|
Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On September 14 2020 23:22 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2020 22:02 farvacola wrote:On September 14 2020 20:26 Broetchenholer wrote:
I am not describing faith, I am describing religion. I have zero problem with people believing in what ever spirituality. I don't understand it, but if they get something positive out of it, that's cool. But then you go to organized religion, and even the better ones can't simply live and let live. Into almost every organized religion, there is some code imprinted, where they fail to comply with some rule of modern society. Be it missionizing, be it condemning homosexuality or abortion, be it ritually demeaning women.
Sure my language was provoking, but I really can't stand the hipocricy of fundamental Christians, or any other religion, to move the world backwards because a book that was written and rewritten in the last 2000 years tells them so. So here’s the thing, I agree with basically everything you say here, but I think the proper rhetorical approach towards those who do bad shit in the name of God is not one that casts broad aspersions as to how religion itself works as a thing humans do. There are millions of American Christians who know that fundamentalism and sola scriptura/fide are wrong and that they are used to justify all sorts of awful shit, but we’ll never get those people solidly opposed to Trump and his brand of political apologists a la Danglars if something they consider very important, religion, is routinely ridiculed like a Bill Mahar special. It’s folks like Bill Mahar and their one dimensional takes on religion that give conservatives the room to claim that the left wants to outlaw their faith and other silly shit. I grew up with multiple people who became pastors and feel it’s my duty to make sure they remember just how radically left Jesus was, so this is a topic near and dear to me  I don't think there's such a dividing line between fundamentalists and your average everyday Christian, even the ones who agree with much of what i think about politics. The issue of massive grassroots belief that being gay will send a person to hell, for example, is harmful way beyond each individual that believes such things. You cannot take that homophobia out of the religion because its there in the texts. Sure, tone is important when addressing religious people, but the idea that they might change their mind about something like that because we are respectful is something I just can't see any evidence of, and these are important issues that leave alot of people having a shitty life.
Totally disagree man, the presence of homophobia in religious texts only poisons the well of a religion if one tries to regard a religion as a strictly textual, hard and fast rule based enterprise. Many mainline prot denominations in the US actively prohibit that kind of biblical exegesis, and it serves as a helpful dividing line between what I think are good and bad approaches to Christianity (or any of the Abrahamic religions).
To illustrate a point of contrast, the Jewish faith is heavily tied to rabbinical interpretations of core writings, many of which overwrite and conflict with one another, even where the source text is facially unambiguous. Only the most orthodox of Jews push for super strict textual applications of religious rules, which is why they tend to stick out, many of the rules they deem important mandate very old fashioned notions of dress and conduct.
All that said, there’s no doubt that the textualist Christians who spout off Bible verses without explication have an undue amount of political power in the US, and they easily drown out the Leftist Christians, many of which are too busy and crushed by doing the actual work of charity. Some of the best people I know, the ones whose character I aspire to, are also the most religious (and opposed to Trump, for that matter), so I’d like to find ways to amplify their voices, they are surely allies against folks who think losers should suffer their loss without help from the rest of us.
|
On September 14 2020 22:03 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
This is a thread that regularily demeans those of different beliefs and idealogies, but apparently Farvacola and Ender draws the line at the spectre of religion. Go figure.
No, i agree, my post was not phrased in a way that would create a discussion. It was incendiary and it might have insulted some people here. I still think that people that actually believe that the earth is 6000 years old, that homosexuals are corrupted by satan and need to be cured and that the bible is the absolute authority over anything else when they need it and kinda not if it fits them better, should not have a political platform, or a social one. But there are billions of religious people and some religious organisations that have never hurt anyone and might feel like i also believe they are horrible people.
So my apologies to them, and i do hope the States sometime come to the conclusion that religious freedom always means within boundaries set by the secular society, and that this fight to drag society back 2000 years stops. Also, that the people crying over the religious freedom then apply the same freedom to religions they are not part of.
|
On September 14 2020 23:33 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2020 23:22 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 14 2020 22:02 farvacola wrote:On September 14 2020 20:26 Broetchenholer wrote:
I am not describing faith, I am describing religion. I have zero problem with people believing in what ever spirituality. I don't understand it, but if they get something positive out of it, that's cool. But then you go to organized religion, and even the better ones can't simply live and let live. Into almost every organized religion, there is some code imprinted, where they fail to comply with some rule of modern society. Be it missionizing, be it condemning homosexuality or abortion, be it ritually demeaning women.
Sure my language was provoking, but I really can't stand the hipocricy of fundamental Christians, or any other religion, to move the world backwards because a book that was written and rewritten in the last 2000 years tells them so. So here’s the thing, I agree with basically everything you say here, but I think the proper rhetorical approach towards those who do bad shit in the name of God is not one that casts broad aspersions as to how religion itself works as a thing humans do. There are millions of American Christians who know that fundamentalism and sola scriptura/fide are wrong and that they are used to justify all sorts of awful shit, but we’ll never get those people solidly opposed to Trump and his brand of political apologists a la Danglars if something they consider very important, religion, is routinely ridiculed like a Bill Mahar special. It’s folks like Bill Mahar and their one dimensional takes on religion that give conservatives the room to claim that the left wants to outlaw their faith and other silly shit. I grew up with multiple people who became pastors and feel it’s my duty to make sure they remember just how radically left Jesus was, so this is a topic near and dear to me I don't think there's such a dividing line between fundamentalists and your average everyday Christian, even the ones who agree with much of what i think about politics. The issue of massive grassroots belief that being gay will send a person to hell, for example, is harmful way beyond each individual that believes such things. You cannot take that homophobia out of the religion because its there in the texts. Sure, tone is important when addressing religious people, but the idea that they might change their mind about something like that because we are respectful is something I just can't see any evidence of, and these are important issues that leave alot of people having a shitty life. Totally disagree man, the presence of homophobia in religious texts only poisons the well of a religion if one tries to regard a religion as a strictly textual, hard and fast rule based enterprise. Many mainline prot denominations in the US actively prohibit that kind of biblical exegesis, and it serves as a helpful dividing line between what I think are good and bad approaches to Christianity (or any of the Abrahamic religions).
*looks up exegesis*
I mean the whole point of abrahamic religion is to be rule based. That's why it began, that's what it is. Its about law.
I get your point with regards to protestants, maybe I'm stereotyping based on what I've seen of the US, but I had the impression the evangelical/catholic Christians over there massively outnumber protestants, and that's where most of the hatred is.
|
On September 14 2020 23:22 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2020 22:02 farvacola wrote:On September 14 2020 20:26 Broetchenholer wrote:
I am not describing faith, I am describing religion. I have zero problem with people believing in what ever spirituality. I don't understand it, but if they get something positive out of it, that's cool. But then you go to organized religion, and even the better ones can't simply live and let live. Into almost every organized religion, there is some code imprinted, where they fail to comply with some rule of modern society. Be it missionizing, be it condemning homosexuality or abortion, be it ritually demeaning women.
Sure my language was provoking, but I really can't stand the hipocricy of fundamental Christians, or any other religion, to move the world backwards because a book that was written and rewritten in the last 2000 years tells them so. So here’s the thing, I agree with basically everything you say here, but I think the proper rhetorical approach towards those who do bad shit in the name of God is not one that casts broad aspersions as to how religion itself works as a thing humans do. There are millions of American Christians who know that fundamentalism and sola scriptura/fide are wrong and that they are used to justify all sorts of awful shit, but we’ll never get those people solidly opposed to Trump and his brand of political apologists a la Danglars if something they consider very important, religion, is routinely ridiculed like a Bill Mahar special. It’s folks like Bill Mahar and their one dimensional takes on religion that give conservatives the room to claim that the left wants to outlaw their faith and other silly shit. I grew up with multiple people who became pastors and feel it’s my duty to make sure they remember just how radically left Jesus was, so this is a topic near and dear to me I don't think there's such a dividing line between fundamentalists and your average everyday Christian, even the ones who agree with much of what i think about politics. The issue of massive grassroots belief that being gay will send a person to hell, for example, is harmful way beyond each individual that believes such things. You cannot take that homophobia out of the religion because its there in the texts. Sure, tone is important when addressing religious people, but the idea that they might change their mind about something like that because we are respectful is something I just can't see any evidence of, and these are important issues that leave alot of people having a shitty life.
I do believe christians can have a good moral compass and don't act against homosexual people. They might still think they will go to hell, but this does not necessary mean they act any different towards them. The problem only occurs if they take these parts of the bible and believe them because they are in the bible, or because the cleric tells them to believe them as they are in the bible. But then look at other parts of the bible and conveniently ignore those. Like, the whole old testament. Oh no, i have looked lustfully at this woman, now i have to rip out my eyeball and throw it away. Would it help if the Pope would come out and say, we made a mistake, homosexuals are okay? Sure. But most people have already understood that discriminating them is wrong and that they are completely normal people despite the Bible.
|
On September 14 2020 23:54 Broetchenholer wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2020 23:22 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 14 2020 22:02 farvacola wrote:On September 14 2020 20:26 Broetchenholer wrote:
I am not describing faith, I am describing religion. I have zero problem with people believing in what ever spirituality. I don't understand it, but if they get something positive out of it, that's cool. But then you go to organized religion, and even the better ones can't simply live and let live. Into almost every organized religion, there is some code imprinted, where they fail to comply with some rule of modern society. Be it missionizing, be it condemning homosexuality or abortion, be it ritually demeaning women.
Sure my language was provoking, but I really can't stand the hipocricy of fundamental Christians, or any other religion, to move the world backwards because a book that was written and rewritten in the last 2000 years tells them so. So here’s the thing, I agree with basically everything you say here, but I think the proper rhetorical approach towards those who do bad shit in the name of God is not one that casts broad aspersions as to how religion itself works as a thing humans do. There are millions of American Christians who know that fundamentalism and sola scriptura/fide are wrong and that they are used to justify all sorts of awful shit, but we’ll never get those people solidly opposed to Trump and his brand of political apologists a la Danglars if something they consider very important, religion, is routinely ridiculed like a Bill Mahar special. It’s folks like Bill Mahar and their one dimensional takes on religion that give conservatives the room to claim that the left wants to outlaw their faith and other silly shit. I grew up with multiple people who became pastors and feel it’s my duty to make sure they remember just how radically left Jesus was, so this is a topic near and dear to me I don't think there's such a dividing line between fundamentalists and your average everyday Christian, even the ones who agree with much of what i think about politics. The issue of massive grassroots belief that being gay will send a person to hell, for example, is harmful way beyond each individual that believes such things. You cannot take that homophobia out of the religion because its there in the texts. Sure, tone is important when addressing religious people, but the idea that they might change their mind about something like that because we are respectful is something I just can't see any evidence of, and these are important issues that leave alot of people having a shitty life. I do believe christians can have a good moral compass and don't act against homosexual people. They might still think they will go to hell, but this does not necessary mean they act any different towards them. The problem only occurs if they take these parts of the bible and believe them because they are in the bible, or because the cleric tells them to believe them as they are in the bible. But then look at other parts of the bible and conveniently ignore those. Like, the whole old testament. Oh no, i have looked lustfully at this woman, now i have to rip out my eyeball and throw it away. Would it help if the Pope would come out and say, we made a mistake, homosexuals are okay? Sure. But most people have already understood that discriminating them is wrong and that they are completely normal people despite the Bible.
Oh I don't doubt that the vast majority of Christians wouldn't act against homosexuals, even politically unless you count voting republican.
