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> What does that matter? It matters because we have a secular government, so we don’t make laws based on people’s religious beliefs, no matter how popular thos

by nnf 3y ago

> What does that matter? It matters because we have a secular government, so we don’t make laws based on people’s religious beliefs, no matter how popular those beliefs may be. Religious people are welcome to live by whatever set of rules their books dictate, as long as doing so doesn’t infringe on other people’s rights. But they are not welcome to apply their religious restrictions to everyone else.

positus 3y ago
John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
- krapp 3y ago
  It's now the Year of our Lord 2023, we can (and should) move on from the outdated premise that morality requires a belief in God (as nonreligious people are no more or less moral than religious people) and that government presupposes it, just as we moved on from the premise that black people are property.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    “Religion” doesn’t “require a belief in God.” Lots of religions don’t have a god or gods per se. I also think that “nonreligious” people tend to retain much of the non-falsifiable moral philosophy they grew up with, and that for purposes of politics, it doesn’t make a difference whether you call that “religion” or not. As a foreigner, I find the phenomenon of white people who start fights with their family for saying racist things fascinating. In my culture you wouldn’t do that because preserving harmony within families is highly prized. It’s very Christian, though. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” Similarly, American political debate about LGBT “human rights” is deeply Christian. People can’t come out and say “God created everyone in his image.” But they would flip out if you proposed a utilitarian calculus that couples who can naturally create more taxpayers are more socially valuable than couples who cannot. These people think of themselves as atheists but coming from a non-Christian country it’s easy to see the through-line in their beliefs. This is a roundabout way of saying that I agree people who don’t believe in God can be moral. But I think that anyone who is moral has a framework of non-falsifiable moral beliefs that, for purposes of politics, isn’t materially distinguishable from religion. Certainly, there is nothing about our Constitution that prioritizes moral systems that arise from university departments over those that arise from organized religion.
rayiner 3y ago
Everyone has some sort of moral philosophy that influences their political choices. Do you vote for giving food stamps to poor people? That’s based on a moral judgment. “Secular government” doesn’t mean that policies based on secular philosophies somehow are given preference over those based on religious moral philosophies. If the regulation itself is otherwise within the government’s power, you don’t look behind to people’s motivations and decide that one policy is acceptable because it’s based on socialism and another policy is unacceptable because it’s based on Christian social gospel. For political purposes, Christianity is just another “ism” that motivates people’s political choices. If the government has the power to restrict access to porn under the first amendment, then it doesn’t matter whether people support such restrictions because they are Christian and think that porn creates social harm or because they read Andrea Dworkin and think that porn creates social harm: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/opinion/sex-positivity-feminism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/opinion/sex-positivity-fe....
- nnf 3y ago
  I suspect we agree and are saying different things. Yes, people are fully justified in voting their conscience, based on whatever informs that conscience, religious (even supernatural or doctrinal or otherwise). What is not ok is for a bill to be drafted that starts out with “Whereas the Christian Bible contains teachings implying pornography is against God, and Whereas we seek to glorify God…”. (This is just an example to illustrate the point. I’m not implying you or anyone who understands our constitution would think laws should be written this way, but this is what a non-secular law might look like.) Bills must be based on evidence. “Whereas scientific studies by competent and qualified scientists and researchers have recently concluded that exposure to pornography is harmful to children,…” Again, I think we were arguing related but distinctly different points about the original “most of the opposition to pornography is religious-based” and “What does that matter?” statements.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    I disagree that “bills must be based on evidence” and in practice they are not. The Civil Rights Act doesn’t say “whereas scientific studies by competent and qualified scientists and researchers have recently concluded that human races, despite obvious, outward differences, are genetically all similar…” We had a moral belief in the equality of the races, rooted in Christianity, long before we had the scientific evidence to support that belief. Likewise, there is no scientific basis for saying that the rich should take care of the poor, of that young people should support old people. These are all moral judgments. Why don’t we just let old people die when they can’t work anymore? It would be much more efficient after all. It’s impossible to avoid basing laws on moral beliefs, because fundamentally, moral beliefs are directed to notions of what will make a better society. Your version of “secularism” doesn’t take non-falsifiable moral judgments out of lawmaking. It just gives preference to one set of non-falsifiable beliefs over another. For example, acceptance of pornography or sex work is heavily based on the idea that people should be able to do what they want sexually so long as there is consent. What is the scientific evidence behind that belief? There isn’t. It’s based on a moral belief about sexual satisfaction being an important part of the human experience, it’s based on a moral belief about individual freedom and the limits on it, etc. Ultimately, it’s a moral belief about what kind of society is better.
xyzzyz 3y ago
This is pretty absurd position, it effectively pushes for disenfranchisement of religious people. Under your theory of the government, religious people are unable to use democratic means to to further their policy goals, if these in any way stem from their religious beliefs. This is, of course, not how our legal and political system works. The “secular government” doesnt work this way. Imagine if Christians had a strong belief in tending the garden given to them by God, and it entailed a strong wish to fight climate change. It would be absurd to say that they cannot do anything in that direction, just because their reasons for this are religious in nature. If you don’t like majority imposing restrictions on minorities based on their moral theories, your problem is not with religion, but rather with democracy.
- LocalH 3y ago
  The vast majority of Christians that I've spoken to don't seem to understand one basic fact: If you allow religious belief to be the sole factor behind legislative action, then you also open the door to a different religion coming in and democratically taking the reins of that action. They also will heavily vocalize their opinion that no other religion should be able to come in and do exactly that. In the years after 9/11, they would harp about "Sharia law" and how it was allegedly "taking over parts of the US". It is very clear in the Constitution that the government may not favor one religion over another. Ergo, to open legislative action to religious motivation allows any religion to do the same, no matter what. The US is pretty open about what it considers to be a "religion" as well, we're one of the few countries that allow Scientology to be considered a religion. In the interest of identifying bias, I live in Tennessee, right in the middle of the bible belt. Thus, my opinion is indeed biased by experience in this area. I've seen how nasty and bigoted this neck of the woods can be, and these are the people that the region's politicians tend to pander to.
- nnf 3y ago
  I have no desire to disenfranchise religious people, and I have no problem with democracy. People should be able to vote how they want and seek government policies they want, based on their convictions, religious or otherwise. My point is that the government (in the U.S. at least) cannot make laws based on religion. If Christians want to fight climate change because they believe that's what God wants, great! They should seek policies to do just that. But what the lawmakers cannot do is write laws that say "the EPA must impose greenhouse gas limits because God commands it." The lawmakers can have their reasons for the bills they write (they can believe it's what God wants, or they can know it's what their voters believe it's what God wants), but the laws themselves cannot be based on religion.

