EPTDragon's Dogma, Dark Souls or both?
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Shiragaku
Hong Kong4308 Posts
Dragon's Dogma, Dark Souls or both? | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States46554 Posts
Is it unconstitutional (in America) to have government-established holidays that are religious? As in, when the government recognizes that public schools must close on Good Friday or other days that are recognized by a particular religion (rather than a secular holiday like, say, Independence Day or New Year's Day), is that infringing on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as it's showing preferential treatment of certain religious holidays over others? I would think that all religious holidays would need to be held by the same standard and government perspective, no? I know that sometimes, a semantics game can be played to circumvent some of these holiday issues (e.g., calling Christmas vacation "Winter recess", despite the fact that it starts on the day before Christmas and completely ignores Hannukah and Saturnalia). But others can't (e.g., having no school on the Thursday/ Friday before Easter, or being off for Yom Kippur, especially when they don't line up with any other breaks that could be classified as a secular vacation). Thanks in advance  | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On April 19 2014 00:28 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: I'm not a history buff or constitutional scholar, so I figured someone else with more expertise could explain this to me: Is it unconstitutional (in America) to have government-established holidays that are religious? As in, when the government recognizes that public schools must close on Good Friday or other days that are recognized by a particular religion (rather than a secular holiday like, say, Independence Day or New Year's Day), is that infringing on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as it's showing preferential treatment of certain religious holidays over others? I would think that all religious holidays would need to be held by the same standard and government perspective, no? I know that sometimes, a semantics game can be played to circumvent some of these holiday issues (e.g., calling Christmas vacation "Winter recess", despite the fact that it starts on the day before Christmas and completely ignores Hannukah and Saturnalia). But others can't (e.g., having no school on the Thursday/ Friday before Easter, or being off for Yom Kippur, especially when they don't line up with any other breaks that could be classified as a secular vacation). Thanks in advance Separation of Church and State means the state can't do Church stuff. Holidays/Vacations/etc... Is not the practice of church stuff. But, since the US is a Christian nation, they give "time off" during christian holidays instead of enforcing christian practices. It would be wrong for the government to enforce the celebration of holy week. But giving everyone time off to do as they please is not the enforcing of a religious doctrine. the long and short is that its okay for the government to have days off on Sundays. It would be wrong for the government to require you to go to church on Sundays. Were the US a judaic or islamic nation, the holidays would be set at different days of the year, but it would still not be enforced practices. For example, the US gives christmas as a holiday. They do it because the US is christian. However, you don't actually have to celebrate christmas during winter break. You could make rituals to the devil or have druidic rituals to nature, you could make sacrifices to Zeus or do naked dancing to Krishna. You don't *have* to celebrate christmas during this "arbitrary time off." Which is how they don't break the clause. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States46554 Posts
On April 19 2014 01:03 Thieving Magpie wrote: Separation of Church and State means the state can't do Church stuff. Holidays/Vacations/etc... Is not the practice of church stuff. But, since the US is a Christian nation, they give "time off" during christian holidays instead of enforcing christian practices. It would be wrong for the government to enforce the celebration of holy week. But giving everyone time off to do as they please is not the enforcing of a religious doctrine. the long and short is that its okay for the government to have days off on Sundays. It would be wrong for the government to require you to go to church on Sundays. Were the US a judaic or islamic nation, the holidays would be set at different days of the year, but it would still not be enforced practices. For example, the US gives christmas as a holiday. They do it because the US is christian. However, you don't actually have to celebrate christmas during winter break. You could make rituals to the devil or have druidic rituals to nature, you could make sacrifices to Zeus or do naked dancing to Krishna. You don't *have* to celebrate christmas during this "arbitrary time off." Which is how they don't break the clause. I see. Can you elaborate on what you mean by a Christian nation? You mean because the majority of the American population is Christian, it's just more efficient to create vacations that coincide with their religious beliefs rather than truly random days of the year? | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On April 19 2014 01:16 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: I see. Can you elaborate on what you