The Limits of Religious Freedom

[dianaiad]

I missed this, but it deserves special attention because it's another bull**** example of freedom of religion going too far, and that is with conservative-Christian-based adoption agencies, such as the Catholics, prohibiting adoption to homosexual couples. And you talk about forcing a woman to go through with a pregnancy anyways to give birth to a child who will be adopted, when there are already TONS of children already who need adopted.

No. Are you really claiming that my very straight daughter and her very straight husband have been unable to adopt BECAUSE the CATHOLICS won't let gay couples adopt?

Sheesh.

They have been told for 25 years that THERE WERE NO BABIES that they could adopt. They belong to a couple of support groups for couples waiting for babies to adopt. THERE ARE NO BABIES to adopt. This is why so many people go to Africa or China....or anywhere outside the USA...to adopt, if they can afford it. BECAUSE THERE ARE NO BABIES TO ADOPT.

Or rather, there are babies...but for every adoptable child there are ten couples who want one.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

No. Are you really claiming that my very straight daughter and her very straight husband have been unable to adopt BECAUSE the CATHOLICS won't let gay couples adopt?

No, if you hadn't knee jerked you'd see I"m saying the Catholics won't let gays adopt.

They have been told for 25 years that THERE WERE NO BABIES that they could adopt. They belong to a couple of support groups for couples waiting for babies to adopt. THERE ARE NO BABIES to adopt. This is why so many people go to Africa or China....or anywhere outside the USA...to adopt, if they can afford it. BECAUSE THERE ARE NO BABIES TO ADOPT.

Or rather, there are babies...but for every adoptable child there are ten couples who want one.

I don't know where they're at, but in America there are nearly a half million children up for adoption on any given day. Estimates and ranges do vary, but there is no shortage or rarity of children who are up for adoption.

 

[Shad]

No. Are you really claiming that my very straight daughter and her very straight husband have been unable to adopt BECAUSE the CATHOLICS won't let gay couples adopt?

Sheesh.

They have been told for 25 years that THERE WERE NO BABIES that they could adopt. They belong to a couple of support groups for couples waiting for babies to adopt. THERE ARE NO BABIES to adopt. This is why so many people go to Africa or China....or anywhere outside the USA...to adopt, if they can afford it. BECAUSE THERE ARE NO BABIES TO ADOPT.

Or rather, there are babies...but for every adoptable child there are ten couples who want one.

There is actually a surplus of newborn to 3 year olds waiting for adopt according to .gov stats. Over 20k for ages 1 to 2, over 4k for ages 1 and below. A majority of those put up for adoption within the above age ranges are adopted.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Stalin. Mao. Pol pot

What did they do in the name of Atheism? What symbols of Atheism did they use?

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

It does grant me those rights. The first amendment to the US Constitution says so....and it says so twice. Indeed, Freedom of religion is the FIRST right mentioned, and the only right mentioned twice. That, I believe, rather emphasizes it's importance.

You have the freedom to practice YOUR OWN religion. As in YOU, yourself. You get to decide what stupid things you want to believe and you can run up and down the street with your head in the clouds, believing them all you want to. That's what it protects. It doesn't necessarily protect your ability to foist your beliefs on others, or trap others into believing as you do. Hence there are so many questions about this stuff regarding CHILDREN.

The thing is, protecting MY freedom to exercise my religion also protects your freedom to not be religious.

Why hasn't that occurred to you guys?

What have I said that makes you think I don't understand this? Get over yourself. Not everything that pops into your head is relevant to the discussion at hand.

What you are advocating here is very much the sort of thing my great (and great-great) grandparents experienced. A law was passed that made it legal to shoot them on sight if they didn't leave Missouri. They did leave...in the middle of winter...and many (about 4,000) died. Most of the rest of 'em lost fingers, toes and noses. They lost their property, more than once, ...

This is not, at all, what I advocate, and I have said as much 10 different ways. Your religion is not above the law. Your religion is not above the law. Your religion is not above the law. Your religion is not above the law. There... if the record isn't broken by now then I don't know what will get through to you.

Because there were laws against polygamy and not owning slaves....and in Missouri, there was a law against having free blacks live among 'white' people.

And did I say that all laws were fantastic? No. There are possibly even laws still on the books in some states now proclaiming that you can't be an atheist and hold office... possibly even that you can't be an atheist and be sworn in for jury duty! Do I think these laws are "good?" No. But until someone changes them do you think I am going to go around breaking them because I think my philosophical stance on God is more important than REAL LIFE? Nope.

The 'good neighbors' around them decided that the way the Mormons lived was distasteful to them. They were polygamists (well, some were...) and they didn't own slaves. And there were a LOT of them and tended to vote as a block, and were, as a rule, abolitionists.

And religious types in control have done the same to the non-religious or those of a different religion around them - that is, use their might to legislate against what they felt was distasteful. In my personal opinion, if harm couldn't have been shown to be done to a reasonable percent of the governing populace, then there shouldn't have been any action taken - legal or otherwise. Our society is learning as we go, that's how it has always been. And like it or not, your religion doesn't have all the answers to fix everything - which is why I have said that it shouldn't even be taken into account in legal matters. Shouldn't be held against you, and shouldn't given you ANY benefit. What should stand up and defend itself in the courts is YOUR ACTION, and your action alone.

The neighbors 'drew the line' where YOU are drawing the line, in other words. And the neighbors got their way.

But I haven't drawn a line! The closest I have probably come to that is when I told you that the person who feels wronged is probably the best judge of whether some religious practice they were subjected to is harmful or not. That's about the closest to a "distinction" I have made. Otherwise: Your religion is not above the law.

I don't want to see you get yours, because y'know what?

People don't change much...as in 'those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.'