by nnf 3y ago

positus 3y ago

John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

krapp 3y ago
It's now the Year of our Lord 2023, we can (and should) move on from the outdated premise that morality requires a belief in God (as nonreligious people are no more or less moral than religious people) and that government presupposes it, just as we moved on from the premise that black people are property.
- rayiner 3y ago
  “Religion” doesn’t “require a belief in God.” Lots of religions don’t have a god or gods per se. I also think that “nonreligious” people tend to retain much of the non-falsifiable moral philosophy they grew up with, and that for purposes of politics, it doesn’t make a difference whether you call that “religion” or not. As a foreigner, I find the phenomenon of white people who start fights with their family for saying racist things fascinating. In my culture you wouldn’t do that because preserving harmony within families is highly prized. It’s very Christian, though. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” Similarly, American political debate about LGBT “human rights” is deeply Christian. People can’t come out and say “God created everyone in his image.” But they would flip out if you proposed a utilitarian calculus that couples who can naturally create more taxpayers are more socially valuable than couples who cannot. These people think of themselves as atheists but coming from a non-Christian country it’s easy to see the through-line in their beliefs. This is a roundabout way of saying that I agree people who don’t believe in God can be moral. But I think that anyone who is moral has a framework of non-falsifiable moral beliefs that, for purposes of politics, isn’t materially distinguishable from religion. Certainly, there is nothing about our Constitution that prioritizes moral systems that arise from university departments over those that arise from organized religion.

rayiner 3y ago

Everyone has some sort of moral philosophy that influences their political choices. Do you vote for giving food stamps to poor people? That’s based on a moral judgment. “Secular government” doesn’t mean that policies based on secular philosophies somehow are given preference over those based on religious moral philosophies. If the regulation itself is otherwise within the government’s power, you don’t look behind to people’s motivations and decide that one policy is acceptable because it’s based on socialism and another policy is unacceptable because it’s based on Christian social gospel. For political purposes, Christianity is just another “ism” that motivates people’s political choices. If the government has the power to restrict access to porn under the first amendment, then it doesn’t matter whether people support such restrictions because they are Christian and think that porn creates social harm or because they read Andrea Dworkin and think that porn creates social harm: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/opinion/sex-positivity-feminism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/opinion/sex-positivity-fe....