mean by a Christian nation? You mean because the majority of the American population is Christian, it's just more efficient to create vacations that coincide with their religious beliefs rather than truly random days of the year? I mean that when the founding fathers and early settlers of the US came about trying to build this land as a nation, they were christians and took christian time off to practices christian practices. Over time the time off and the practices become "normalized" as cultural norms. Things like time off on Sundays, Christmas Break, Holy Week, etc... So even as the overall percentage of christians drop in the US, the "normal" customs that the US practices still link bank to the old days of the founding fathers/settlers. As an example of a non-christian practice that has transformed into vacation days, we no longer need children to help with the farms during the summer season--but we still give summers off to people going to school. Although it had a specific use in the past, it has become simply "normal" to have summer vacation. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States46554 Posts
On April 19 2014 01:31 Thieving Magpie wrote: I mean that when the founding fathers and early settlers of the US came about trying to build this land as a nation, they were christians and took christian time off to practices christian practices. Over time the time off and the practices become "normalized" as cultural norms. Things like time off on Sundays, Christmas Break, Holy Week, etc... So even as the overall percentage of christians drop in the US, the "normal" customs that the US practices still link bank to the old days of the founding fathers/settlers. As an example of a non-christian practice that has transformed into vacation days, we no longer need children to help with the farms during the summer season--but we still give summers off to people going to school. Although it had a specific use in the past, it has become simply "normal" to have summer vacation. I'm pretty sure there were plenty of non-Christian founding fathers. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and others weren't Christian (usually deist or generally non-religious). And regardless of which founding fathers were and weren't Christian, I was asking in relation to the actual constitution. I'm a little curious about the whole "take this day off because it's a religious holiday for others, and it's legal because you don't have to do what they do" argument. Especially since schools are closed, so other people are going to be necessarily affected by this. Is a national day of prayer constitutional? Because that's the same argument, I think: You don't have to pray, but let's make national recognition of it and accommodations for it. (As opposed to: If people want to pray, let them do that on their own... but why get the government involved?) But I do agree with you regarding the existence of summer vacations. Fortunately, the current use for them is mainly because so many schools lack air conditioning, so it's not completely useless anymore ^^ But yeah, I'm referring to religious associations with the government, not the secular ones. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On April 19 2014 01:44 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: I'm pretty sure there were plenty of non-Christian founding fathers. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and others weren't Christian (usually deist or generally non-religious). And regardless of which founding fathers were and weren't Christian, I was asking in relation to the actual constitution. I'm a little curious about the whole "take this day off because it's a religious holiday for others, and it's legal because you don't have to do what they do" argument. Especially since schools are closed, so other people are going to be necessarily affected by this. Is a national day of prayer constitutional? Because that's the same argument I think: You don't have to pray, but let's make a national show of it. (As opposed to: If people want to pray, let them do that... but why get the government involved?) But I do agree with you regarding the existence of summer vacations. Fortunately, the current use for them is mainly because so many schools lack air conditioning :/ The government is rarely involved in those things since, due to it being a holiday, all government workers are expected to not be working that day. christian is also a loose term. the Lutherans, Catholics, Protestants, etc... did not necessarily share the same rituals, days of celebration, and yearly cycles. But there's a reason Christmas was okay and not, say, Hanukkah. When it comes to the constitution, if the government doesn't run something then its not enforcing it. Freedom of speech, for example, is only constitutionally broken if the government is who is shutting you up. Anyone else can squelch you, your writings can be prevented from seeing the light of day--but your freedom of speech in the US is not violated up until its the government spending its resources to do so. The same is true for separation of Church and State. Until the Government is either leading the mass or is forcing people to attend it, or has it be a requirement to get jobs, funding, etc... Then the government has not crossed that line. Time off is time off. In none of the holidays that the US has will you be arrested for not being religious enough during the time of the holiday. Freedom of speech also means that