|
xssve -> RE: Court Rules: Atheism is a Religion (10/19/2011 6:24:37 AM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Real0ne
quote:
ORIGINAL: xssve
Well, I'll get back to that, first, RO's post #497, which I'm not sure I have the time or patience at the moment to read in it's hysterical entirety, I glean roughly that in criminalizing polygyny, the court in effect made a law respecting an established practice of religion, namely that in Reynolds v US, George Reynolds was prosecuted for bigamy, after marrying Amelia Schofield while still married to Mary Tuddenham.
Wikipedia: Reynolds vs United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1878)
The bigamy law he broke was worded thus:
'Every person having a husband or wife living, who marries another, whether married or single, in a Territory, or other place over which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction, is guilty of bigamy, and shall be punished by a fine of not more than $500, and by imprisonment for a term of not more than five years.'
In effect the court ruled that a religious belief did not entitle you to break the law, and bigamy is against the law, regardless of what the Hebrews did, get a mistress like everybody else.
The question is RO, if you don't draw that line somewhere, you are effectively interpreting "an establishment" as a noun - the age of consent for the Hebrews was 12 believe, is there any reason to draw lines there that apply to everyone equally, or is it a matter of religious prerogative?
You have to step out of the religious mindset to consider these questions or else the result is de facto moral relativism, everything simply becomes a question of which religion you belong to, and you no longer have the the rule of law, but make each and every religion a law unto itself.
The law is about drawing lines, for everybody, and damn near everybody agrees there are lines - even if we argue about where they are exactly.
My final (for now) take on the subject is that religion is pornography: I know it when I see it. [:D]
The rule of law historically was and still is if you know how to dance around all their land mines to adjudicate it which is nearly impossible and the people who do including the judges that make dejure decisions by law wind up being fertilizer. Look at the arizona judge, which was the real target and the wisconsin judge that was taking payoffs from the attorneys that committed suicide when the investigations started.
Remember its often not the mortgage company that sues, its some asswipe attorney that bough the debt because they are protected by the judges.....anyway I digress....
The problem with morals I do not think there is such a thing as moral certitude hence people form different religions.
While what you said may have merit it circumvents the ability of people to have and exercise their religion.
Each person has the inherent right to choose their own religion and exercise it.
The government has never been given the authority to legislate morals, that come appropriately under an ecclesiastic court (if you are a citizen of a given church) and even that is beside the point since the very bottom line here is:
Did reynolds "injure" someone any way shape of form?
Does our practice of BDSM injure anyone in any way shape or form?
They could (and have in some cases) just as easily pass "so-called" laws against bdsm as part of their RICO scheme.
"Its da leu" ~Judge Dredd
Look at sodomy laws, who is the injured party, regardless of the resulting philosophical labels that people can hang on the matters to prevent freedom of religion?
handling it in that manner is outside the rule of law and now enters into the "policy" domain of politics.
Um, we are talking about like Three things here: how many women you can marry, age of consent and a moratorium on human sacrifice.
And usually, when the law is abused to deliberately persecute people, and yes, you could make that case in the instance of prosecuting Mormons for bigamy - it s still against the law, but it's hardly ever prosecuted, even in the recent high profile arrests of FLDS members, I don't believe any of them were charged with bigamy - 99% of the time it isn't atheists doing the persecution, it's another religion - usually Christians using the law to persecute some strange religion:
Santeria members are fighting a ban on animal sacrifice in Texas (more), Burqa bans are being considered in a number of places, Mosque erections have been the target of considerable protest, and Cain for one, seems to think it's ok to pass a law about building them, and in hundreds of ways, both formal and informal, Christians continue to try and make their particular religion the yardstick for all law - all the Blue laws have been gradually being struck down, the latest being sodomy laws, and for the most part these were laws passed in the 19th century on religious grounds, including the Comstock laws.
They feel it's their destiny to convert the world in anticipation of Jesus return, it's a fairly common theme in monotheistic religions that they cannot tolerate alternative viewpoints, and unlike their claims that they are being prosecuted for being allowed to trample the rights of others as god told them to do, this is not hysteria, I have personal experience with religious intolerance and persecution.
And yes, the result has been that organized religion has gotten on my bad side, I don't think that unreasonable under the circumstances, I think they earned it, yammering about Jeebus doesn't relieve you of the obligation to act like a human being if you want to be treated like one, it doesn't make you special, and it doesn't grant you any special rights, because religious rights are not the only rights.
The law itself can be subject to abuse, no question - it's a human institution too, and susceptible to corruption like any other - google up "site specific murders texas", or look at how the DEA has killed homeowners thinking they were drug dealers - property used in drug crimes can be seized, and in when it comes to law enforcement, any kind of monetary incentive is axiomatically a perverse incentive, the inquisition itself was fueled as much by economic motives as religious, there is a distinct bandwagon effect here that is predictable.
Oversight in all things is the salient feature of a healthy democracy, when people are granted power and authority without oversight or review, it almost invariably gets ugly - they only derive their authority from the consent of the people, the people can damn well take it away, and that goes for religion too.
But it requires some self restraint not to favor your "team" above the other team, and enable that corruption to begin with - it sets a precedent that you might have occasion to regret later.
|
|
|
|
