A federal judge in West Virginia has ruled that the state corrections agency can’t force an incarcerated atheist and secular humanist to participate in religiously-affiliated programming to be eligible for parole.
The country was founded of freedom of religion by the fanatics who were too fanatical for England.
The Founders were steeped in the Age of Enlightenment. Modern Americans wouldn’t even recognize it as Christianity. Like The Jefferson Bible
… completed in 1820 by cutting and pasting with a razor and glue numerous sections from the New Testament as extractions of the doctrine of Jesus. Jefferson’s condensed composition excludes all miracles by Jesus and most mentions of the supernatural, including sections of the four gospels that contain the Resurrection and most other miracles, and passages that portray Jesus as divine.
You could label their morality puritanical but I think cynicism would also equally apply. If you view humans as naturally greedy and selfish, society needs to codify expected behavior to keep it in check.
Nope. This country was founded on the idea that weathly people shouldn’t have to pay their fair share of taxes.
yeah, it seems what they meant is freedom to be a christian without the pope and absolutely nothing else. no nonbelievers, no non-abrahamics, hell, not even any abrahamic believers who believe in other religions. protestant, mormon, or cringe catholic, take your pick or go to literal hell.
and the best part is when they use the excuse of religious freedom as a shield for their bigotry. like i’m sorry, if your holy book literally calls for gays to be stoned to death that’s a call to violence, it doesn’t deserve to be protected or tolerated.
I feel like this is inaccurate. What other religions were on hand in the late 1700s? The native religions, of course, but the white guys did not care about that.
Of course there was an emphasis on avoiding dependence on any one organized religion. That was one way of keeping power in the right hands.
And in the 1970s and 1980s, it depends where in the US, but in many places or was and is very common to be Christian. If there is an strong majority, there’s no need to explicitly weaponize because society itself is already pushing your agenda. But that doesn’t mean harm wasn’t caused.
Honestly can someone even provide me with an excerpt from the bible that actively cites the hatred of homosexuals
There is the story of Sodom, two times in Leviticus, the obvious coverup of Johnathan, the reference in Ezekiel (which according to modern prot studies of the bible is a big freaken deal), two times in Paul’s letters, and a derived part of Matthew.
Homosexuality is attacked more times than all of the diet rules combined.
yeah, it seems what they meant is freedom to be a christian without the pope and absolutely nothing else. no nonbelievers, no non-abrahamics, hell, not even any abrahamic believers who believe in other religions. protestant, mormon, or cringe catholic, take your pick or go to literal hell.
If by “they” you’re referring to the folks who wrote the Constitution (many of whom were Deists, not Christians), that’s very much historical revisionism. The religious right certainly thinks that’s what they thought, but it isn’t true.
i did think that but i stand corrected by @Jase@lemmy.world. seems like the founding fathers were actually based (at least on this topic) and it’s just the people who like to speak for them who are corrupting this message.
that said though, there are a lot of calls for religious freedom nowadays that shape up like this: basically, “i should be able to practice my religion and i guess i’ll endure yours because you’re in power, but we’re gonna do something about those unbelievers, right? …right?”
Even as a Christian myself, I agree with you. Separation of Church and State. Politics mixing with religion has been terrible for both.
Politics mixing with religion has been terrible for both.
No it hasn’t. Religions benefit almost immeasurably from infiltrating politics in so many ways, ranging from exemption from all discrimination laws, to having their private schools funded by tax money, to controlling the majority of hospitals in the country, to being allowed to rape and marry children consequence free.
Well it is, look at Malaysia for example
Edit. Ok you’re being sarcastic lol
Eh, that’s the church as an institution. I mean religion in the more abstract sense. Political leanings becoming tied to a religious stance has become ridiculous, and has watered down Christianity quite a lot, to the point where even Trump gets to go pray once a year and call himself the Christian vote. It’s also been remarkably divisive, as naturally, a lot of Christians aren’t that, and hot political debates somehow become religious debates.
Tying religion to politics has allowed politics to slowly pull that horse further and further, to the point where “Christianity” now means southern fundamentalism to a lot, maybe even most, people. I think without political influence, we’d be a lot closer today to how Christianity started, and is meant to look.
Let me try a different argument:
The separation of church and state has forced American denominations to compete in a marketplace for souls/money, and they have become ruthlessly efficient corporatized entities, using marketing and business-process management, and exploiting tax advantages and high switching costs.
Meanwhile, in Europe, you have official state Catholicism or Protestantism-flavors, which are moribund, inspire little passion, and most everyone is either atheist, agnostic, or un-passioned.
lmao, so the church and state shouldn’t be separated because the government is inefficient and its inefficiencies should remain to be inflicted upon the church?
that’s… actually kinda based, lol. i do appreciate the objective and the unconventional method to achieve it. however, i think there’s a difference between being a government entity and having control over governance. the latter should never be given to the church, because that’s one hella fast way to surpass all the damage they have managed to do under the american system. for example, while your statements seem accurate for western europe and the nordics (emphasis on “seem”, i don’t live there) but over here in hungary the “christian democratic party” is literally the only party our government is in a coalition with, and they get to pass discriminatory laws basically as fast as they can come up with them. the closest analogy i can give is imagine if all the shit that’s going on in those red states was going on country-wide with no one left to oppose it.
that’s also what europe looked like before the “age of enlightenment”, which is separation of church and state is so important in public consciousness, even if not technically implemented.
still, i do like your idea, and yes, inflicting bureaucracy upon the church would be helpful. maybe it’s not a separation of church and state that we need, but protection of the state from the church’s influence.
The separation of church and state has forced American denominations to compete in a marketplace for souls/money, and they have become ruthlessly efficient corporatized entities, using marketing and business-process management, and exploiting tax advantages and high switching costs.
This is not a product of separation of church and state, but of the atrocious combination of hyper-capitalism and tax exemption for religious organizations.
Yeah it is one of the unexpected results. It is an imperfect analogy but Europe Christianity has become a domesticated animal that knows not to cause trouble. American Christianity is a mean badass sewer rat that not only fends for itself but can’t be killed. I really doubt anyone could have predicted this before it happened.
Absolutely. It’s hard to conceive of something that has been more damaging to society than Abrahamic religion.
I think the concept of money was the most detrimental, but Abrahamic mythologies are a close second.
