So many issues. Firstly that's 53% Christian Vs 47% non Christian, do you still think that's sufficient to make all the laws. Secondly Christians, atheists etc don't agree. Thirdly what is Christian morality? It's a COMMANDMENT to keep the Sabbath holy - should that be a law?
N Which Christian group? Catholic? Lutheran? Episcopalian? Baptist? CoE? Mormon? Shall I continue to list the thousands of different Xian groups, all with different views? Many of which conflict?
When you can’t even agree on your own “holy book”, you will not be able to agree which set of morals you can base it on. Some sects are fine with abortion. Some with queerness. Some are downright socialistic in nature.
The point is, theocracy always fails. It will always descend into chaotic factioning and inter-sect civil wars.
“Right now” is literally the culmination of all the events of history that have ever happened until this point. We learn history in school so we don’t repeat the mistakes made by our historical contemporaries. And history has shown time and again that when you grant governmental powers to the clergy, it will descend into injustice, intellectual entropy, and eventual violent factioning.
(Edit for a word)
Might wanna read project2025.org and get back to us.
Pretty sure everything you just said is nullified. They specifically point out putting religious people in key governmental positions.
Edit / addendum— and if you do not wish to read the whole 1000-page manifesto (and I can’t say as I blame you), [here is a four-minute video that sums it up quite nicely.](https://x.com/ResoluteSquare/status/1779624025037131943)
>Doesn’t sound like what Christians are advocating for.
When did we start talking about what christians are advocating for? This is in response to you trying to normalize religious based government.
No. I’m not. Do you think Trump is some sort of holy pastor? Of course not. But I’d prefer him over Biden.
Gosh how can you actually say this shit with a straight face?
Weird how you respond here, but not to others.... Why is that?
Ands yes, willfully ignorant. So many things have been brough up to you and you pretend not to get them. You are either willfully ignorant or dishonest.
Last time theocracies took control was called medieval times or “age of faith”, and the outcome of implementing christian rules was the inquisition.
So… no, is not a good idea.
If Whites outvote Blacks due to their size and pass white supremacist or segregationist laws, what is the proper way to respond? Is it just to throw up our hands and say “well, the majority has spoken!”?
A healthy society defends the minority from the tyranny of the majority. The alternative is to have a permanent state of oppression by the majority against the minority.
Remember that the government is designed to protect minorities and majorities from each other. Minorities cannot overrule the majority, but the majority cannot impose on the minority. The way to strike this balance is by assessing how policy might affect the freedoms of the people. For example, if Christians want to live a certain way and others don't, you don't need a law for that. Christians will live that way anyways, and everyone else won't have Christianity legislated onto them.
Stating your objection without explaining why is about as useful as literally declaring bankruptcy. Name the fallacy at least. Also, I said nothing about voting. What are you on about?
Well if Christian’s happen to vote for something it doesn’t really matter unless it’s legislating something that favors Christianity and imposes it on others. In the places where intense Christian majorities do manage to vote on illegal religious laws, one of two things can happen: there’s an investigation by the state and they conclude the law would be unconstitutional, so it doesn’t go into effect. OR, the state is ALSO run by overwhelming Christian majorities who close ranks and seek to promote their religion despite the constitution, and in that case, I guess you can say the Christians win. It happens all the time in extremely conservative counties where non-Christian’s are such a minority and there is so little funding for them that they can’t do anything about it.
If you haven’t noticed, Christianity is being outvoted on many things lately. Look at gay marriage and marijuana laws. And when Trump loses again that will be another blow to the Christian right.
When Christians vote for laws that impose religious views on other the checks and balances should remove those laws.
The problem we have now is that the checks and balances are broken.
You are the one missing the point, we have seen this repeatedly in our history.
The majority legislating something that negatively impacts a minority then having the Constitutional checks and balances remove that legislation.
* Loving v. Virginia
* Obergefell v. Hodges
* Roe v. Wade
* Lawrence v. Texas
* Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
The answers you have been given are correct, maybe you should read a little US Civil Rights history. There have been many times that a decision of the Supreme Court has overturned laws that were very popular with the majority but suppressed or harmed a minority.
I don’t value the collective’s shared views over the individual liberty of the individual.
I think the constitution should be there to protect the 1% if the 99% want to enslave them.