The belief itself is what's harmful, and multiply that belief by millions of people generation after generation and some percentage of those will act in a homophobic way when without the belief they wouldn't have. This stuff is passed down through generations as well. The cost of the belief that non-christians will go to hell, when added up over the years, has been insane.
|
On September 14 2020 14:34 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2020 11:41 Danglars wrote:On September 14 2020 10:26 WombaT wrote:On September 14 2020 08:46 Danglars wrote:
I mean it shouldn't be so confusing. Biden and Democrat's message has been to fuck over people of religious faith. Nuns have to provide abortifacient drugs, even though they can't prove it's an accessibility problem and have many ways of providing these drugs apart from forcing religious organizations to be the means. The government had to confess at the Supreme Court that it could find no woman with a health access problem to demonstrate there was great need to overide First Amendment religious protections.
Say the same thing for Colorado and the Civil Rights Commission. And adoption agencies.
Honestly, even for the most hardcore lefty in this forum, it should be the easiest thing to imagine why evangelicals feel they have no choice in this election. They simply don't feel First Amendment protections have any business being surrendered, and the "women's health" argument is a stupid one made by people that ought to know better. There is only one candidate in the presidential field with any claim of letting business owners with sincere religious beliefs and religious organizations operate free of Government telling them they have no First Amendment protections for their operations. The Democrats always have the choice to not tweet out that they're gonna drag nuns back to court if elected. Well they can feel that way, I don’t overly care. Do whatever. If one wants tax exempt status on religions grounds, but wants to exert political influence, but wants to be guaranteed the right to be able to whatever, like have at it man. If one is willing to give a pass to Donald Trump, close to the least Christian man in human history as long as he’s ‘your guy’ then go for it. Really Danglars you want to have your cake and eat it, claim for have some high ground on issues and just ignore the negatives. And then claim the problem is people being intolerant for not accepting your choices I hold my government to higher standards than you. Period. Religious rights in this country should be respected. I think you're really digging yourself into a hole by claiming this is "the right to be able to whatever." I think you have to try much harder to find an argument here. I can accept some negatives (Some states have to find ways of subsidies that don't interfere with religious freedoms, oh boo hoo), because well ... religious liberty rights are foundational. Good luck with your discrimination, because honestly, you know why people vote this way and don't care. Secondly, if the government was harassing you for something, and one guy fought to get them off your back, and the other guy promised more lawsuits, I think even you would find reason to ignore personal shortcomings. You're honestly better than this, in my view. Religious institutions already have restrictions on their political influence if they seek to maintain tax exemption, by the way. Drag you back to court, or leave you alone? Oh man, Wombat, I really gotta think about his moral fiber on this one. I really love spending years in court at the hands of my own government if it means I avoid voting for personally immoral candidates. Do you really think attacking Trump on his moral character is making a point, or do you just feel you need to bring it up every time? On September 14 2020 11:06 WarSame wrote:
And also he seems to be interested primarily in business owners exercising their First Amendment rights to harass those of a vulnerable group under their employ, rather than for the purpose of peaceful protest.
Danglars, please just come out and say openly that you don't give a shit about liberal democratic values, that you would sacrifice them in order for the previous existing social order to flourish, and that you don't value the health or safety of those of different groups than yourself. Some people have blinders on in this discussion. When religious freedoms come up, they are incapable of seeing it as anything other than international harassment or lack of care about health and safety. Maybe in the future, you can come around to seeing these are poor excuses for state actions that can be done while actually valuing the religious freedom rights in the First Amendment. It would be a pretty stupid amendment if the first yahoo just whines about how inconvenient it is to respect religious individuals, and imagined harm and harassment was their aim. So how about valuing the religious conscience rights of groups that aren't like you, and have convictions you don't share. Go be honest in politics, and have your state agency work around sincerely held beliefs to dole out subsidies if you actually value them and don't really want to ... ... ... make this about putting the religious faithful as second class citizens within their own country, okay? Okay, so how do you feel about Muslims' right to wear a niqab or a burka in public?
Government shouldn't be restricting this out in public.
On September 14 2020 17:07 Nouar wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2020 13:56 Danglars wrote:On September 14 2020 13:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 14 2020 13:03 NewSunshine wrote:
Religious freedom is your right to practice whatever religion you choose and not be persecuted for it, so long as you are not also infringing on the rights of others in doing so. You don't get carte blanche to shit on other peoples' rights and be able to call it "religious freedom". That isn't a thing. Christians aren't being persecuted when people tell them to stop denying other people their rights and freedoms. Not how it works. This has been Danglars's MO for a long time. He has some weird obsession with railing on the left's supposed attack on religious freedom and 1st amendment rights while completely ignoring the fact that the party that he supports regularly tramples on people's constitutional rights on a frequent basis, including their other first amendment rights. It's the same exact playbook that conservatives all across America use. Danglars is just more eloquent than your average conservative, but his hypocrisy runs just as deep. Inasmuch as this thread ignores real issues that matter to the voting public, I’m doing the thread a service. The arguments in favor of dragging nuns into court on the pretense that Obamacare invented a right to no-cost abortifacients have been historically bad. The adherents rely on equally bad bases to argue abstractions like health care (nobody found injury to it) or balancing rights (right to force employers to offer specific drugs free of charge is quite an argument, but I guess they could find nothing better than it). In short, Democrats and leftists on this forum have long ignored religious freedoms in this country, and it falls in nicely with their ongoing attacks on evangelicals for voting the way they do. I don’t yet have a theory on how much this ignorance is a practiced trait, because it avoids adopting a more nuanced view of their opponents and considerations in their vote, or how much is a priori disgust at religious values they dislike. It will be a stumbling block to dialogue if posters here can’t accept obviously good reasons to vote for Trump, since they have no entry point to then argue that the negatives outweigh the positives. Single payer health care at the federal level. Boom, no more nurse problem or religious freedom in health care since the employer is not involved anymore. Any issue with that? Republicans are against actually solving these kind of problems, as it's useful to keep them to have leverage on religious voters. Still. Staying focused on one issue and forgetting the rest of the unacceptable bullshit is tunnel vision.
From a religious liberties perspective, single payer health care would be preferable to the way certain states and previous administrations treat private health insurance. Even better than that, government should withdraw from dictating what plans companies negotiate with their private health insurance, and confine themselves to policing fraud. The government shouldn't do stupid regulations on what private insurance is allowed to be offered, and impose caps on things like HSAs.
Regarding "forgetting the rest," I'm trying to give the minority conscientious reader of this forum ample cause to believe that evangelicals have sufficient reason to vote Trump on grounds that Biden's chill with throwing religious orgs in jail for acting out their beliefs. I'm not angry or incensed at religious people that can understand that perspective, [and then decide that Trump's other negatives outweigh it in the end. If you'll review the past pages, I mainly directed myself at the ignorant perspective wondering why evangelicals could even think of voting Trump. First, gain understanding. Second, be able to form cohesive arguments from the point of understanding. bUt hES sO imMoRal, wHY?? is radical ignorance of politics and (apparently) has wide acceptance on the left.
On September 14 2020 17:52 Broetchenholer wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2020 08:46 Danglars wrote:
I mean it shouldn't be so confusing. Biden and Democrat's message has been to fuck over people of religious faith. Nuns have to provide abortifacient drugs, even though they can't prove it's an accessibility problem and have many ways of providing these drugs apart from forcing religious organizations to be the means. The government had to confess at the Supreme Court that it could find no woman with a health access problem to demonstrate there was great need to overide First Amendment religious protections.
Say the same thing for Colorado and the Civil Rights Commission. And adoption agencies.
Honestly, even for the most hardcore lefty in this forum, it should be the easiest thing to imagine why evangelicals feel they have no choice in this election. They simply don't feel First Amendment protections have any business being surrendered, and the "women's health" argument is a stupid one made by people that ought to know better. There is only one candidate in the presidential field with any claim of letting business owners with sincere religious beliefs and religious organizations operate free of Government telling them they have no First Amendment protections for their operations. The Democrats always have the choice to not tweet out that they're gonna drag nuns back to court if elected. Danglars is certainly right to point out this is what Evengelicals migth be thinking in supporting Trump. It's ridiculous of course, but it shows what those people are about. The constitution is only there for me. A small group of nuns have to provide healthcare for their employees? Outrageous. Good chrisitains have to server homosexuals? Not cool. Banning all travelers from muslkim countries? Yaaaaay. I am allowed to treat you like shit because Jesus, you are not allowed to live here because Allah. That's the good old christian values, love thy neighbour unless he does not pray like i do. Religion in a nutshell. Only my rules apply. The other 6 billion people are wrong and talk to imaginary friends, my imaginary friend is the creator of the world. And he told me that i am special
They failed to prove in a court of law that anyone couldn't access "health care," save for employer insurance. Anti-religion in a nutshell: The issue is about what I say it's about, regardless of the facts or context. In more normal times, demonstrating that health care was denied as a result would be an important part of proving this is about actual provision of health care.
On September 14 2020 18:53 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2020 14:17 Starlightsun wrote:
Is there anything else besides abortion that is considered to be infringing on Christian religious freedom? Yes. Danglars thinks i'm a religious bigot because i don't support the 'right' of Christian schools to bully pupils for being gay. Pretty much explains everything about the depth of the religious rights argument. Its arbitrary in the idea that religious rights take precedence over all other rights. Its arbitrary in who those rights apply to. etc. etc. The religious freedom danglars holds in such high esteem is exactly and precisely what gave birth to scientology, with their exploitative modern slavery and immunity from criminal prosecution which extends as far as not being investigated when people go missing or die.
The pupils may also have a hard time learning about the inerrant word of god, when it condemns homosexuality as an affront to the creator of earth, heaven, and hell. Or, as Farva points out, find a religious school that works with the bible as Jews do with rabbinical teachings and the Torah. It's arbitrary that overtly religious institutions have to disobey the tenets of their religion because somebody that believes neither thinks it's unfair that they're allowed to teach. I'm a little more into separation of church and state. Go regulate public schools or charter schools. Stop preaching what's good and bad to religious centers of education, armed with the jack-boot of government dictate.
|
|
|
On September 15 2020 00:28 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2020 14:34 Acrofales wrote:On September 14 2020 11:41 Danglars wrote:On September 14 2020 10:26 WombaT wrote:On September 14 2020 08:46 Danglars wrote:
I mean it shouldn't be so confusing. Biden and Democrat's message has been to fuck over people of religious faith. Nuns have to provide abortifacient drugs, even though they can't prove it's an accessibility problem and have many ways of providing these drugs apart from forcing religious organizations to be the means. The government had to confess at the Supreme Court that it could find no woman with a health access problem to demonstrate there was great need to overide First Amendment religious protections.
Say the same thing for Colorado and the Civil Rights Commission. And adoption agencies.
