles of liberty, freedom and justice for ALL citizens.

This is what really baffles me with the American Christian, acting as though they are being persecuted. You're NOT. There are no laws passing to stop you from worshiping, no laws passed limiting your freedoms, no laws restricting your rights, nothing to even remotely inconvenience the Christian American. Until that actually happens, I do wish the Christian preachers would f-off with their "persecution" nonsense.

There is only one group being persecuted by another here, and that's LGBT people being persecuted by religious nutters desperate to inflict their beliefs onto the society around them.

originally posted by: Annee

originally posted by: theCheddar

See? Right behind what you quoted... It literally says I can exercise whatever religion/faith/spirituality/atheism/agnosticism/scientology/anything else or none of the above I want.

Oh course you can.

There is no law denying anyone of belief, any belief.

Acting on that belief - - well, that's different.

Making the owner of a private enterprise do business as others see fit is acting on a belief. The idea that a private owners religious beliefs are neutralized and negated simply because they are engaged in commerce is very constitutionally challengeable.

originally posted by: Rocker2013

originally posted by: theCheddar
Congress? This is at a state level... BUT, Congress ALREADY made a law respecting the establishment of a religion. It's in the BILL OF RIGHTS. If you're going to quote the First Amendment, quote the whole thing... it explains itself:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"

originally posted by: theCheddar
See? Right behind what you quoted... It literally says I can exercise whatever religion/faith/spirituality/atheism/agnosticism/scientology/anything else or none of the above I want.

It states, as you have pointed out by your own admission, that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". This means that there shall be no establishment of preferential treatment of religious over non-religious citizens, and no single religion shall have any preference over the fundamental principles of liberty, freedom and justice for ALL citizens.

And then visa versa no private citizen or group there of should get preferential treatment in regards to laws regarding the treatment of citizens due to their religion. These to have the rights to the fundamental principles of liberty ect.

In this case the owner is being asked to leave his shop and present himself at a function, on private property. There are other legal filters here that do not pertain to religion that still maintain the owners rights not to provide service.