Freedom of religion: a bad idea?

reply to post by FortAnthem

Which doesn't explain where you get your moral, or "Christian" absolutes.
Animal sacrifice, making the "ultimate human sacrifice" for political religion are all Biblically defensible.
Terrible things have been done in the name of Judeo-Christianity.
Exactly which part will you use?
Quote me your Biblical standard.

Originally posted by halfoldman
reply to post by FortAnthem

 

Exactly which part will you use?
Quote me your Biblical standard.

Well, in case your new around here, I'm a Catholic and my ideal of society would look something like this.

I'm not saying that the whole country should be like this but, if Catholics wanted to all move to some part of the country and create their own Catholic confessional state, they should be free to do so.

Any group that wanted to go somewhere else to start their own society based upon their religion or lack thereof should be free to do so as well. The Federal government should not move in to stop any attempts by its people to live their lives according to their faith. People should be free to create communities that reflect their own values without Federal intervention.

reply to post by FortAnthem

Well, Catholics already have their own state.
I'm sure you could go and live in the Vatican?
Perhaps Latin America?
You honestly want another state for Catholics?
Maybe one day when we colonise space there will be unlimited space for every splinter group - the gays can have Uranus.

reply to post by halfoldman


Have you seen how tiny the Vatican is?

We're not all gonna fit into there, we need some room to breathe you know, maybe some nice state in the Midwest, far away from all those liberal loonie cities.

Originally posted by halfoldman
Maybe one day when we colonise space there will be unlimited space for every splinter group - the gays can have Uranus.

As long as its Uranus, and not mine.

reply to post by FortAnthem

I've only seen St Peter's Square, and that's pretty huge - you could settle a whole tribe there.
Maybe Siberia, or the Gibson Desert in Australia (you could rename it the Mel Gibson desert)?

Jokes aside, I think (being half-Catholic stock myself) that these fears in other religions/denominations are a great opportunity to get people already where they are back into things.
Other forms of Christianity are often so divisive and split on mega-churches (minor churches with egos, really) and associated with Christian intolerance.
The Catholic church seems more tolerant and attractive than ever, and I feel only a fool will run from its looming revival everywhere.

So if you want to segregate from others faiths, don't use the US Constitution. You will have to ask YOUR faith to allow this - and it will not allow this, because as a Christian you must be a witness amongst the nations. Or not?

To FortAnthem,

Not Freudian.

Just somthing I saw on a church billboard this morning
that gave me a little warm and fuzzy feel for Christians.

Those feelings are a bit hard to come by these days.

No! Really! I love you guys!

But if it was the way your suggesting the ptb would be
auctioning off my propery to pay for the stake and firewood.

HAHAHA!! I Banish Your Fear With Laughter!

It worked for me, how 'bout you.

magpie

Originally posted by halfoldman
reply to post by FortAnthem

 

So if you want to segregate from others faiths, don't use the US Constitution. You will have to ask YOUR faith to allow this - and it will not allow this, because as a Christian you must be a witness amongst the nations. Or not?

Yeah, you got a point there but, what better way to be a light among nations than to carve out a Catholic community to show the world what a truly Catholic society would look like.

Its not like we're gonna build a big fence around it to keep the rest of the world from looking in.

they cant live in peace

well, the evolution of our society will probably change the way we view religion, so we may become more spiritual than sheeps that follow random fictional books

I dont like the actual concept of religion, since it doesnt allow discussion, and thats just dumb, since we dont know the truth, and the only way to learn is to work together

not to listen together, as most people do

reply to post by FortAnthem

A fence?
Perhaps a wall would be more appropriate to save us the eyesore of another slum where "every sperm is sacred".
But perhaps, with your followers that will be different.

(Joke, well mostly. I love Bavaria, and that's mainly Catholic, although they don't take everything literally all the time - so it's lovely)

Originally posted by FortAnthem

That evidence is in the atheistic communist nations and their blatant disregard for the lives of the people they ruled. You complain about religions persecuting people, atheistic communist regimes have killed far more people in the name or idealogical purity than all the religions of the world ever have, and they did this in the course of only about 100 years.

Those authoritarian regimes would not countenance such potent sources of social upheaval (religious institutions) to challenge their grip on the population.
Power was the enemy ........ not a belief in a supernatural force.
If they did not exert control over a particular institution, then its days were numbered .

The barbarity was not conducted in the name of a deity/religion ......... if you wish to call that an example of atheism , its a bit of a stretch .Just because there was not a religious element to the masse murder, doesn`t make it an atheistically inspired period of barbarity. Just an exception to a rather lengthy rule - with a history as old as our species.

=================================================================================

So my hypothetical to you :FortAnthem

Is your( presumably) moral life, predicated on the certain knowledge that their is a `divine` ?
If you discovered that there was no such supernatural force involved in your life, would you grow more selfish and act `immoral` ?

The fears of FortAnthem's, that a democracy develops into a totalitarian situation, where a majority suppress the minority, shows more about his/her own mindset, than it does on his/her knowledge of democracy or how a democracy functions.

Why on earth shouldn't people be able to form ethical values without an insane 'god'. Where I live, we have several rather old, secular nations doing quite well without him.

And even if former Sovjet in many bad ways was a totalitarian system, it at least had a co-sensus of law-abiding amongst the population. I always felt safe when walking in East-european streets, where- or whenever, while god's own country is one of the most unsafe places I've heard of.

As with all other fundamentalists, you're just out to push your own 'truth', making a very bad job of it. And selling your special branch of fascism the way you do, is a bit like cola company trying to corner the market with an add saying: "The product of our competitors tastes like P, and is harmful to your health".

Your arguments are 2-300 years out-of-date on how people think these days, and if you really want to convert anyone, reconsidering your strategy would be a good move.

Since writing my last post, I've started to analyse my position, at least hypothetically.

You see, in my country 'christians' like FortAnthem and his ilk, make up about 5% of the population. I may add, not very popular 5%.

So in the interest of upholding national co-sensus values without disturbing elements, the question of religious freedom is worth considering. My country would certainly be much more peaceful and lawabiding without the constant noise from christians trying to topple our democratic, secular legal system.

Ofcourse my arguments suffer somewhat from not having ultimate truth on my side, as fundamentalistic 'christians' have it, ...or Hitler had it, and then I'm only 65 years old, so I still need some time to come around to the excellency of totalitarian thinking.

Just kidding, even bizarre 'christians' advocating the fall of democracy, will be sheltered and allowed to exist in my godless part of the world. A luxury I would not have in FortAnthem's 'Utopia'.

If the proliferation and industrial evangelization of the false church fills you with indignation, because since Cain, their precursor, they have continually made a merchandise of the Truth. If you are astonished by the way an innocent soul is evaluated and manipulated like a mere product for high financial gain, finishing as a trivial statistic exploited by the politic-economic-financial predators of this world.

This is part of the full text available at www.missionarieswithoutborders.com. Go to this site and you will find your way out of this necessary evil inflicted on the world.

i was reading a few articles about freedom of religion in relation to the whole NYC mosque and florida quran burning fiasco, because it does raise the question, can the government step it and stop certain actions if they are offensive?

i was thinking why not?

if the government for example stopped the quran burning, how does that impede his right to religious worship? is burning the quran part of his worship? certain actions that conflict with the law are not allowed under freedom of religion, for example, you cant kill another person and claim its your religious right to do so and still get away with it.

i think the going rule and precedent has been freedom within the confines of the law, which by spirit has been to not harm others.