if, say, fox news spends a 24 hour cycle talking about how important Jesus is in Christmas, then the US government has no way to stop them from saying that because the government is not allowed to stop people from speaking. And being that a large enough portion of cultural practices in the US are rooted in christian practices, and that there is a large number of christians in America, then you get annoying things like some kind of holiday popping up, the news agency/neighbors start talking about Jesus for 1-4 days per holiday, and the US government can't stop them from doing that. its not an argument made specifically to make a loophole for Christians. Literally speaking, inaction is not actively implementing something. The US Government can arbitrarily make days holidays. Many of those days are not religious based (4rth of July, Presidents Day, MLK, etc...) and many of those are religious (Holy Week, Christmas, holloween, etc...) since America has been historically very Christian, a lot of the "normal" holidays are also Christian holidays as opposed to non-christian holidays. but those holidays are arbitrary to the core. Any day can be a holiday, and holidays can be plucked away on a whim as well. (Hence why the US gets presidents day instead of Lincoln, Washington, etc...) | ||
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farvacola
United States18869 Posts
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On April 19 2014 02:24 farvacola wrote: Those of non Christian faith can almost always get days off for their respective religious holidays. Wait wait--I'm confused. I thought we were talking about federal holidays as opposed to time-off from work? Did I misunderstand, if so I am so sorry for the wall of texts  | ||
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Fumanchu
Canada669 Posts
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On April 19 2014 06:19 Fumanchu wrote: What's the best way to demote a friend from hanging out outside of work to just hanging out at work without offending him? Judging from personal experience spreading the word of God throughout the northwest states--talk to him about how much God loves him and has been waiting for him to come back into the fold. EDIT: The goal is to become uncool enough that he won't hang out with you outside of work, but endearing and nice enough of a guy to be willing to hang out with you while at work. | ||
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Epishade
United States2267 Posts
On April 19 2014 06:19 Fumanchu wrote: What's the best way to demote a friend from hanging out outside of work to just hanging out at work without offending him? Ask him if he'd like to be more than just friends, then slip him your number. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States24408 Posts
On April 19 2014 06:27 Thieving Magpie wrote: Judging from personal experience spreading the word of God throughout the northwest states--talk to him about how much God loves him and has been waiting for him to come back into the fold. EDIT: The goal is to become uncool enough that he won't hang out with you outside of work, but endearing and nice enough of a guy to be willing to hang out with you while at work. Nailed it! Unless he happens to be religious in which case talk about your fondness of the dark lord haha. But yeah just be a positive pester. So always talk about work with them instead of other life events. those kinds of things should help. You could also just do the opposite of stuff they like to do when they want to hang out. They like quiet go to a sports bar, they like sports bars play risk or something. Just be no fun for them to hang out with outside of work. If you're not worried about rumors just watch porn next time they come over that should make things uncomfortable enough so they don't want to come back. If not step up the weirdness on the porn. PS: if you do the porn thing please set up a reaction cam!? + Show Spoiler + Disclaimer: this advice is meant in jest. But could be effective none the less | ||
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[UoN]Sentinel
United States11320 Posts
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farvacola
United States18869 Posts
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MtlGuitarist97
United States1539 Posts
On April 19 2014 08:57 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: Is there a way to make your shits slimmer? I'm tired of clogging every public bathroom I inhabit Try eating less fiber maybe. If you eat something that makes you constipated you might get anal fissures, but your shits will be nice and compact. For reference, watch the South Park episode More Crap. | ||
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Najda
United States3765 Posts
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Epishade
United States2267 Posts
On April 19 2014 08:57 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: Is there a way to make your shits slimmer? I'm tired of clogging every public bathroom I inhabit Break up your shit beforehand by jamming something up there until it's all mushy. | ||
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[UoN]Sentinel
United States11320 Posts
On April 19 2014 10:23 Epishade wrote: Break up your shit beforehand by jamming something up there until it's all mushy. Another piece of shit? | ||
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Simberto
Germany12048 Posts
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