"While Most Americans Want Church/State Separation, Not Many Know What That Means"

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Miles
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"While Most Americans Want Church/State Separation, Not Many Know What That Means"

Post #1

Post by Miles »

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What disturbs me is the percentage of people on the very left who want mess with our secular government by putting religion, and in particular the Christian religion, into the mix. It's as if the First Amendment and its Establishment Clause (Separation of Church and State) doesn't exist. I can only conclude they're from the bottom half of the IQ scale.

Your thoughts?



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bjs1
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Re: "While Most Americans Want Church/State Separation, Not Many Know What That Means"

Post #11

Post by bjs1 »

Miles wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 3:11 pm
bjs1 wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 1:55 pm
Miles wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 1:34 am
bjs1 wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 11:34 pm [Replying to Miles in post #1]

Yes, there are extremes on both ends of the spectrum. There are those on one extreme who want to establish a specific religion in the country, and there are those on the other extreme who say that freedom of religion is the freedom to believe whatever you want but not the freedom to act accordingly.

I consider both of those views toxic. However, they are both thus far fringe ideas. On their own they have minimal power in the nation. In practice their biggest effect is that they are used to manipulate and scare otherwise sensible people into moving toward the opposite extreme.
Not quite understanding how the freedom to believe whatever one wants but not the freedom to act accordingly, would be toxic. Assuming you don't mean never being able to act in accordance with one's belief no matter how benign, shouldn't people be forbidden to act in opposition to the law even if their religion says it's alright?


And honestly, I don't see your extremes here as being a true dichotomy If one wants to construct such a contrast I'd put "those who want to establish a specific religion in the country" at one end and its opposite "those who don't want to establish a specific religion in the country" at the other end.

Like "True ___________________________ False" might bracket events in accordance to an actual state or condition.



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If you don’t understand how toxic it is, then try putting yourself on the other side of it. Imagine that the legal stance in our nation was: “Atheism is legal and acceptable. Everyone must declare that Jesus is Lord, never say anything to the contrary, attend church weekly, read at least two chapters from the Bible every day, pray several times every day, give at least 10% of the money to a church and seek to live every aspect of their lives according to the moral standards set forth in the New Testament. Obviously you can still be an atheist, agnostic, or subscribe any other belief system as long as your actions align with Christianity.”
But this is far different than what you had said:

"There are those on one extreme who want to establish a specific religion in the country, and there are those on the other extreme who say that freedom of religion is the freedom to believe whatever you want but not the freedom to act accordingly."

"A specific religion," which simply denotes another religion, specific or not, is far different than "a mandatory," MUST, religion, which you now assert.


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Perhaps, but in this case was I was attempting to describe what it would be like to say that a person is free to believe something but not free to act upon that belief. Since you are an atheist who does not see such a belief as toxic, I tried to explain the belief in way that puts you on the receiving end of that mistreatment so that you might have empathy for others who disagree with you but still do not wish to be mistreated.

But again, these are the extremes. Most people don’t think this way. The only real danger of these extremes is that they might be used to scare people into the (equally toxic) opposite extreme.
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
-Charles Darwin

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