"Get mine?" What the hell are you talking about here? Is this like some pretend anti-threat? Some passive-aggressive version of a threat? Maybe an invocation of "God's power" to see if your mustered frustration and anger can produce some dire consequence for me? Once again... get over yourself. You have no power here.

 

[dianaiad]

Well, you tend to do that to yourselves by aligning with politicians who come with an agenda of hating the poor and doing everything they can to make their lives harder than they already are.

Uh huh....you mean the folks who think that the responsibility for helping others should be personal and done privately because the government does an incredibly poor job of it, and who prove this by being a WHOLE lot more charitable in their private lives than the vast majority of liberals?

And yes, I CAN prove both claims: that private organizations do a better job than the government, and that conservatives are more charitable than liberals. I've done both more than once, right here on RF.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

And yes, I CAN prove both claims: that private organizations do a better job than the government, and that conservatives are more charitable than liberals. I've done both more than once, right here on RF.

You can support that Christians are better at giving to Christians. Others (because it's a far cry from "Christian vs Liberal) are better at giving to others. The state is better organized and better at doing it on a larger and more efficient scale.
I can support my claims. You can prove nothing.

 

[dianaiad]

What did they do in the name of Atheism? What symbols of Atheism did they use?

Wait, I thought that 'atheism' was just an absence of beliefs in a deity or deities? You can't have this both ways.

Shadow Wolf, there is no middle choice here. All beliefs regarding religion can be folded into two general categories: theism or atheism. Anything done 'in the name of God,' or done to advance the cause of any religion or even slightly religious group, is done 'for or on' theism.

Because all religions or beliefs in God are 'theist,' and therefore part of 'theism.'

Follow me so far? It doesn't matter if the WORDS "in the name of God' are used. Anything religions do to advance their religious opinions is 'done in the Name of God." MOST of what they do is good, mind you; charitable works, 'love one another as I have loved you," and whatever is equal to that among other belief systems...but use the words or not, that's what

No, because early embryonic stages objectively do not have a humanoid figure or appearance. And, "medically and scientifically," there actually isn't a consensus. There isn't a consensus as to what constitutes as alive and dead, either.

I've never been a fan of 'we can m

You can support that Christians are better at giving to Christians. Others (because it's a far cry from "Christian vs Liberal) are better at giving to others. The state is better organized and better at doing it on a larger and more efficient scale.
I can support my claims. You can prove nothing.

No, actually, you can't prove anything of the sort.

You absolutely cannot prove that the government is better than private charities, even church-based charities.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Wait, I thought that 'atheism' was just an absence of beliefs in a deity or deities? You can't have this both ways.

Shadow Wolf, there is no middle choice here. All beliefs regarding religion can be folded into two general categories: theism or atheism. Anything done 'in the name of God,' or done to advance the cause of any religion or even slightly religious group, is done 'for or on' theism.

Because all religions or beliefs in God are 'theist,' and therefore part of 'theism.'

Follow me so far? It doesn't matter if the WORDS "in the name of God' are used. Anything religions do to advance their religious opinions is 'done in the Name of God." MOST of what they do is good, mind you; charitable works, 'love one another as I have loved you," and whatever is equal to that among other belief systems...but use the words or not, that's what

So, in other words, you can't name of these 20th century atheist regimes who did stuff in the name of atheism.

You absolutely cannot prove that the government is better than private charities, even church-based charities.

I never said prove. I said I can support my claims.

 

[dianaiad]

So, in other words, you can't name of these 20th century atheist regimes who did stuff in the name of atheism.

Yes I can. Stalin, Mao, EVERY dictator/leader who did anything to get rid of theism. Is that the only thing they did? Of course not.

Here are two facts, supported...no, proven...by the data. First, that the sum of all 'democides' (deaths at the hands of theistic governments...and that means all governments with a 'state religion') since the beginning of people recording such things doesn't come close to the death toll of the twentieth century atheistic governments.

Second, there hasn't been one single atheistic (that is, a regime that had 'atheism' or 'anti-theism' as its official position on religion) that was NOT lethal. Not even one...from the French Revolution forward.

Pretending that those two facts are not facts is an exercise in stupidity, frankly. It is as silly as me pretending that theocracies have been nothing but love and lullabies. I mean, there HAVE been theocracies that were not 'democidal,' and we can't say that about officially atheistic nations, but the track record isn't great....and there have been a great many more theocracies than there have been officially atheistic governments. Had to happen once in awhile.

The only possible non-lethal religious stance to take is neutral. Freedom of religion...and freedom to not be religious...the government stays far away from the subject. A secular approach.

I'd go on, but I promised myself to try to keep my posts to a single, 'don't have to scroll down" window.

I never said prove. I said I can support my claims.

You can't support them, either.

The data simply doesn't exist to support a claim like that.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

Given the wide range of religious beliefs, there have to be limits. One of the threads of the Civil War was about the Bible and slavery.
And we don't want women to be repressed by rigid Salafi Muslim beliefs either.

Since Pentecost I find No one is under the Constitution of the Mosaic Law.
Any such teaching since Pentecost is a man-made teaching outside of Scripture.
Or, as King Solomon wrote that man has dominated man to man's hurt or injury - Ecclesiastes 8:9
The 'limit' Jesus gave is to have the same self-sacrificing love for others as Jesus has - John 13:34-34
Since man can't enforce Christ-like love, then divine involvement is needed (love also defined at 1 Corinthians 13:4-6)
To me that divine involvement is about a coming 'time of separating' to take place on Earth as per Matthew 25:31-33
Thus, only right-hearted people will remain on Earth because 'executional words' from Jesus' mouth will limit and rid the Earth of the wicked - Isaiah 11:3-4; Revelation 19:14-16; Psalms 92:7