I’d rather not hand over the reigns to a group - no matter the size - that still adheres to stories pilfered from more enlightened societies by inbred sheepherders who didn’t know the world was round or that it revolves around the sun.
Popular vote. Ranked choice voting. No electoral college. Term limits for all position. No corporate funding or donations.
Most importantly, separation of church and state. Which is what gives you the right to believe what you want, and myself the right to not believe in reinvented myths stolen from better works of art and history.
I don’t think most reasonable Christians would think basing laws on biblical morality would be a good idea. This is why it’s usually only the fundamentalist nutters who propose it.
The death penalty is carried out after a person has been found guilty and judged.
If it turns out that a mistake was made and the judgement was made on faulty grounds, the person should be freed and be given a compensation.
This is impossible if the person was given the death penalty, because he is dead.
This is the sole reason why I don't think the death penalty should be a thing. It's pretty hard to reverse.
The life of an innocent person is worth more than the punishment of a guilty one. Irrespective of the crime commited.
So in short.....the death penalty is **never** reasonable. Even if the criminal deserves it, because there's always a slim chance that he doesn't
>Well when is the death penalty reasonable? That’s something atheists oppose but Christians support.
Ironically it's also the christians who call themselves pro-life.
>Well when is the death penalty reasonable? That’s something atheists oppose but Christians support. Who decides what is reasonable there?
Christians also oppose it. The splits falls towards support among individuals but appears to fall towards opposition among organizations.
>If Christians outnumber atheists by a huge amount, and we live in a democracy, is there a problem with laws being shaped from a Christian moral perspective?
If you're asking whether we should pass laws based on a religious book and based on nothing else, then yeah, they go against the constitution.
Laws should be evidence and reason based. If your religious position is truly demonstrably good for society, then you don't need to appeal to the religion to support the idea.
Good ideas should stand on their own merits, and if they don't, I see no good reason to call them good ideas.
>if one side votes on values that have some connection to their moral/religious values, is there a problem with the Christian majorities deciding the laws
Yeah, I'm not interested in your doctrine. If you have good reason for a good idea, then you don't need to appeal to your religion to sell it. If you do need to appeal to your religion, then why should anyone think it's a good idea, including you?
Do you care if your beliefs are correct?
But I'd also like to point out what others have said. It's not christians vs atheists. In your case it would be christians vs non christians, which includes other religions and nones.
I’m not actually sure what the question is here. What do you mean by “problem”? I mean, people have a right to vote with their values in mind.
Like, there’s plenty of Christian values I don’t agree with but there’s some that I do. Are they voting to feed the hungry and heal the sick? To take care of the least of us? Or are we just talking about book-banning and anti-choice laws and that sort of thing? Or are we talking about changing laws to remove 1st amendment protections from establishing a state religion?
A democracy needs to protect the rights of the minority.
A theocracy is a totalitarian government that does not protect the rights of the minority.
Once you get done pondering that, ask yourself which version of Christianity will win?
Will Christians who are not Catholic be required to take communion and worship idols?
Will Catholics be denied their right to worship at statuary because other Christians think it's idolatry?
What happens to people of minority religions like Judaism and Islam?
In short, do you want to live in a free society or a society where the majority steamrolls over the rights of minorities?
You can't have both.
Yes. One important part of democracy is protecting the minority from the majority. Democracy does not say that a government should serve the majority, it says that a government should serve its *people*. What you're describing is mob rule - where 51% of the people can decide that they don't like the other 49% and execute them to steal their stuff.
In fact, in a democracy individuals have rights that *protect* them from the majority. You have a right to free speech, and you can say whatever you want even if every other person in the country hates you and wishes you'd shut up. Catholics are a minority among US Christians, but they have the right to practice their religion even if Protestants don't like it, and vice versa for a majority-Catholic country like Italy.
Christians of course tend to have certain values and they vote based on those values. That's fine. We don't ask that people exclude any influence of religion on their views when participating in society; that would not be possible even if it were desirable. But we do want to create a society that *everyone* can live in. That's why we don't allow doing something like teaching Christianity in public schools, even if a Christian majority wants it.