nnf 3y ago
I suspect we agree and are saying different things. Yes, people are fully justified in voting their conscience, based on whatever informs that conscience, religious (even supernatural or doctrinal or otherwise). What is not ok is for a bill to be drafted that starts out with “Whereas the Christian Bible contains teachings implying pornography is against God, and Whereas we seek to glorify God…”. (This is just an example to illustrate the point. I’m not implying you or anyone who understands our constitution would think laws should be written this way, but this is what a non-secular law might look like.) Bills must be based on evidence. “Whereas scientific studies by competent and qualified scientists and researchers have recently concluded that exposure to pornography is harmful to children,…” Again, I think we were arguing related but distinctly different points about the original “most of the opposition to pornography is religious-based” and “What does that matter?” statements.
- rayiner 3y ago
  I disagree that “bills must be based on evidence” and in practice they are not. The Civil Rights Act doesn’t say “whereas scientific studies by competent and qualified scientists and researchers have recently concluded that human races, despite obvious, outward differences, are genetically all similar…” We had a moral belief in the equality of the races, rooted in Christianity, long before we had the scientific evidence to support that belief. Likewise, there is no scientific basis for saying that the rich should take care of the poor, of that young people should support old people. These are all moral judgments. Why don’t we just let old people die when they can’t work anymore? It would be much more efficient after all. It’s impossible to avoid basing laws on moral beliefs, because fundamentally, moral beliefs are directed to notions of what will make a better society. Your version of “secularism” doesn’t take non-falsifiable moral judgments out of lawmaking. It just gives preference to one set of non-falsifiable beliefs over another. For example, acceptance of pornography or sex work is heavily based on the idea that people should be able to do what they want sexually so long as there is consent. What is the scientific evidence behind that belief? There isn’t. It’s based on a moral belief about sexual satisfaction being an important part of the human experience, it’s based on a moral belief about individual freedom and the limits on it, etc. Ultimately, it’s a moral belief about what kind of society is better.

xyzzyz 3y ago

This is pretty absurd position, it effectively pushes for disenfranchisement of religious people. Under your theory of the government, religious people are unable to use democratic means to to further their policy goals, if these in any way stem from their religious beliefs. This is, of course, not how our legal and political system works. The “secular government” doesnt work this way. Imagine if Christians had a strong belief in tending the garden given to them by God, and it entailed a strong wish to fight climate change. It would be absurd to say that they cannot do anything in that direction, just because their reasons for this are religious in nature. If you don’t like majority imposing restrictions on minorities based on their moral theories, your problem is not with religion, but rather with democracy.

LocalH 3y ago
The vast majority of Christians that I've spoken to don't seem to understand one basic fact: If you allow religious belief to be the sole factor behind legislative action, then you also open the door to a different religion coming in and democratically taking the reins of that action. They also will heavily vocalize their opinion that no other religion should be able to come in and do exactly that. In the years after 9/11, they would harp about "Sharia law" and how it was allegedly "taking over parts of the US". It is very clear in the Constitution that the government may not favor one religion over another. Ergo, to open legislative action to religious motivation allows any religion to do the same, no matter what. The US is pretty open about what it considers to be a "religion" as well, we're one of the few countries that allow Scientology to be considered a religion. In the interest of identifying bias, I live in Tennessee, right in the middle of the bible belt. Thus, my opinion is indeed biased by experience in this area. I've seen how nasty and bigoted this neck of the woods can be, and these are the people that the region's politicians tend to pander to.
nnf 3y ago
I have no desire to disenfranchise religious people, and I have no problem with democracy. People should be able to vote how they want and seek government policies they want, based on their convictions, religious or otherwise. My point is that the government (in the U.S. at least) cannot make laws based on religion. If Christians want to fight climate change because they believe that's what God wants, great! They should seek policies to do just that. But what the lawmakers cannot do is write laws that say "the EPA must impose greenhouse gas limits because God commands it." The lawmakers can have their reasons for the bills they write (they can believe it's what God wants, or they can know it's what their voters believe it's what God wants), but the laws themselves cannot be based on religion.