Honestly, even for the most hardcore lefty in this forum, it should be the easiest thing to imagine why evangelicals feel they have no choice in this election. They simply don't feel First Amendment protections have any business being surrendered, and the "women's health" argument is a stupid one made by people that ought to know better. There is only one candidate in the presidential field with any claim of letting business owners with sincere religious beliefs and religious organizations operate free of Government telling them they have no First Amendment protections for their operations. The Democrats always have the choice to not tweet out that they're gonna drag nuns back to court if elected. Well they can feel that way, I don’t overly care. Do whatever. If one wants tax exempt status on religions grounds, but wants to exert political influence, but wants to be guaranteed the right to be able to whatever, like have at it man. If one is willing to give a pass to Donald Trump, close to the least Christian man in human history as long as he’s ‘your guy’ then go for it. Really Danglars you want to have your cake and eat it, claim for have some high ground on issues and just ignore the negatives. And then claim the problem is people being intolerant for not accepting your choices I hold my government to higher standards than you. Period. Religious rights in this country should be respected. I think you're really digging yourself into a hole by claiming this is "the right to be able to whatever." I think you have to try much harder to find an argument here. I can accept some negatives (Some states have to find ways of subsidies that don't interfere with religious freedoms, oh boo hoo), because well ... religious liberty rights are foundational. Good luck with your discrimination, because honestly, you know why people vote this way and don't care. Secondly, if the government was harassing you for something, and one guy fought to get them off your back, and the other guy promised more lawsuits, I think even you would find reason to ignore personal shortcomings. You're honestly better than this, in my view. Religious institutions already have restrictions on their political influence if they seek to maintain tax exemption, by the way. Drag you back to court, or leave you alone? Oh man, Wombat, I really gotta think about his moral fiber on this one. I really love spending years in court at the hands of my own government if it means I avoid voting for personally immoral candidates. Do you really think attacking Trump on his moral character is making a point, or do you just feel you need to bring it up every time? On September 14 2020 11:06 WarSame wrote:
And also he seems to be interested primarily in business owners exercising their First Amendment rights to harass those of a vulnerable group under their employ, rather than for the purpose of peaceful protest.
Danglars, please just come out and say openly that you don't give a shit about liberal democratic values, that you would sacrifice them in order for the previous existing social order to flourish, and that you don't value the health or safety of those of different groups than yourself. Some people have blinders on in this discussion. When religious freedoms come up, they are incapable of seeing it as anything other than international harassment or lack of care about health and safety. Maybe in the future, you can come around to seeing these are poor excuses for state actions that can be done while actually valuing the religious freedom rights in the First Amendment. It would be a pretty stupid amendment if the first yahoo just whines about how inconvenient it is to respect religious individuals, and imagined harm and harassment was their aim. So how about valuing the religious conscience rights of groups that aren't like you, and have convictions you don't share. Go be honest in politics, and have your state agency work around sincerely held beliefs to dole out subsidies if you actually value them and don't really want to ... ... ... make this about putting the religious faithful as second class citizens within their own country, okay? Okay, so how do you feel about Muslims' right to wear a niqab or a burka in public? Government shouldn't be restricting this out in public. Show nested quote +On September 14 2020 17:07 Nouar wrote:On September 14 2020 13:56 Danglars wrote:On September 14 2020 13:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 14 2020 13:03 NewSunshine wrote:
Religious freedom is your right to practice whatever religion you choose and not be persecuted for it, so long as you are not also infringing on the rights of others in doing so. You don't get carte blanche to shit on other peoples' rights and be able to call it "religious freedom". That isn't a thing. Christians aren't being persecuted when people tell them to stop denying other people their rights and freedoms. Not how it works. This has been Danglars's MO for a long time. He has some weird obsession with railing on the left's supposed attack on religious freedom and 1st amendment rights while completely ignoring the fact that the party that he supports regularly tramples on people's constitutional rights on a frequent basis, including their other first amendment rights. It's the same exact playbook that conservatives all across America use. Danglars is just more eloquent than your average conservative, but his hypocrisy runs just as deep. Inasmuch as this thread ignores real issues that matter to the voting public, I’m doing the thread a service. The arguments in favor of dragging nuns into court on the pretense that Obamacare invented a right to no-cost abortifacients have been historically bad. The adherents rely on equally bad bases to argue abstractions like health care (nobody found injury to it) or balancing rights (right to force employers to offer specific drugs free of charge is quite an argument, but I guess they could find nothing better than it). In short, Democrats and leftists on this forum have long ignored religious freedoms in this country, and it falls in nicely with their ongoing attacks on evangelicals for voting the way they do. I don’t yet have a theory on how much this ignorance is a practiced trait, because it avoids adopting a more nuanced view of their opponents and considerations in their vote, or how much is a priori disgust at religious values they dislike. It will be a stumbling block to dialogue if posters here can’t accept obviously good reasons to vote for Trump, since they have no entry point to then argue that the negatives outweigh the positives. Single payer health care at the federal level. Boom, no more nurse problem or religious freedom in health care since the employer is not involved anymore. Any issue with that? Republicans are against actually solving these kind of problems, as it's useful to keep them to have leverage on religious voters. Still. Staying focused on one issue and forgetting the rest of the unacceptable bullshit is tunnel vision. From a religious liberties perspective, single payer health care would be preferable to the way certain states and previous administrations treat private health insurance. Even better than that, government should withdraw from dictating what plans companies negotiate with their private health insurance, and confine themselves to policing fraud. The government shouldn't do stupid regulations on what private insurance is allowed to be offered, and impose caps on things like HSAs. Regarding "forgetting the rest," I'm trying to give the minority conscientious reader of this forum ample cause to believe that evangelicals have sufficient reason to vote Trump on grounds that Biden's chill with throwing religious orgs in jail for acting out their beliefs. I'm not angry or incensed at religious people that can understand that perspective, [and then decide that Trump's other negatives outweigh it in the end. If you'll review the past pages, I mainly directed myself at the ignorant perspective wondering why evangelicals could even think of voting Trump. First, gain understanding. Second, be able to form cohesive arguments from the point of understanding. bUt hES sO imMoRal, wHY?? is radical ignorance of politics and (apparently) has wide acceptance on the left. Show nested quote +On September 14 2020 17:52 Broetchenholer wrote:On September 14 2020 08:46 Danglars wrote:
I mean it shouldn't be so confusing. Biden and Democrat's message has been to fuck over people of religious faith. Nuns have to provide abortifacient drugs, even though they can't prove it's an accessibility problem and have many ways of providing these drugs apart from forcing religious organizations to be the means. The government had to confess at the Supreme Court that it could find no woman with a health access problem to demonstrate there was great need to overide First Amendment religious protections.
Say the same thing for Colorado and the Civil Rights Commission. And adoption agencies.
Honestly, even for the most hardcore lefty in this forum, it should be the easiest thing to imagine why evangelicals feel they have no choice in this election. They simply don't feel First Amendment protections have any business being surrendered, and the "women's health" argument is a stupid one made by people that ought to know better. There is only one candidate in the presidential field with any claim of letting business owners with sincere religious beliefs and religious organizations operate free of Government telling them they have no First Amendment protections for their operations. The Democrats always have the choice to not tweet out that they're gonna drag nuns back to court if elected. Danglars is certainly right to point out this is what Evengelicals migth be thinking in supporting Trump. It's ridiculous of course, but it shows what those people are about. The constitution is only there for me. A small group of nuns have to provide healthcare for their employees? Outrageous. Good chrisitains have to server homosexuals? Not cool. Banning all travelers from muslkim countries? Yaaaaay. I am allowed to treat you like shit because Jesus, you are not allowed to live here because Allah. That's the good old christian values, love thy neighbour unless he does not pray like i do. Religion in a nutshell. Only my rules apply. The other 6 billion people are wrong and talk to imaginary friends, my imaginary friend is the creator of the world. And he told me that i am special They failed to prove in a court of law that anyone couldn't access "health care," save for employer insurance. Anti-religion in a nutshell: The issue is about what I say it's about, regardless of the facts or context. In more normal times, demonstrating that health care was denied as a result would be an important part of proving this is about actual provision of health care. Show nested quote +On September 14 2020 18:53 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 14 2020 14:17 Starlightsun wrote:
Is there anything else besides abortion that is considered to be infringing on Christian religious freedom? Yes. Danglars thinks i'm a religious bigot because i don't support the 'right' of Christian schools to bully pupils for being gay. Pretty much explains everything about the depth of the religious rights argument. Its arbitrary in the idea that religious rights take precedence over all other rights. Its arbitrary in who those rights apply to. etc. etc. The religious freedom danglars holds in such high esteem is exactly and precisely what gave birth to scientology, with their exploitative modern slavery and immunity from criminal prosecution which extends as far as not being investigated when people go missing or die. The pupils may also have a hard time learning about the inerrant word of god, when it condemns homosexuality as an affront to the creator of earth, heaven, and hell. Or, as Farva points out, find a religious school that works with the bible as Jews do with rabbinical teachings and the Torah. It's arbitrary that overtly religious institutions have to disobey the tenets of their religion because somebody that believes neither thinks it's unfair that they're allowed to teach. I'm a little more into separation of church and state. Go regulate public schools or charter schools. Stop preaching what's good and bad to religious centers of education, armed with the jack-boot of government dictate.
No, this line of argument is not correct! You attribute those religious entities a privilege that you are denying other religious entities! Just because you, or believers that run those schools, find it okay for christianity to discriminate homosexuals does not mean they can ignore american laws. Aztecs would not be allowed to sacrifice their disciples to the sun god in the States would they exist right now. Every religion has to adjust to the norms of the society it operates in. If it can't, it's being forbidden. But because you are in team christianity, you allow your side these liberties and deny them others. It's not like this is an American thing, Christianity has a special role in Europe as well.
|
On September 14 2020 23:33 farvacola wrote:
... Some of the best people I know, the ones whose character I aspire to, are also the most religious (and opposed to Trump, for that matter), so I’d like to find ways to amplify their voices, they are surely allies against folks who think losers should suffer their loss without help from the rest of us.
I just wonder how much of those people's goodness is in their nature as opposed to resulting from religion. It could be that they would be happier and even better people without the belief that they are lowly and bad but for the caprice of their god (plus a whole slew of other harmful beliefs). Perhaps natures that are kindly, humble and self deprecating are drawn to this thing that tells them they are bad and takes credit for any good that they do.
|
On September 14 2020 23:47 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2020 23:33 farvacola wrote:On September 14 2020 23:22 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 14 2020 22:02 farvacola wrote:On September 14 2020 20:26 Broetchenholer wrote:
I am not describing faith, I am describing religion. I have zero problem with people believing in what ever spirituality. I don't understand it, but if they get something positive out of it, that's cool. But then you go to organized religion, and even the better ones can't simply live and let live. Into almost every organized religion, there is some code imprinted, where they fail to comply with some rule of modern society. Be it missionizing, be it condemning homosexuality or abortion, be it ritually demeaning women.
Sure my language was provoking, but I really can't stand the hipocricy of fundamental Christians, or any other religion, to move the world backwards because a book that was written and rewritten in the last 2000 years tells them so. So here’s the thing, I agree with basically everything you say here, but I think the proper rhetorical approach towards those who do bad shit in the name of God is not one that casts broad aspersions as to how religion itself works as a thing humans do. There are millions of American Christians who know that fundamentalism and sola scriptura/fide are wrong and that they are used to justify all sorts of awful shit, but we’ll never get those people solidly opposed to Trump and his brand of political apologists a la Danglars if something they consider very important, religion, is routinely ridiculed like a Bill Mahar special. It’s folks like Bill Mahar and their one dimensional takes on religion that give conservatives the room to claim that the left wants to outlaw their faith and other silly shit. I grew up with multiple people who became pastors and feel it’s my duty to make sure they remember just how radically left Jesus was, so this is a topic near and dear to me I don't think there's such a dividing line between fundamentalists and your average everyday Christian, even the ones who agree with much of what i think about politics. The issue of massive grassroots belief that being gay will send a person to hell, for example, is harmful way beyond each individual that believes such things. You cannot take that homophobia out of the religion because its there in the texts. Sure, tone is important when addressing religious people, but the idea that they might change their mind about something like that because we are respectful is something I just can't see any evidence of, and these are important issues that leave alot of people having a shitty life. Totally disagree man, the presence of homophobia in religious texts only poisons the well of a religion if one tries to regard a religion as a strictly textual, hard and fast rule based enterprise. Many mainline prot denominations in the US actively prohibit that kind of biblical exegesis, and it serves as a helpful dividing line between what I think are good and bad approaches to Christianity (or any of the Abrahamic religions). *looks up exegesis* I mean the whole point of abrahamic religion is to be rule based. That's why it began, that's what it is. Its about law. I get your point with regards to protestants, maybe I'm stereotyping based on what I've seen of the US, but I had the impression the evangelical/catholic Christians over there massively outnumber protestants, and that's where most of the hatred is.