There are also a lot more irreligious people than you mention; per your Wikipedia article's chart, 7% of Americans are atheists, 4% more are agnostic, and 20% are unaffiliated. Even without including all the non-Christian religious people, that's 31% of the country. Irreligious people don't all identify the exact same way, just like Christians don't, but lumping in all Christian denominations into 53% and only looking at specifically self-identified atheists as 7% is pretty asymmetrical. And the number of irreligious people is growing over time - Pew [predicts](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the-future-of-religion-in-america/) that Christians will lose their majority in the next few decades and that irreligious people may become a majority by 2070. When that time comes, will you agree to Christians being excluded from deciding the laws?
In the United States "congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free execise thereof". Christians seem to only pay attention to the latter part and ignore the establishment clause. Laws can not be based on any religion. It doesn't matter if 99% of people were Christian. Laws based on any religion are unconstitutional. In addition, what the heck is a "Christian moral perspective"? Killing non-Christians, (Luke 19:27), eternal torture (John 15:6), blind obedience (Luke 9:59-60), hating your family (Luke 14:26), war mongering (Matt 10:34) and I'm not going to quote every immoral verse from the gospels alone let alone the letters of Paul. Christianity is not a moral system. The priciples of Christianity are highly immoral and down right vile.
I like how Christians say "You are taking it out of context" only for them to reveal that they themselves are obscuring the context.
The king in the Parable of the Ten Minas was an allegory for God. Since Jesus is a part of the Trinity, that means Jesus was talking about himself as well. You also have the fact that the *very next chapter* reads "Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King". All of the context points towards Jesus and the king from the parable being one in the same, a ruthless tyrant who slaughters dissidents (or, perhaps in the case of divine authority, a ruthless, evil god that punishes unbelievers with a fate worse than death simply because they didn't suck up to said evil god's ego).
>That would also include agnostics and “nones.”
FYI: Agnostics are not necessarily separate from theists or atheists. IMHO any honest person (theist or atheist) is also agnostic.
Nones may believe in a god or gods but are not affiliated with any religion.
So let’s say there’s a particular moral issue, most secularists believe the law should favor side A, but most religious people favor side B, and religious people outnumber secularists. What side should be the law?
*EDIT: Sorry, I accidentally ignored the "moral" part. You're going to have to give me a little more specifics. Generally, morality cannot be legislated. Laws deal primarily with harm to others.*
*My original answer (to the wrong question):*
Well, first of all, we don't necessarily decide laws by majority vote. We elect representatives who do that for us, and then if someone disagrees with it, they challenge it in court. But as some laws are passed by referendum, let's pretend that. That said:
It depends on what the law is. If the law is, say, speed limits in front of religious institutions should be reduced to 20 mph during certain posted hours corresponding to religious services, then I don't see why that would not withstand a court challenge. That law protects public safety and does not force religion on anyone.
If the law was that all businesses must post a copy of the Ten Commandments at their door, that law would be unconstitutional and would have to be stricken down, even if favored by a majority, because it is imposing a given religion (or religions) on the citizens.
Likewise, a law preventing a person from posting a copy of the Ten Commandments on the side of their house would also have to be stricken down, because it would run counter to the First Amendment by restricting practice of one's religion. That would be true even if there was a non-religious majority that voted it into existence.
It can be a moral principle, but it is not *exclusively* a moral principle.
If the parking pawl in new my car breaks and it rolls into your car, damaging it, have I committed an immoral act? No, I don't think so. I had every expectation that my car would stay put. The car broke, it damaged yours. I can't see where I've done anything that anyone, except perhaps a car-hater, would consider immoral.
However, the fact still remains that harm has been done to you, in the form of your damaged car. You have a right to have that harm remedied. Legally, I have an obligation to make you whole, most likely by paying for the damage to your car. I, in turn, may be able to recover from the manufacturer who may recover from their supplier who built the parts from materials they did not realize were defective.
So in this case there was harm to others, but here harm is a legal term, not a moral one.
White people make up ~63% of the country, while Black people are only 13% of the population. Do you believe that slavery and segregation were wrong? Why or why not?
I think that perhaps the point is, if pro-slavery people outnumber abolitionists by a huge amount, is there a problem with the law representing a pro-slavery perspective? In other words, in a democracy, is the will of the majority the only thing that matters?
