4 ms·

It's the opposite and highly different across the western world, with America mostly focusing on 2 and Europe obsessed with 1

PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
I have no understanding of the "freedom to ..." and "freedom from ..." phrases that would align with your claim about America. "Freedom from..." is generally used to form phrases like "Freedom from hunger", "Freedom from homelessness", "Freedom from being thrown in the back of an unmarked black van by unmarked people wearing masks". I don't know what version of America you've experienced, but the one I know absolutely does not focus on this notion of "freedom from".
- RIMR 1y ago
  Yeah, look at the state of our freedom of religion. Conservative Christians love to push the idea that religious freedom includes the right to legislate from scripture, but honestly, it feels like people should know better. People tend to think that when you get the government involved with something you are passionate about, that passion will now influence the government. Still, the reality is that you're handing control over that passion to the government. This is how a "Christian America" would play out. Whatever beliefs are held by those in power would be written into law, despite the actual opinions of America's Christians. The government would declare itself an authority over Christianity and would start telling churches how to operate. This was already partially true in red states before marriage equality (and probably still true today, to some extent). Progressive churches that believed same-sex marriages were holy in the eyes of God were told by the state that they could not perform same sex marriages - in some cases, even barring a pure non-binding ceremony as a form of "attempted marital fraud". If you are an American Christian and you care about your right to worship freely without government interference, you should cherish secularism. Enforcing the Bible as a matter of law means that interpretations of the Bible you disagree with will be enforced against you. Requiring prayer in schools will lead to vicious fights between teachers and parents over which prayers are the "correct" ones. Literally any piece of scripture you write into law will become controversial even amongst Christians. But still, people insist that their freedom would somehow be enhanced. And this doesn't even touch on the fact that a Christian America would turn non-Christians, especially Muslims and Jews, into a lower class of citizens. It is unfortunate that he current powers controlling all branches of our government are primarily interested in taking rights away, and that those who voted for it think that this is freedom.
  - anon291 1y ago
    I mean I'm a Christian and want a secular government but this current administration is the farthest thing from a Christian administration in the history of the United States. Donald Trump is like the first non practicing self identified Christian in US history. By and large many issues in America today are due to have abandoned Christian norms on both ends of the political spectrum.
- anon291 1y ago
  Freedom from interference. Hunger is not of human origin, thus no human can guarantee you freedom from hunger. This is a religious desire. On the other hand, humans can guarantee their own non interference
  - PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
    The human world, for decades, perhaps even centuries, has produced far, far more calories than humans need to avoid hunger. So in fact, humanity can guarantee freedom from hunger. But because we concede control over the distribution of food to the richest and most powerful, people are hungry.
    - anon291 1y ago
      No we cannot because such things require restricting the freedom of others and you yourself cannot feed the world. However you can commit to not interfering in the lives of all eight billion people. It's actually really easy if you put your mind to it . These two things (feeding the world v not interfering) are things of two different categories
      - PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
        the fact that "I, myself" cannot feed the world does not prevent me being a part of systems that can. i put much less priority on "not interfering" than you, perhaps because i'm a priviledged white anglo middle class dude, or perhaps because i believe different things about the world than you. such as: there's always interfering, it cannot be escaped, it can only be shaped.

PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago

I have no understanding of the "freedom to ..." and "freedom from ..." phrases that would align with your claim about America. "Freedom from..." is generally used to form phrases like "Freedom from hunger", "Freedom from homelessness", "Freedom from being thrown in the back of an unmarked black van by unmarked people wearing masks". I don't know what version of America you've experienced, but the one I know absolutely does not focus on this notion of "freedom from".

RIMR 1y ago
Yeah, look at the state of our freedom of religion. Conservative Christians love to push the idea that religious freedom includes the right to legislate from scripture, but honestly, it feels like people should know better. People tend to think that when you get the government involved with something you are passionate about, that passion will now influence the government. Still, the reality is that you're handing control over that passion to the government. This is how a "Christian America" would play out. Whatever beliefs are held by those in power would be written into law, despite the actual opinions of America's Christians. The government would declare itself an authority over Christianity and would start telling churches how to operate. This was already partially true in red states before marriage equality (and probably still true today, to some extent). Progressive churches that believed same-sex marriages were holy in the eyes of God were told by the state that they could not perform same sex marriages - in some cases, even barring a pure non-binding ceremony as a form of "attempted marital fraud". If you are an American Christian and you care about your right to worship freely without government interference, you should cherish secularism. Enforcing the Bible as a matter of law means that interpretations of the Bible you disagree with will be enforced against you. Requiring prayer in schools will lead to vicious fights between teachers and parents over which prayers are the "correct" ones. Literally any piece of scripture you write into law will become controversial even amongst Christians. But still, people insist that their freedom would somehow be enhanced. And this doesn't even touch on the fact that a Christian America would turn non-Christians, especially Muslims and Jews, into a lower class of citizens. It is unfortunate that he current powers controlling all branches of our government are primarily interested in taking rights away, and that those who voted for it think that this is freedom.
- anon291 1y ago
  I mean I'm a Christian and want a secular government but this current administration is the farthest thing from a Christian administration in the history of the United States. Donald Trump is like the first non practicing self identified Christian in US history. By and large many issues in America today are due to have abandoned Christian norms on both ends of the political spectrum.
anon291 1y ago
Freedom from interference. Hunger is not of human origin, thus no human can guarantee you freedom from hunger. This is a religious desire. On the other hand, humans can guarantee their own non interference
- PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
  The human world, for decades, perhaps even centuries, has produced far, far more calories than humans need to avoid hunger. So in fact, humanity can guarantee freedom from hunger. But because we concede control over the distribution of food to the richest and most powerful, people are hungry.
  - anon291 1y ago
    No we cannot because such things require restricting the freedom of others and you yourself cannot feed the world. However you can commit to not interfering in the lives of all eight billion people. It's actually really easy if you put your mind to it . These two things (feeding the world v not interfering) are things of two different categories
    - PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
      the fact that "I, myself" cannot feed the world does not prevent me being a part of systems that can. i put much less priority on "not interfering" than you, perhaps because i'm a priviledged white anglo middle class dude, or perhaps because i believe different things about the world than you. such as: there's always interfering, it cannot be escaped, it can only be shaped.