The bible isn't why people are anti-abortion or homophobic. The bible says basically nothing about homosexuality (I believe it has two verses that can easily be handwaved away pretty easily with historical context) and actually gives instructions on how to commit abortions, in addition to specifying lower punishments for killing a pregnant woman than woman and child. It says infinitely more about eating shellfish than it does either of those topics.
It's like the people saying the bible prohibits masturbation based on the story of Onan back in the early 1900s. Read that story, it's fucking nuts and no one could reasonably infer that as a rule from it. That view had a lot more to do with the specific people promoting it than their religious books.
Personally, if you aren't willing to grant the church of satan the same rights then you shouldn't extend them to the others. It's part of why I enjoy it when they do things like sue to get a statue of Baphomet next to the 10 commandments at a court house (may have the wrong satanic organization... one is humanist and a few others are weird cults).
edit:
Had a wrong word in the onan section
|
On September 08 2020 22:13 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2020 17:40 Dromar wrote:
Andrew Yang's fanbase was pretty enthusiastic. I remember going to the DNC rally in Iowa, and though Yang's fan section was smaller, it was one of the loudest and most enthusiastic in the stadium. Within Yang's most fervent fanbase, there was a good deal of talk about things like voter enthusiasm and his appeal to people who don't traditionally vote as hopes that he would outperform the polls. It didn't happen. (In retrospect, appealing to people who don't vote sounds pretty stupid. It would be great if people were more engaged in politics, and Yang tried that, but well...)
Bernie Sanders' fanbase is most famous for having high enthusiasm. By mid March, Bernie was essentially done, and all that was left were his most "enthusiastic" voters who didn't want to read the writing on the wall.
Enthusiasm doesn't win elections. It's as simple as that. And if you can think of an example where a candidate won with high enthusiasm - that's not why they won. They won because they got the votes. The enthusiasm was coincidental. It's just that enthusiastic people are much easier to notice than your average voter.
At best, enthusiasm gets you more volunteers for your ground game, your phone banks, your rallies etc., which saves a bit of money. But at the end of the day you're hoping that it converts to votes, and it often doesn't.
All of this is to say, I think talking about voter enthusiasm is a complete waste of time. Voter enthusiasm is a myth that people delude themselves with to feel better about their chances.
And, is politics something we're supposed to be enthusiastic about? Politics isn't shouldn't be sports. Maybe the readers and contributors of this thread are enthusiastic about politics, but that should be far from the norm IMO. Barack Obama literally won because of Black enthusiasm to put the first black man in the white house. You can tut and say 'ah but they have to vote' but they voted because they were enthused to vote. People are far more likely to jump through whatever hoops are necessary to vote when they really really want to, no? When Johnny B Detroit gets home from his long job, tired and sweaty, mom's spaghetti, he may well need a reason to leave the house again and vote for President, and 'I can't wait for Biden to be President' is a much stronger motivation than 'Trump's kind of an asshole'. Positive motivation gets things done much more than negative motivation.
I know this is a late response but I want to answer this. That’s not really true. While Barack Obama got a substantial amount of the black vote (95%?), his biggest achievement was the huge amount of white support. He got 54% from my memory of 2008’s exit polls, which is a substantial number for a Democrat.
I don’t like Biden like the rest of you but his entire campaign has been to bring back a sense or normality to the Whitehouse/Congress. Which is positive motivation for people who actually bother to vote: suburbanites and the AARP demographic.
Positive motivation that you speak of doesn’t really work when it’s specifically targeted towards voters that never turn out and are easily disengaged the minute they don’t get everything they want. I’m sorry, young people will never get anything if they never actually bother to turn out and be a meaningful “swing voting bloc”. It’s not reliable.
Corbyn thought the youth saved Labour in the 2017 elections but number crunchers have figured out that all of his efforts resulted in like a 1% increase in youth turnout and the 2019 elections was just repeat case of the youth not turning out (again) and the Labour base being split a dozen directions.
Sanders might have built something with latinos but there was still no sign of a youth support base that didn’t consist of always online political types. If there was something there, he wouldn’t have crumbled the minute the Democrats stopped splitting the vote a dozen ways and gone to back a man who was out of money and barely running a campaign. And this was a man who was giving policy after policy specifically targeting the under 35 demographic.
|
On September 15 2020 01:26 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2020 23:47 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 14 2020 23:33 farvacola wrote:On September 14 2020 23:22 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 14 2020 22:02 farvacola wrote:On September 14 2020 20:26 Broetchenholer wrote:
I am not describing faith, I am describing religion. I have zero problem with people believing in what ever spirituality. I don't understand it, but if they get something positive out of it, that's cool. But then you go to organized religion, and even the better ones can't simply live and let live. Into almost every organized religion, there is some code imprinted, where they fail to comply with some rule of modern society. Be it missionizing, be it condemning homosexuality or abortion, be it ritually demeaning women.
Sure my language was provoking, but I really can't stand the hipocricy of fundamental Christians, or any other religion, to move the world backwards because a book that was written and rewritten in the last 2000 years tells them so. So here’s the thing, I agree with basically everything you say here, but I think the proper rhetorical approach towards those who do bad shit in the name of God is not one that casts broad aspersions as to how religion itself works as a thing humans do. There are millions of American Christians who know that fundamentalism and sola scriptura/fide are wrong and that they are used to justify all sorts of awful shit, but we’ll never get those people solidly opposed to Trump and his brand of political apologists a la Danglars if something they consider very important, religion, is routinely ridiculed like a Bill Mahar special. It’s folks like Bill Mahar and their one dimensional takes on religion that give conservatives the room to claim that the left wants to outlaw their faith and other silly shit. I grew up with multiple people who became pastors and feel it’s my duty to make sure they remember just how radically left Jesus was, so this is a topic near and dear to me I don't think there's such a dividing line between fundamentalists and your average everyday Christian, even the ones who agree with much of what i think about politics. The issue of massive grassroots belief that being gay will send a person to hell, for example, is harmful way beyond each individual that believes such things. You cannot take that homophobia out of the religion because its there in the texts. Sure, tone is important when addressing religious people, but the idea that they might change their mind about something like that because we are respectful is something I just can't see any evidence of, and these are important issues that leave alot of people having a shitty life. Totally disagree man, the presence of homophobia in religious texts only poisons the well of a religion if one tries to regard a religion as a strictly textual, hard and fast rule based enterprise. Many mainline prot denominations in the US actively prohibit that kind of biblical exegesis, and it serves as a helpful dividing line between what I think are good and bad approaches to Christianity (or any of the Abrahamic religions). *looks up exegesis* I mean the whole point of abrahamic religion is to be rule based. That's why it began, that's what it is. Its about law. I get your point with regards to protestants, maybe I'm stereotyping based on what I've seen of the US, but I had the impression the evangelical/catholic Christians over there massively outnumber protestants, and that's where most of the hatred is. The bible isn't why people are anti-abortion or homophobic. The bible says basically nothing about homosexuality (I believe it has two verses that can easily be handwaved away pretty easily with historical context) and actually gives instructions on how to commit abortions, in addition to specifying lower punishments for killing a pregnant woman than woman and child. It says infinitely more about eating shellfish than it does either of those topics. It's like the people saying the bible prohibits masturbation based on the story of Onan back in the early 1900s. Read that story, it's fucking nuts and no one could reasonably infer that as a rule from it. That view had a lot more to do with the specific people promoting it than their religious books. Personally, if you aren't willing to grant the church of satan the same rights then you shouldn't extend them to the others. It's part of why I enjoy it when they do things like sue to get a statue of Baphomet next to the 10 commandments at a court house (may have the wrong satanic organization... one is humanist and a few others are weird cults). edit: Had a wrong word in the onan section
"But their religion is not real." "Don't be ridiculous." "Give an example more ground in realism." Basically again, my religion is real, yours is not. If you are outraged about a buch of catholic nuns being sued, but don't care about the muslim ban, it's not about religious freedoms.
|
On September 15 2020 01:02 Broetchenholer wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2020 00:28 Danglars wrote:On September 14 2020 14:34 Acrofales wrote:On September 14 2020 11:41 Danglars wrote:On September 14 2020 10:26 WombaT wrote:On September 14 2020 08:46 Danglars wrote:
I mean it shouldn't be so confusing. Biden and Democrat's message has been to fuck over people of religious faith. Nuns have to provide abortifacient drugs, even though they can't prove it's an accessibility problem and have many ways of providing these drugs apart from forcing religious organizations to be the means. The government had to confess at the Supreme Court that it could find no woman with a health access problem to demonstrate there was great need to overide First Amendment religious protections.
Say the same thing for Colorado and the Civil Rights Commission. And adoption agencies.
Honestly, even for the most hardcore lefty in this forum, it should be the easiest thing to imagine why evangelicals feel they have no choice in this election. They simply don't feel First Amendment protections have any business being surrendered, and the "women's health" argument is a stupid one made by people that ought to know better. There is only one candidate in the presidential field with any claim of letting business owners with sincere religious beliefs and religious organizations operate free of Government telling them they have no First Amendment protections for their operations. The Democrats always have the choice to not tweet out that they're gonna drag nuns back to court if elected. Well they can feel that way, I don’t overly care. Do whatever. If one wants tax exempt status on religions grounds, but wants to exert political influence, but wants to be guaranteed the right to be able to whatever, like have at it man. If one is willing to give a pass to Donald Trump, close to the least Christian man in human history as long as he’s ‘your guy’ then go for it. Really Danglars you want to have your cake and eat it, claim for have some high ground on issues and just ignore the negatives. And then claim the problem is people being intolerant for not accepting your choices I hold my government to higher standards than you. Period. Religious rights in this country should be respected. I think you're really digging yourself into a hole by claiming this is "the right to be able to whatever." I think you have to try much harder to find an argument here. I can accept some negatives (Some states have to find ways of subsidies that don't interfere with religious freedoms, oh boo hoo), because well ... religious liberty rights are foundational. Good luck with your discrimination, because honestly, you know why people vote this way and don't care. Secondly, if the government was harassing you for something, and one guy fought to get them off your back, and the other guy promised more lawsuits, I think even you would find reason to ignore personal shortcomings. You're honestly better than this, in my view. Religious institutions already have restrictions on their political influence if they seek to maintain tax exemption, by the way. Drag you back to court, or leave you alone? Oh man, Wombat, I really gotta think about his moral fiber on this one. I really love spending years in court at the hands of my own government if it means I avoid voting for personally immoral candidates. Do you really think attacking Trump on his moral character is making a point, or do you just feel you need to bring it up every time? On September 14 2020 11:06 WarSame wrote:
And also he seems to be interested primarily in business owners exercising their First Amendment rights to harass those of a vulnerable group under their employ, rather than for the purpose of peaceful protest.