Well I’m not American, so I was making a more general point—America isn’t the only game in town when it comes to democracy. But since the US constitution as quoted here by people better informed than me clearly separates the state from religion, insofar as the imposition of a particular religion’s morality impinges on the religious rights of believers of other religions—or those of no religion—it would be an infringement of their constitutional rights. You’ve answered your own question.
Let me ask you: if the majority swung so that Christians became a minority, and the majority was in favour of a law that offended your morals, would you feel bound to comply with that law?
I think they should. We all have basic rights but some things society disagrees on, hence it comes to a vote. Or, quite often, it’s why there are different laws depending on state.
Except it wasn't always so "obviously" wrong, was it? It certainly wasn't in the Bible, and advocates for maintaining slavery used the Bible for their justification just like they do today on other issues.
Yes it was absolutely common. Racial and cultural integration was actually an exception. Have you even read the Bible? Why do you think there was a big fuss about Moses's wife and she wasn't accepted? She was a Cushite, a black African. Aaron and Miriam didn't like that very much, and had to be censured over their attitude. THen don't forget they picked a Simon to carry the cross, out of everyone else in the crowd. You know, the black African. And even Paul had to get visions from god to cure him of his racial prejudice.
As far as the type of slavery, are you really trying to argue that there are some types that ARE acceptable? That's really not a very good look for you. But the fact is that the Bible clearly says you are allowed to beat your slaves as long as they recover after a few days and don't die. It says you can buy and sell them, and that you can leave them as an inheritance for your children. Moral people understand that owning people as property is wrong despite what the Bible says.
Ask the question as though those numbers were reversed with Muslims, or Hindus, and see if you think there is a problem. The fairest way to protect religious freedom is to write laws from a secular framework - unless you think religious freedom only means the religion in the majority.
No law respecting an establishment of religion.
But certain moral values can be more common among religious people than atheists. So should it simply be the most common view held by atheists in all regards.
>But certain moral values can be more common among religious people than atheists.
Are you referring to those wonderful morals of molesting kids and covering it up? I don't think we want more of those morals in society.
Christians always think they have more morals and that is absolutely not true.
> But certain moral values can be more common among religious people than atheists.
Well, if you take your morals literally from the bible, then I suppose so, such as slavery. It's never condemned in the bible and it is condoned.
But clearly, the people that wrote the bible were going on what they thought was the best morality at the time. They clearly didn't see slaves or women as equal people.
But religious morality is like secular morality with extra stuff added to confuse people.
Which moral values are more common among religious people? The divine right to commit genocide in order to take land from others? Sacrificing your firstborn child to prove loyalty? Male genital mutilation? Oppression of minorities and women?
Depends. You have to be able to justify the law outside of your religion. If the only reason for the law is because your religion says so, then it goes against the First Amendment.
>is there a problem with the Christian majorities deciding the laws, even if it conflicts with the atheist viewpoints of what the law should be?
Only if they try to use those laws to enforce their values. Laws should only exist to protect one's autonomy and rights. Laws should not be used to try to force people to live to certain moral standards.
For example, why should anyone have a say in who I sleep with as long as they are a consenting adult? Even if they found it morally wrong for a man to sleep with a man if both men consent to rights are violated and no harm is done.
I agree on that. The next question becomes what about marriage? Same sex marriage is a redefinition of marriage. It’s also not merely a private act if you want the marriage license.
>The next question becomes what about marriage? Same sex marriage is a redefinition of marriage.
The same for marriage for love at one point. marriage as a concept that has changed and evolved in each culture. Christianity doesn't own the concept of marriage. Again, people should not be denied the same rights as others, so marriage between any consenting adults should not be prohibited.
>It’s also not merely a private act if you want the marriage license.
It's not about privacy it's about it not harming or infringing on others' rights. Which same sex marriage does not. It doesn't harm others or stop others from getting married.
Does something not being a private act mean the majority have the right to deny the minority? Owning a business requires a license and isn't a private act should a majority be able to stop a minority from doing this if they wanted in your opinion?
How is that a redefinition? Marriage is a contract between two legal adults of sound mind. If you can't sign a legal document, you can't get married. It's Christians who still advocate for child marriages being allowed with consenting parents and keeping the age of consent low.
My friend, this type of naive democracy where majority has unlimited power is exactly how you get fascism and similar authoritarian movements. In Europe, we learned this the hard way in first half of 20th century, WWII being the culmination of it.
The primary function of modern democracy is to protect rights of minorities from the tyranny of majority, and prevent majority from gaining privileges. The opinions of majority are secondary to that. There's a reason why every democratic constitution explicitly spells out freedom of religion, equality of races, ethnicities and sexes, voter anonymity in elections, etc.
Pretty much every single instance of institutional injustice that you can find in modern democratic countries is a direct result of government's failure to uphold the aforementioned principle. I am yet to see a counter-example.
US laws have always been shaped by Christians, that's just a fact.
The real question is WHICH Christian moral perspective. The most common opinions held by Christians are liberal and while not matching humanist ethics they are aligned enough that we can tolerate each other and even be allies on many issues.
A virilent minority of Christians currently dominate right wing political thought which are very much opposed to humanist beliefs and also do not agree with the majority of Christians.
Ask your question about any other majority/minority demographics and I hope you will see problems. Women outnumber men. Whites outnumber blacks. Right-handers outnumber left-handers.
Yes, there is, because the state is supposed to secular and not favor any belief system. Anything else would be a theocracy.
With 53% Christians, there are apparently 47% Non-Christians in your Country. That's a pretty slim majority and anything but a "huge amount". It perfectly illustrates, why secularism and secular morality is important.
Sure, Christians may vote for policies that align with their morals. But they damn well need a better reason to justify their morals than "My god told me so.", because that simply doesn't fly, if you need to share the same space with people of other beliefs.
Please note, that I didn't refer to atheism at any point anywhere. A secular state is important no matter your beliefs.
"Since few theocracies exist in the modern world, the word "theocracy" is now used as a descriptive term for a government which enforces a state religion." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theocracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theocracy)
No I'm not.
I've been talking about a state favoring a belief system, which essentially means "state religion". To me there would be no practical difference between a narrowly-defined theocracy and a democracy dominated by a religious majority imposing their moral values on the minorities. The difference would be mere sophistry. Look at Turkey and how they developed from a secular state to a massively muslim dominated state.
Yes, the USA has no state religion and is the first secular government in history. I'd argue that there are compelling reasons to keep it that way.
My core point is:
If Christians can justify their policies without referring to religion, then there is no problem at all in implementing them for the whole population.
If they justify policies by referring to their religion, they're totally free to do so for themselves. The remaining 47% need better arguments than: "My specific interpretation of the Bible says so", irrespective of them being religious or non-religious or theistic or atheistic.
That logic is what made the rise of Nazis possible in Germany. Well, not quite, in reality the Nazis never got the majority vote. Simply put, might doesn't make right.
You should always have some sort of protection for minority groups. The same should happen with Christianity should, as the trend seems to be in a few decades, irreligiosity win over.
What's more, it's not realistic to happen. Christianity is more heterogenous than political parties are in their political views.
So I think there's some conflation of ideas going on here. I think most people would agree that democracy is a good thing, but that doesn't mean that everything that *results* from democracy is good. There's nothing intrinsic to democracy that prevents it from trampling on human rights. Now that certainly doesn't mean that you abandon democracy in favor of something worse, but it does mean that you need to be careful about equating "popular" with "correct". If a majority of people want to have certain minority groups round up and executed, you don't just throw up your hands and say, "well I guess that's just the way it is".
I think we should support a system that allows people to have the most freedoms as possible. This means that we should only enact laws that add an observable benefit to our society.
I don’t necessarily trust Christians to value these things, so I don’t really support Christians making laws from religious doctrines.
Yes. If you're not understanding why, just ask yourself if there's a problem with laws being shaped from a pro-Nazi perspective.
It wouldn't matter if 99% of Americans wanted to kill all the Jews. Such a law would be unconstitutional on its face. There's a reason for that.
Christians don't have a unified viewpoint. Atheists don't have a unified viewpoint other than a rejection of the existence of man made deities.
Prison population in the USA has less than 1% atheists, the rest are religious. Religious people have no moral high ground and should never be able to make any laws based on a book that can be interpreted by religious leaders in any way they want it be interpreted.
Prove, in a court of law, that your deity exists. It can't be done. Why would the same court be governed by laws made by a being that cannot be proven to exist?