Danglars, please just come out and say openly that you don't give a shit about liberal democratic values, that you would sacrifice them in order for the previous existing social order to flourish, and that you don't value the health or safety of those of different groups than yourself. Some people have blinders on in this discussion. When religious freedoms come up, they are incapable of seeing it as anything other than international harassment or lack of care about health and safety. Maybe in the future, you can come around to seeing these are poor excuses for state actions that can be done while actually valuing the religious freedom rights in the First Amendment. It would be a pretty stupid amendment if the first yahoo just whines about how inconvenient it is to respect religious individuals, and imagined harm and harassment was their aim. So how about valuing the religious conscience rights of groups that aren't like you, and have convictions you don't share. Go be honest in politics, and have your state agency work around sincerely held beliefs to dole out subsidies if you actually value them and don't really want to ... ... ... make this about putting the religious faithful as second class citizens within their own country, okay? Okay, so how do you feel about Muslims' right to wear a niqab or a burka in public? Government shouldn't be restricting this out in public. On September 14 2020 17:07 Nouar wrote:On September 14 2020 13:56 Danglars wrote:On September 14 2020 13:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 14 2020 13:03 NewSunshine wrote:
Religious freedom is your right to practice whatever religion you choose and not be persecuted for it, so long as you are not also infringing on the rights of others in doing so. You don't get carte blanche to shit on other peoples' rights and be able to call it "religious freedom". That isn't a thing. Christians aren't being persecuted when people tell them to stop denying other people their rights and freedoms. Not how it works. This has been Danglars's MO for a long time. He has some weird obsession with railing on the left's supposed attack on religious freedom and 1st amendment rights while completely ignoring the fact that the party that he supports regularly tramples on people's constitutional rights on a frequent basis, including their other first amendment rights. It's the same exact playbook that conservatives all across America use. Danglars is just more eloquent than your average conservative, but his hypocrisy runs just as deep. Inasmuch as this thread ignores real issues that matter to the voting public, I’m doing the thread a service. The arguments in favor of dragging nuns into court on the pretense that Obamacare invented a right to no-cost abortifacients have been historically bad. The adherents rely on equally bad bases to argue abstractions like health care (nobody found injury to it) or balancing rights (right to force employers to offer specific drugs free of charge is quite an argument, but I guess they could find nothing better than it). In short, Democrats and leftists on this forum have long ignored religious freedoms in this country, and it falls in nicely with their ongoing attacks on evangelicals for voting the way they do. I don’t yet have a theory on how much this ignorance is a practiced trait, because it avoids adopting a more nuanced view of their opponents and considerations in their vote, or how much is a priori disgust at religious values they dislike. It will be a stumbling block to dialogue if posters here can’t accept obviously good reasons to vote for Trump, since they have no entry point to then argue that the negatives outweigh the positives. Single payer health care at the federal level. Boom, no more nurse problem or religious freedom in health care since the employer is not involved anymore. Any issue with that? Republicans are against actually solving these kind of problems, as it's useful to keep them to have leverage on religious voters. Still. Staying focused on one issue and forgetting the rest of the unacceptable bullshit is tunnel vision. From a religious liberties perspective, single payer health care would be preferable to the way certain states and previous administrations treat private health insurance. Even better than that, government should withdraw from dictating what plans companies negotiate with their private health insurance, and confine themselves to policing fraud. The government shouldn't do stupid regulations on what private insurance is allowed to be offered, and impose caps on things like HSAs. Regarding "forgetting the rest," I'm trying to give the minority conscientious reader of this forum ample cause to believe that evangelicals have sufficient reason to vote Trump on grounds that Biden's chill with throwing religious orgs in jail for acting out their beliefs. I'm not angry or incensed at religious people that can understand that perspective, [and then decide that Trump's other negatives outweigh it in the end. If you'll review the past pages, I mainly directed myself at the ignorant perspective wondering why evangelicals could even think of voting Trump. First, gain understanding. Second, be able to form cohesive arguments from the point of understanding. bUt hES sO imMoRal, wHY?? is radical ignorance of politics and (apparently) has wide acceptance on the left. On September 14 2020 17:52 Broetchenholer wrote:On September 14 2020 08:46 Danglars wrote:
I mean it shouldn't be so confusing. Biden and Democrat's message has been to fuck over people of religious faith. Nuns have to provide abortifacient drugs, even though they can't prove it's an accessibility problem and have many ways of providing these drugs apart from forcing religious organizations to be the means. The government had to confess at the Supreme Court that it could find no woman with a health access problem to demonstrate there was great need to overide First Amendment religious protections.
Say the same thing for Colorado and the Civil Rights Commission. And adoption agencies.
Honestly, even for the most hardcore lefty in this forum, it should be the easiest thing to imagine why evangelicals feel they have no choice in this election. They simply don't feel First Amendment protections have any business being surrendered, and the "women's health" argument is a stupid one made by people that ought to know better. There is only one candidate in the presidential field with any claim of letting business owners with sincere religious beliefs and religious organizations operate free of Government telling them they have no First Amendment protections for their operations. The Democrats always have the choice to not tweet out that they're gonna drag nuns back to court if elected. Danglars is certainly right to point out this is what Evengelicals migth be thinking in supporting Trump. It's ridiculous of course, but it shows what those people are about. The constitution is only there for me. A small group of nuns have to provide healthcare for their employees? Outrageous. Good chrisitains have to server homosexuals? Not cool. Banning all travelers from muslkim countries? Yaaaaay. I am allowed to treat you like shit because Jesus, you are not allowed to live here because Allah. That's the good old christian values, love thy neighbour unless he does not pray like i do. Religion in a nutshell. Only my rules apply. The other 6 billion people are wrong and talk to imaginary friends, my imaginary friend is the creator of the world. And he told me that i am special They failed to prove in a court of law that anyone couldn't access "health care," save for employer insurance. Anti-religion in a nutshell: The issue is about what I say it's about, regardless of the facts or context. In more normal times, demonstrating that health care was denied as a result would be an important part of proving this is about actual provision of health care. On September 14 2020 18:53 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 14 2020 14:17 Starlightsun wrote:
Is there anything else besides abortion that is considered to be infringing on Christian religious freedom? Yes. Danglars thinks i'm a religious bigot because i don't support the 'right' of Christian schools to bully pupils for being gay. Pretty much explains everything about the depth of the religious rights argument. Its arbitrary in the idea that religious rights take precedence over all other rights. Its arbitrary in who those rights apply to. etc. etc. The religious freedom danglars holds in such high esteem is exactly and precisely what gave birth to scientology, with their exploitative modern slavery and immunity from criminal prosecution which extends as far as not being investigated when people go missing or die. The pupils may also have a hard time learning about the inerrant word of god, when it condemns homosexuality as an affront to the creator of earth, heaven, and hell. Or, as Farva points out, find a religious school that works with the bible as Jews do with rabbinical teachings and the Torah. It's arbitrary that overtly religious institutions have to disobey the tenets of their religion because somebody that believes neither thinks it's unfair that they're allowed to teach. I'm a little more into separation of church and state. Go regulate public schools or charter schools. Stop preaching what's good and bad to religious centers of education, armed with the jack-boot of government dictate. No, this line of argument is not correct! You attribute those religious entities a privilege that you are denying other religious entities! Just because you, or believers that run those schools, find it okay for christianity to discriminate homosexuals does not mean they can ignore american laws. Aztecs would not be allowed to sacrifice their disciples to the sun god in the States would they exist right now. Every religion has to adjust to the norms of the society it operates in. If it can't, it's being forbidden. But because you are in team christianity, you allow your side these liberties and deny them others. It's not like this is an American thing, Christianity has a special role in Europe as well.
If you're firmly committed to likening certain Christian denominations aversion to abortifacients to Aztec child sacrifice, perhaps you should find similarly-minded and equipped debaters in the comment sections on websites like Breitbart. The first time this kind of case came up, The Supreme Court said (Hobby Lobby was used) that government should find other ways to serve it's legitimate interests without also impacting religious freedoms. They explicitly weighed the pros and cons (I'm not gonna get into the weeds on RFRA) and concluded that the burden on religious freedoms meant that the government had to find the least restrictive means of implementing it. At your Aztec-child-sacrifice level of discussion, this means government shouldn't take arbitrary stabs at religious freedoms, but find ways to accomplish legitimate goals avoiding unnecessary impacts on civil rights. Other claims of religious exemptions fail the balancing test. So for fuck's sake, let a religious institution serving only to operate homes for the elderly be, and start a non-religious organization doing the same if you're so bothered by its existence.
|
On September 15 2020 01:26 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2020 23:47 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 14 2020 23:33 farvacola wrote:On September 14 2020 23:22 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 14 2020 22:02 farvacola wrote:On September 14 2020 20:26 Broetchenholer wrote:
I am not describing faith, I am describing religion. I have zero problem with people believing in what ever spirituality. I don't understand it, but if they get something positive out of it, that's cool. But then you go to organized religion, and even the better ones can't simply live and let live. Into almost every organized religion, there is some code imprinted, where they fail to comply with some rule of modern society. Be it missionizing, be it condemning homosexuality or abortion, be it ritually demeaning women.
Sure my language was provoking, but I really can't stand the hipocricy of fundamental Christians, or any other religion, to move the world backwards because a book that was written and rewritten in the last 2000 years tells them so. So here’s the thing, I agree with basically everything you say here, but I think the proper rhetorical approach towards those who do bad shit in the name of God is not one that casts broad aspersions as to how religion itself works as a thing humans do. There are millions of American Christians who know that fundamentalism and sola scriptura/fide are wrong and that they are used to justify all sorts of awful shit, but we’ll never get those people solidly opposed to Trump and his brand of political apologists a la Danglars if something they consider very important, religion, is routinely ridiculed like a Bill Mahar special. It’s folks like Bill Mahar and their one dimensional takes on religion that give conservatives the room to claim that the left wants to outlaw their faith and other silly shit. I grew up with multiple people who became pastors and feel it’s my duty to make sure they remember just how radically left Jesus was, so this is a topic near and dear to me I don't think there's such a dividing line between fundamentalists and your average everyday Christian, even the ones who agree with much of what i think about politics. The issue of massive grassroots belief that being gay will send a person to hell, for example, is harmful way beyond each individual that believes such things. You cannot take that homophobia out of the religion because its there in the texts. Sure, tone is important when addressing religious people, but the idea that they might change their mind about something like that because we are respectful is something I just can't see any evidence of, and these are important issues that leave alot of people having a shitty life. Totally disagree man, the presence of homophobia in religious texts only poisons the well of a religion if one tries to regard a religion as a strictly textual, hard and fast rule based enterprise. Many mainline prot denominations in the US actively prohibit that kind of biblical exegesis, and it serves as a helpful dividing line between what I think are good and bad approaches to Christianity (or any of the Abrahamic religions). *looks up exegesis* I mean the whole point of abrahamic religion is to be rule based. That's why it began, that's what it is. Its about law. I get your point with regards to protestants, maybe I'm stereotyping based on what I've seen of the US, but I had the impression the evangelical/catholic Christians over there massively outnumber protestants, and that's where most of the hatred is. The bible isn't why people are anti-abortion or homophobic. The bible says basically nothing about homosexuality (I believe it has two verses that can easily be handwaved away pretty easily with historical context) and actually gives instructions on how to commit abortions, in addition to specifying lower punishments for killing a pregnant woman than woman and child. It says infinitely more about eating shellfish than it does either of those topics. It's like the people saying the bible prohibits masturbation based on the story of Onan back in the early 1900s. Read that story, it's fucking nuts and no one could reasonably infer that as a rule from it. That view had a lot more to do with the specific people promoting it than their religious books. Personally, if you aren't willing to grant the church of satan the same rights then you shouldn't extend them to the others. It's part of why I enjoy it when they do things like sue to get a statue of Baphomet next to the 10 commandments at a court house (may have the wrong satanic organization... one is humanist and a few others are weird cults). edit: Had a wrong word in the onan section
Many many verses on homosexuality, spread between both testaments. Googling will avail you much in this regard. The Bible is precisely the reason many Christians are opposed to both abortion and homosexuality, and for proof of this, ask them why they think God is against it and see if they go back to the Bible or not.
Where are people getting these ludicrous ideas about mainstream topics of a faith? I presume the fault lies in education in this country, and more electives about the bible as a book of literature should be taught in high school. Occam's razor, if it's mentioned multiple times in one holy scripture, and adherents frequently adhere to it, it's because of it's presence in scripture and not some Christians pulling it out of their ass. This isn't quite a politics-and-religion thread, so I won't go out and quote chapter and verse in it. (Neither are Jewish dietary restrictions totally divorced from the Torah, or Muslim thoughts on paradise and prayer made up things apart from the Koran, etc etc)
|
My fundamental problem with the whole line of argumentation is that Christians want to dictate to other people what they can and can't do, because it offends the sensibilities of Christians, and if you disagree with that you hate religion and are part of the problem. That line of thinking is toxic as fuck.
You do a great disservice to genuine Christians when you set the bar so low, and purposely call out anyone who has the gall to identify how some applications of Christianity might be problematic. Ultimately, it's someone's personal set of beliefs. The word personal is very key. It's for you. It's not for you to dictate the lives of others so they can cater to you. And you're absolutely not some victim for playing by the same rules as everyone else.
|
On September 15 2020 01:46 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2020 01:02 Broetchenholer wrote:On September 15 2020 00:28 Danglars wrote:On September 14 2020 14:34 Acrofales wrote:On September 14 2020 11:41 Danglars wrote:On September 14 2020 10:26 WombaT wrote:On September 14 2020 08:46 Danglars wrote:
I mean it shouldn't be so confusing. Biden and Democrat's message has been to fuck over people of religious faith. Nuns have to provide abortifacient drugs, even though they can't prove it's an accessibility problem and have many ways of providing these drugs apart from forcing religious organizations to be the means. The government had to confess at the Supreme Court that it could find no woman with a health access problem to demonstrate there was great need to overide First Amendment religious protections.
Say the same thing for Colorado and the Civil Rights Commission. And adoption agencies.
Honestly, even for the most hardcore lefty in this forum, it should be the easiest thing to imagine why evangelicals feel they have no choice in this election. They simply don't feel First Amendment protections have any business being surrendered, and the "women's health" argument is a stupid one made by people that ought to know better. There is only one candidate in the presidential field with any claim of letting business owners with sincere religious beliefs and religious organizations operate free of Government telling them they have no First Amendment protections for their operations. The Democrats always have the choice to not tweet out that they're gonna drag nuns back to court if elected. Well they can feel that way, I don’t overly care. Do whatever. If one wants tax exempt status on religions grounds, but wants to exert political influence, but wants to be guaranteed the right to be able to whatever, like have at it man. If one is willing to give a pass to Donald Trump, close to the least Christian man in human history as long as he’s ‘your guy’ then go for it. Really Danglars you want to have your cake and eat it, claim for have some high ground on issues and just ignore the negatives. And then claim the problem is people being intolerant for not accepting your choices I hold my government to higher standards than you. Period. Religious rights in this country should be respected. I think you're really digging yourself into a hole by claiming this is "the right to be able to whatever." I think you have to try much harder to find an argument here. I can accept some negatives (Some states have to find ways of subsidies that don't interfere with religious freedoms, oh boo hoo), because well ... religious liberty rights are foundational. Good luck with your discrimination, because honestly, you know why people vote this way and don't care. Secondly, if the government was harassing you for something, and one guy fought to get them off your back, and the other guy promised more lawsuits, I think even you would find reason to ignore personal shortcomings. You're honestly better than this, in my view. Religious institutions already have restrictions on their political influence if they seek to maintain tax exemption, by the way. Drag you back to court, or leave you alone? Oh man, Wombat, I really gotta think about his moral fiber on this one. I really love spending years in court at the hands of my own government if it means I avoid voting for personally immoral candidates. Do you really think attacking Trump on his moral character is making a point, or do you just feel you need to bring it up every time? On September 14 2020 11:06 WarSame wrote:
And also he seems to be interested primarily in business owners exercising their First Amendment rights to harass those of a vulnerable group under their employ, rather than for the purpose of peaceful protest.
Danglars, please just come out and say openly that you don't give a shit about liberal democratic values, that you would sacrifice them in order for the previous existing social order to flourish, and that you don't value the health or safety of those of different groups than yourself. Some people have blinders on in this discussion. When religious freedoms come up, they are incapable of seeing it as anything other than international harassment or lack of care about health and safety. Maybe in the future, you can come around to seeing these are poor excuses for state actions that can be done while actually valuing the religious freedom rights in the First Amendment. It would be a pretty stupid amendment if the first yahoo just whines about how inconvenient it is to respect religious individuals, and imagined harm and harassment was their aim. So how about valuing the religious conscience rights of groups that aren't like you, and have convictions you don't share. Go be honest in politics, and have your state agency work around sincerely held beliefs to dole out subsidies if you actually value them and don't really want to ... ... ... make this about putting the religious faithful as second class citizens within their own country, okay? Okay, so how do you feel about Muslims' right to wear a niqab or a burka in public? Government shouldn't be restricting this out in public. On September 14 2020 17:07 Nouar wrote:On September 14 2020 13:56 Danglars wrote:On September 14 2020 13:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 14 2020 13:03 NewSunshine wrote:
Religious freedom is your right to practice whatever religion you choose and not be persecuted for it, so long as you are not also infringing on the rights of others in doing so. You don't get carte blanche to shit on other peoples' rights and be able to call it "religious freedom". That isn't a thing. Christians aren't being persecuted when people tell them to stop denying other people their rights and freedoms. Not how it works. This has been Danglars's MO for a long time. He has some weird obsession with railing on the left's supposed attack on religious freedom and 1st amendment rights while completely ignoring the fact that the party that he supports regularly tramples on people's constitutional rights on a frequent basis, including their other first amendment rights. It's the same exact playbook that conservatives all across America use. Danglars is just more eloquent than your average conservative, but his hypocrisy runs just as deep. Inasmuch as this thread ignores real issues that matter to the voting public, I’m doing the thread a service. The arguments in favor of dragging nuns into court on the pretense that Obamacare invented a right to no-cost abortifacients have been historically bad. The adherents rely on equally bad bases to argue abstractions like health care (nobody found injury to it) or balancing rights (right to force employers to offer specific drugs free of charge is quite an argument, but I guess they could find nothing better than it). In short, Democrats and leftists on this forum have long ignored religious freedoms in this country, and it falls in nicely with their ongoing attacks on evangelicals for voting the way they do. I don’t yet have a theory on how much this ignorance is a practiced trait, because it avoids adopting a more nuanced view of their opponents and considerations in their vote, or how much is a priori disgust at religious values they dislike. It will be a stumbling block to dialogue if posters here can’t accept obviously good reasons to vote for Trump, since they have no entry point to then argue that the negatives outweigh the positives. Single payer health care at the federal level. Boom, no more nurse problem or religious freedom in health care since the employer is not involved anymore. Any issue with that? Republicans are against actually solving these kind of problems, as it's useful to keep them to have leverage on religious voters. Still. Staying focused on one issue and forgetting the rest of the unacceptable bullshit is tunnel vision. From a religious liberties perspective, single payer health care would be preferable to the way certain states and previous administrations treat private health insurance. Even better than that, government should withdraw from dictating what plans companies negotiate with their private health insurance, and confine themselves to policing fraud. The government shouldn't do stupid regulations on what private insurance is allowed to be offered, and impose caps on things like HSAs. Regarding "forgetting the rest," I'm trying to give the minority conscientious reader of this forum ample cause to believe that evangelicals have sufficient reason to vote Trump on grounds that Biden's chill with throwing religious orgs in jail for acting out their beliefs. I'm not angry or incensed at religious people that can understand that perspective, [and then decide that Trump's other negatives outweigh it in the end. If you'll review the past pages, I mainly directed myself at the ignorant perspective wondering why evangelicals could even think of voting Trump. First, gain understanding. Second, be able to form cohesive arguments from the point of understanding. bUt hES sO imMoRal, wHY?? is radical ignorance of politics and (apparently) has wide acceptance on the left. On September 14 2020 17:52 Broetchenholer wrote:On September 14 2020 08:46 Danglars wrote:
I mean it shouldn't be so confusing. Biden and Democrat's message has been to fuck over people of religious faith. Nuns have to provide abortifacient drugs, even though they can't prove it's an accessibility problem and have many ways of providing these drugs apart from forcing religious organizations to be the means. The government had to confess at the Supreme Court that it could find no woman with a health access problem to demonstrate there was great need to overide First Amendment religious protections.
Say the same thing for Colorado and the Civil Rights Commission. And adoption agencies.
Honestly, even for the most hardcore lefty in this forum, it should be the easiest thing to imagine why evangelicals feel they have no choice in this election. They simply don't feel First Amendment protections have any business being surrendered, and the "women's health" argument is a stupid one made by people that ought to know better. There is only one candidate in the presidential field with any claim of letting business owners with sincere religious beliefs and religious organizations operate free of Government telling them they have no First Amendment protections for their operations. The Democrats always have the choice to not tweet out that they're gonna drag nuns back to court if elected. Danglars is certainly right to point out this is what Evengelicals migth be thinking in supporting Trump. It's ridiculous of course, but it shows what those people are about. The constitution is only there for me. A small group of nuns have to provide healthcare for their employees? Outrageous. Good chrisitains have to server homosexuals? Not cool. Banning all travelers from muslkim countries? Yaaaaay. I am allowed to treat you like shit because Jesus, you are not allowed to live here because Allah. That's the good old christian values, love thy neighbour unless he does not pray like i do. Religion in a nutshell. Only my rules apply. The other 6 billion people are wrong and talk to imaginary friends, my imaginary friend is the creator of the world. And he told me that i am special They failed to prove in a court of law that anyone couldn't access "health care," save for employer insurance. Anti-religion in a nutshell: The issue is about what I say it's about, regardless of the facts or context. In more normal times, demonstrating that health care was denied as a result would be an important part of proving this is about actual provision of health care. On September 14 2020 18:53 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 14 2020 14:17 Starlightsun wrote:
Is there anything else besides abortion that is considered to be infringing on Christian religious freedom? Yes. Danglars thinks i'm a religious bigot because i don't support the 'right' of Christian schools to bully pupils for being gay. Pretty much explains everything about the depth of the religious rights argument. Its arbitrary in the idea that religious rights take precedence over all other rights. Its arbitrary in who those rights apply to. etc. etc. The religious freedom danglars holds in such high esteem is exactly and precisely what gave birth to scientology, with their exploitative modern slavery and immunity from criminal prosecution which extends as far as not being investigated when people go missing or die. The pupils may also have a hard time learning about the inerrant word of god, when it condemns homosexuality as an affront to the creator of earth, heaven, and hell. Or, as Farva points out, find a religious school that works with the bible as Jews do with rabbinical teachings and the Torah. It's arbitrary that overtly religious institutions have to disobey the tenets of their religion because somebody that believes neither thinks it's unfair that they're allowed to teach. I'm a little more into separation of church and state. Go regulate public schools or charter schools. Stop preaching what's good and bad to religious centers of education, armed with the jack-boot of government dictate. No, this line of argument is not correct! You attribute those religious entities a privilege that you are denying other religious entities! Just because you, or believers that run those schools, find it okay for christianity to discriminate homosexuals does not mean they can ignore american laws. Aztecs would not be allowed to sacrifice their disciples to the sun god in the States would they exist right now. Every religion has to adjust to the norms of the society it operates in. If it can't, it's being forbidden. But because you are in team christianity, you allow your side these liberties and deny them others. It's not like this is an American thing, Christianity has a special role in Europe as well. If you're firmly committed to likening certain Christian denominations aversion to abortifacients to Aztec child sacrifice, perhaps you should find similarly-minded and equipped debaters in the comment sections on websites like Breitbart. The first time this kind of case came up, The Supreme Court said (Hobby Lobby was used) that government should find other ways to serve it's legitimate interests without also impacting religious freedoms. They explicitly weighed the pros and cons (I'm not gonna get into the weeds on RFRA) and concluded that the burden on religious freedoms meant that the government had to find the least restrictive means of implementing it. At your Aztec-child-sacrifice level of discussion, this means government shouldn't take arbitrary stabs at religious freedoms, but find ways to accomplish legitimate goals avoiding unnecessary impacts on civil rights. Other claims of religious exemptions fail the balancing test. So for fuck's sake, let a religious institution serving only to operate homes for the elderly be, and start a non-religious organization doing the same if you're so bothered by its existence.
You come back to this case of nuns getting drawn to court as if i am in the slightest interested in it. It's the one hil you decide to die upon because for some reason you see it as that shining victory your side has won. It's not about that. The christian churches are still 1 century behind western society on many other important civis freedoms. LGBTQ rights, woman rights, abortion. Just to name 3. The catholic church is discriminating women in not allowing them to be priests, it is discriminating against homosexuals and you are handwaving it because my example was too drastic. See the post one above, your religion is allowed to break the rules because it's your religion, my religion is not. Why? I am not comparing Nahuatl religious sacrifice to banning abortions, i am just trying to show you that if you allow your religion to ignore the secular law because religion supersedes it, then you have to do that for all religions. And all religions means all religions, not just the one you are fond of.
If you defend the catholic church (or one of the protestant/evangelical) not allowing gay men into priest school, or woman, you are allowing the churches to trample on the religious freedom of those people, while claiming you are for religious freedom.
|
On September 15 2020 01:54 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2020 01:26 Nevuk wrote:On September 14 2020 23:47 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 14 2020 23:33 farvacola wrote:On September 14 2020 23:22 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 14 2020 22:02 farvacola wrote:On September 14 2020 20:26 Broetchenholer wrote:
I am not describing faith, I am describing religion. I have zero problem with people believing in what ever spirituality. I don't understand it, but if they get something positive out of it, that's cool. But then you go to organized religion, and even the better ones can't simply live and let live. Into almost every organized religion, there is some code imprinted, where they fail to comply with some rule of modern society. Be it missionizing, be it condemning homosexuality or abortion, be it ritually demeaning women.
Sure my language was provoking, but I really can't stand the hipocricy of fundamental Christians, or any other religion, to move the world backwards because a book that was written and rewritten in the last 2000 years tells them so. So here’s the thing, I agree with basically everything you say here, but I think the proper rhetorical approach towards those who do bad shit in the name of God is not one that casts broad aspersions as to how religion itself works as a thing humans do. There are millions of American Christians who know that fundamentalism and sola scriptura/fide are wrong and that they are used to justify all sorts of awful shit, but we’ll never get those people solidly opposed to Trump and his brand of political apologists a la Danglars if something they consider very important, religion, is routinely ridiculed like a Bill Mahar special. It’s folks like Bill Mahar and their one dimensional takes on religion that give conservatives the room to claim that the left wants to outlaw their faith and other silly shit. I grew up with multiple people who became pastors and feel it’s my duty to make sure they remember just how radically left Jesus was, so this is a topic near and dear to me I don't think there's such a dividing line between fundamentalists and your average everyday Christian, even the ones who agree with much of what i think about politics. The issue of massive grassroots belief that being gay will send a person to hell, for example, is harmful way beyond each individual that believes such things. You cannot take that homophobia out of the religion because its there in the texts. Sure, tone is important when addressing religious people, but the idea that they might change their mind about something like that because we are respectful is something I just can't see any evidence of, and these are important issues that leave alot of people having a shitty life. Totally disagree man, the presence of homophobia in religious texts only poisons the well of a religion if one tries to regard a religion as a strictly textual, hard and fast rule based enterprise. Many mainline prot denominations in the US actively prohibit that kind of biblical exegesis, and it serves as a helpful dividing line between what I think are good and bad approaches to Christianity (or any of the Abrahamic religions). *looks up exegesis* I mean the whole point of abrahamic religion is to be rule based. That's why it began, that's what it is. Its about law. I get your point with regards to protestants, maybe I'm stereotyping based on what I've seen of the US, but I had the impression the evangelical/catholic Christians over there massively outnumber protestants, and that's where most of the hatred is. The bible isn't why people are anti-abortion or homophobic. The bible says basically nothing about homosexuality (I believe it has two verses that can easily be handwaved away pretty easily with historical context) and actually gives instructions on how to commit abortions, in addition to specifying lower punishments for killing a pregnant woman than woman and child. It says infinitely more about eating shellfish than it does either of those topics. It's like the people saying the bible prohibits masturbation based on the story of Onan back in the early 1900s. Read that story, it's fucking nuts and no one could reasonably infer that as a rule from it. That view had a lot more to do with the specific people promoting it than their religious books. Personally, if you aren't willing to grant the church of satan the same rights then you shouldn't extend them to the others. It's part of why I enjoy it when they do things like sue to get a statue of Baphomet next to the 10 commandments at a court house (may have the wrong satanic organization... one is humanist and a few others are weird cults). edit: Had a wrong word in the onan section Many many verses on homosexuality, spread between both testaments. Googling will avail you much in this regard. The Bible is precisely the reason many Christians are opposed to both abortion and homosexuality, and for proof of this, ask them why they think God is against it and see if they go back to the Bible or not. Where are people getting these ludicrous ideas about mainstream topics of a faith? I presume the fault lies in education in this country, and more electives about the bible as a book of literature should be taught in high school. Occam's razor, if it's mentioned multiple times in one holy scripture, and adherents frequently adhere to it, it's because of it's presence in scripture and not some Christians pulling it out of their ass. This isn't quite a politics-and-religion thread, so I won't go out and quote chapter and verse in it. (Neither are Jewish dietary restrictions totally divorced from the Torah, or Muslim thoughts on paradise and prayer made up things apart from the Koran, etc etc)
The Bible also says to kill unbelievers, to stone homosexuals and other sinners. Still, murdering them now is something the churches do not advise to do. It's almost, as if the book reflects the time it is written in and not the timeless will of God. If it were, you wouldn't need two of em.
|
On September 15 2020 02:19 Broetchenholer wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2020 01:46 Danglars wrote:On September 15 2020 01:02 Broetchenholer wrote:On September 15 2020 00:28 Danglars wrote:On September 14 2020 14:34 Acrofales wrote:On September 14 2020 11:41 Danglars wrote:On September 14 2020 10:26 WombaT wrote:On September 14 2020 08:46 Danglars wrote:
I mean it shouldn't be so confusing. Biden and Democrat's message has been to fuck over people of religious faith. Nuns have to provide abortifacient drugs, even though they can't prove it's an accessibility problem and have many ways of providing these drugs apart from forcing religious organizations to be the means. The government had to confess at the Supreme Court that it could find no woman with a health access problem to demonstrate there was great need to overide First Amendment religious protections.
Say the same thing for Colorado and the Civil Rights Commission. And adoption agencies.
Honestly, even for the most hardcore lefty in this forum, it should be the easiest thing to imagine why evangelicals feel they have no choice in this election. They simply don't feel First Amendment protections have any business being surrendered, and the "women's health" argument is a stupid one made by people that ought to know better. There is only one candidate in the presidential field with any claim of letting business owners with sincere religious beliefs and religious organizations operate free of Government telling them they have no First Amendment protections for their operations. The Democrats always have the choice to not tweet out that they're gonna drag nuns back to court if elected. Well they can feel that way, I don’t overly care. Do whatever. If one wants tax exempt status on religions grounds, but wants to exert political influence, but wants to be guaranteed the right to be able to whatever, like have at it man. If one is willing to give a pass to Donald Trump, close to the least Christian man in human history as long as he’s ‘your guy’ then go for it. Really Danglars you want to have your cake and eat it, claim for have some high ground on issues and just ignore the negatives. And then claim the problem is people being intolerant for not accepting your choices I hold my government to higher standards than you. Period. Religious rights in this country should be respected. I think you're really digging yourself into a hole by claiming this is "the right to be able to whatever." I think you have to try much harder to find an argument here. I can accept some negatives (Some states have to find ways of subsidies that don't interfere with religious freedoms, oh boo hoo), because well ... religious liberty rights are foundational. Good luck with your discrimination, because honestly, you know why people vote this way and don't care. Secondly, if the government was harassing you for something, and one guy fought to get them off your back, and the other guy promised more lawsuits, I think even you would find reason to ignore personal shortcomings. You're honestly better than this, in my view. Religious institutions already have restrictions on their political influence if they seek to maintain tax exemption, by the way. Drag you back to court, or leave you alone? Oh man, Wombat, I really gotta think about his moral fiber on this one. I really love spending years in court at the hands of my own government if it means I avoid voting for personally immoral candidates. Do you really think attacking Trump on his moral character is making a point, or do you just feel you need to bring it up every time? On September 14 2020 11:06 WarSame wrote:
And also he seems to be interested primarily in business owners exercising their First Amendment rights to harass those of a vulnerable group under their employ, rather than for the purpose of peaceful protest.
Danglars, please just come out and say openly that you don't give a shit about liberal democratic values, that you would sacrifice them in order for the previous existing social order to flourish, and that you don't value the health or safety of those of different groups than yourself. Some people have blinders on in this discussion. When religious freedoms come up, they are incapable of seeing it as anything other than international harassment or lack of care about health and safety. Maybe in the future, you can come around to seeing these are poor excuses for state actions that can be done while actually valuing the religious freedom rights in the First Amendment. It would be a pretty stupid amendment if the first yahoo just whines about how inconvenient it is to respect religious individuals, and imagined harm and harassment was their aim. So how about valuing the religious conscience rights of groups that aren't like you, and have convictions you don't share. Go be honest in politics, and have your state agency work around sincerely held beliefs to dole out subsidies if you actually value them and don't really want to ... ... ... make this about putting the religious faithful as second class citizens within their own country, okay? Okay, so how do you feel about Muslims' right to wear a niqab or a burka in public? Government shouldn't be restricting this out in public. On September 14 2020 17:07 Nouar wrote:On September 14 2020 13:56 Danglars wrote:On September 14 2020 13:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 14 2020 13:03 NewSunshine wrote:
Religious freedom is your right to practice whatever religion you choose and not be persecuted for it, so long as you are not also infringing on the rights of others in doing so. You don't get carte blanche to shit on other peoples' rights and be able to call it "religious freedom". That isn't a thing. Christians aren't being persecuted when people tell them to stop denying other people their rights and freedoms. Not how it works. This has been Danglars's MO for a long time. He has some weird obsession with railing on the left's supposed attack on religious freedom and 1st amendment rights while completely ignoring the fact that the party that he supports regularly tramples on people's constitutional rights on a frequent basis, including their other first amendment rights. It's the same exact playbook that conservatives all across America use. Danglars is just more eloquent than your average conservative, but his hypocrisy runs just as deep. Inasmuch as this thread ignores real issues that matter to the voting public, I’m doing the thread a service. The arguments in favor of dragging nuns into court on the pretense that Obamacare invented a right to no-cost abortifacients have been historically bad. The adherents rely on equally bad bases to argue abstractions like health care (nobody found injury to it) or balancing rights (right to force employers to offer specific drugs free of charge is quite an argument, but I guess they could find nothing better than it). In short, Democrats and leftists on this forum have long ignored religious freedoms in this country, and it falls in nicely with their ongoing attacks on evangelicals for voting the way they do. I don’t yet have a theory on how much this ignorance is a practiced trait, because it avoids adopting a more nuanced view of their opponents and considerations in their vote, or how much is a priori disgust at religious values they dislike. It will be a stumbling block to dialogue if posters here can’t accept obviously good reasons to vote for Trump, since they have no entry point to then argue that the negatives outweigh the positives. Single payer health care at the federal level. Boom, no more nurse problem or religious freedom in health care since the employer is not involved anymore. Any issue with that? Republicans are against actually solving these kind of problems, as it's useful to keep them to have leverage on religious voters. Still. Staying focused on one issue and forgetting the rest of the unacceptable bullshit is tunnel vision. From a religious liberties perspective, single payer health care would be preferable to the way certain states and previous administrations treat private health insurance. Even better than that, government should withdraw from dictating what plans companies negotiate with their private health insurance, and confine themselves to policing fraud. The government shouldn't do stupid regulations on what private insurance is allowed to be offered, and impose caps on things like HSAs. Regarding "forgetting the rest," I'm trying to give the minority conscientious reader of this forum ample cause to believe that evangelicals have sufficient reason to vote Trump on grounds that Biden's chill with throwing religious orgs in jail for acting out their beliefs. I'm not angry or incensed at religious people that can understand that perspective, [and then decide that Trump's other negatives outweigh it in the end. If you'll review the past pages, I mainly directed myself at the ignorant perspective wondering why evangelicals could even think of voting Trump. First, gain understanding. Second, be able to form cohesive arguments from the point of understanding. bUt hES sO imMoRal, wHY?? is radical ignorance of politics and (apparently) has wide acceptance on the left. On September 14 2020 17:52 Broetchenholer wrote:On September 14 2020 08:46 Danglars wrote:
I mean it shouldn't be so confusing. Biden and Democrat's message has been to fuck over people of religious faith. Nuns have to provide abortifacient drugs, even though they can't prove it's an accessibility problem and have many ways of providing these drugs apart from forcing religious organizations to be the means. The government had to confess at the Supreme Court that it could find no woman with a health access problem to demonstrate there was great need to overide First Amendment religious protections.
Say the same thing for Colorado and the Civil Rights Commission. And adoption agencies.
Honestly, even for the most hardcore lefty in this forum, it should be the easiest thing to imagine why evangelicals feel they have no choice in this election. They simply don't feel First Amendment protections have any business being surrendered, and the "women's health" argument is a stupid one made by people that ought to know better. There is only one candidate in the presidential field with any claim of letting business owners with sincere religious beliefs and religious organizations operate free of Government telling them they have no First Amendment protections for their operations. The Democrats always have the choice to not tweet out that they're gonna drag nuns back to court if elected. Danglars is certainly right to point out this is what Evengelicals migth be thinking in supporting Trump. It's ridiculous of course, but it shows what those people are about. The constitution is only there for me. A small group of nuns have to provide healthcare for their employees? Outrageous. Good chrisitains have to server homosexuals? Not cool. Banning all travelers from muslkim countries? Yaaaaay. I am allowed to treat you like shit because Jesus, you are not allowed to live here because Allah. That's the good old christian values, love thy neighbour unless he does not pray like i do. Religion in a nutshell. Only my rules apply. The other 6 billion people are wrong and talk to imaginary friends, my imaginary friend is the creator of the world. And he told me that i am special They failed to prove in a court of law that anyone couldn't access "health care," save for employer insurance. Anti-religion in a nutshell: The issue is about what I say it's about, regardless of the facts or context. In more normal times, demonstrating that health care was denied as a result would be an important part of proving this is about actual provision of health care. On September 14 2020 18:53 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 14 2020 14:17 Starlightsun wrote:
Is there anything else besides abortion that is considered to be infringing on Christian religious freedom? Yes. Danglars thinks i'm a religious bigot because i don't support the 'right' of Christian schools to bully pupils for being gay. Pretty much explains everything about the depth of the religious rights argument. Its arbitrary in the idea that religious rights take precedence over all other rights. Its arbitrary in who those rights apply to. etc. etc. The religious freedom danglars holds in such high esteem is exactly and precisely what gave birth to scientology, with their exploitative modern slavery and immunity from criminal prosecution which extends as far as not being investigated when people go missing or die. The pupils may also have a hard time learning about the inerrant word of god, when it condemns homosexuality as an affront to the creator of earth, heaven, and hell. Or, as Farva points out, find a religious school that works with the bible as Jews do with rabbinical teachings and the Torah. It's arbitrary that overtly religious institutions have to disobey the tenets of their religion because somebody that believes neither thinks it's unfair that they're allowed to teach. I'm a little more into separation of church and state. Go regulate public schools or charter schools. Stop preaching what's good and bad to religious centers of education, armed with the jack-boot of government dictate. No, this line of argument is not correct! You attribute those religious entities a privilege that you are denying other religious entities! Just because you, or believers that run those schools, find it okay for christianity to discriminate homosexuals does not mean they can ignore american laws. Aztecs would not be allowed to sacrifice their disciples to the sun god in the States would they exist right now. Every religion has to adjust to the norms of the society it operates in. If it can't, it's being forbidden. But because you are in team christianity, you allow your side these liberties and deny them others. It's not like this is an American thing, Christianity has a special role in Europe as well. If you're firmly committed to likening certain Christian denominations aversion to abortifacients to Aztec child sacrifice, perhaps you should find similarly-minded and equipped debaters in the comment sections on websites like Breitbart. The first time this kind of case came up, The Supreme Court said (Hobby Lobby was used) that government should find other ways to serve it's legitimate interests without also impacting religious freedoms. They explicitly weighed the pros and cons (I'm not gonna get into the weeds on RFRA) and concluded that the burden on religious freedoms meant that the government had to find the least restrictive means of implementing it. At your Aztec-child-sacrifice level of discussion, this means government shouldn't take arbitrary stabs at religious freedoms, but find ways to accomplish legitimate goals avoiding unnecessary impacts on civil rights. Other claims of religious exemptions fail the balancing test. So for fuck's sake, let a religious institution serving only to operate homes for the elderly be, and start a non-religious organization doing the same if you're so bothered by its existence. You come back to this case of nuns getting drawn to court as if i am in the slightest interested in it. It's the one hil you decide to die upon because for some reason you see it as that shining victory your side has won. It's not about that. The christian churches are still 1 century behind western society on many other important civis freedoms. LGBTQ rights, woman rights, abortion. Just to name 3. The catholic church is discriminating women in not allowing them to be priests, it is discriminating against homosexuals and you are handwaving it because my example was too drastic. See the post one above, your religion is allowed to break the rules because it's your religion, my religion is not. Why? I am not comparing Nahuatl religious sacrifice to banning abortions, i am just trying to show you that if you allow your religion to ignore the secular law because religion supersedes it, then you have to do that for all religions. And all religions means all religions, not just the one you are fond of. If you defend the catholic church (or one of the protestant/evangelical) not allowing gay men into priest school, or woman, you are allowing the churches to trample on the religious freedom of those people, while claiming you are for religious freedom.
If the government can force 1) an overtly religious order of nuns with mission statements drawing upon interpretations of the Bible 2) to be the means of no-cost abortifascient (abortion-causing) drugs when 3) multiple avenues of legitimate subsidies exist for governments to take, should zero-cost drugs of this type be important to the government and 4) nobody can be found that can't obtain them for whatever reason, then religious freedom rights have only ephemeral protections.
It unites several aspects at once that show that the first amendment is being eroded. Namely, religious organizations (employers) should be afforded more free exercise provisions than for-profit businesses. Regulations should seek ways that don't burden religious expression. People on the left side of this issue couldn't find evidence of harm. In a clear-thinking society, these should all be evidence that exemptions are essential in the case, since it lies on the extreme edge of minor allowances (they haven't said that the state can't provide abortifascient drugs to their employees). The moderate left, such as they're sometimes called, are too extreme on this issue to even abide by first amendment protections for organizations of nuns. So people are actually very wary about protections for bakers, florists, photographers when it involves their services and they aren't explicitly dedicated towards religious aims.
Biden has promised to send the nuns back to court. If he's actually a moderate, why can't he find it in his heart to exempt religious orders from the governments contraceptive mandate? If he understands the first amendment, why can't he promise to enact legislative solutions that don't unnecessarily burden religious conscience? If he actually understands that no women couldn't find means of purchasing contraceptive drugs, if desired, why is he sending nuns back to court? If he is willing to do this with an organizations explicitly dedicated to religious service and operating homes for the elderly, why believe he'll have any qualms about doing worse for closely-held for-profit businesses? If he doesn't have a good answer on any of these, why claim he's a legitimate choice for the religious faithful?
I have to use concrete examples of extremism on this issue, because otherwise people may dither about whether or not Biden's actually going to do this or that, and I get all these stupid "nobody's arguing that ...."
If I can find agreement that Biden's wrong about religious institutions, with no evidence of harm, and plenty of evidence of civil-rights-preserving workarounds, ... ...
then maybe we could approach thornier topics of for-profit businesses, lifestyles outside of church affecting church employment, should pastors be forced to marry gay couples in order to keep their tax exemption. If you can't even compromise on the more extreme edge of the debate, why should I care about the more hazy areas in between? You can't even find ways of organizing society so the religious can live peaceably with secular people that think they're misogynistic bigots lost in prior-century morals. They aren't welcome in your imagined society, so your uncompromising offer is to shut up and comply or get lost, and we should be discussing what divided societies should look like, or if certain communities should band together and secede, or if emigration of backwards groups is an acceptable outcome.
|
|
|
Secular religious people are welcome. Religion should be something about the individual and their choices for themselves. Not a club to clobber people they dislike with.
Also, your employer shouldn't be involved in what kind of healthcare you get. There should just be good healthcare for everyone. That would also immediately solve the problem here and save those nuns you care so much about. Universal healthcare is a nice thing which solves so many problems...
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