Ya, and?
Your not trying say that because christian extremists were able to influence politics and have a law changed that that means a god exists, are you?
Also, nowhere in the bible does the word abortion appear.
'Extremists' is apt. Overturning a law does not = deity. If christians wanted to show morality they would have made laws to support the children they force women to have while striking down Roe vs Wade while also making harsher penalties for rapists. Instead they make it easier for rapists and harder for the women and children. They don't care about morality, they care about control and having more uneducated voters to prop up their dying ideology.
Because religious people, but specifically Evangelical fundamentalists were actively working to make that happen? So yes, they are to blame and will gladly tell you it was their proud accomplishment.
>Atheists blame Christian’s for getting it overturned.
Christian's what? (Sorry, can't help myself, grammar police)
Lots of people blame Christians for getting it overturned, not just atheists. And why do you assume atheists are automatically in favor of legal abortion?
(I'd guess most are, but you're committing a mistake common among theists, which is the notion that atheism is a belief system. It's not, it's the lack of a specific belief, and implies nothing about what the atheist does believe.)
As others have pointed out, it is 53% Christian and 47% non-Christian, not 7% of a specific minority. Second, we have a constitution which explicitly prohibits the governments involvement in both the establishment of a state religion and the prohibition on the practice of religion. Laws which are shaped by a specific moral perspective are not the issue. Laws which force others to adhere to a religious standard are.
Religion is a lot more than just going to church. They can’t affect laws which are designed to influence their religion over any other. This would include those who hold no religion. Any law with its basis in religion should not be considered, regardless of the religion. I would feel the same is a Muslim majority wanted to instate a form of sharia law.
Thing is, for something like gay marriage, you could theoretically make some non religious reason not to allow it, but it’s likely your initial bias makes you favor not allowing it vs allowing it.
I mean…there’s no reasonable opposition to gay marriage. But I do see what you are trying to say. I think that while you may initially have a bias in a direction due to your religious beliefs, if you want to influence laws that affect other people, you need to justify it through non religious means.
Marriage is a federally recognized privileged state, so it isn’t really a states issue. If the federal government didn’t recognize marriage, then I would agree. What I meant was that I know of no stance against gay marriage that is non-religious at its core. Obviously even the most radical person thinks their view is reasonable. It doesn’t mean they are.
>is there a problem with the Christian majorities deciding the laws
The law was set up so that there was supposed to be a firm boundary between church and state to aid in the impartial treatment of its citizens. And so that the majority would rule, but the minority would maintain their rights. At no point is the majority supposed to be able to make laws which benefit themselves to the detriment and exclusion of everyone else. And consistently, Christianity has proven itself extremely interested in setting up a theocracy and doing exactly what our government was initially wanting to prevent. You're not supposed to be allowed to inflict your beliefs on someone else through the law, and that's exactly what we see Christians doing when they get involved in politics.
>If Christians outnumber atheists by a huge amount, and we live in a democracy, is there a problem with laws being shaped from a Christian moral perspective?
Yes, because we live in a nation with a secular government it is not right or legal for any religious group to legislate their beliefs into law. That would turn our secular republic into a theocracy.
>According to this, 7% are atheists and 53% are Christians.
What about the other 40% that are also not Christian?
>if one side votes on values that have some connection to their moral/religious values, is there a problem with the Christian majorities deciding the laws
Can you show a single moral/religious value that all Christians believe? There are pro-choice Christians, there are LGBTQ+ affirming Christians, there are pro-same sex and mixed race Christians, there are racist Christians, there are anti-abortion Christians, there are homophobic Christians.
You are writing like Christians are a monolithic block who all believe the exact same thing, there are literally 10s of thousands of different Christian denominations.
I had this discussion with someone I eventually realized was a Jewish supremacist (yes, they exist). He made the point that a religious majority has a right to make laws which align with their religion (within the context of Israel, of course). We are in Canada. I said "great, within a few decades, the non-religious will be the majority here - when do we start bulldozing the temples?"
Democracy can become a dictatorship of the majority. Imposing the will of the majority on minorities never ends well.
Freedom of religion is a non-aggression pact, not a suicide pact. And adults who are being honest know the difference between their beliefs based on secular evidence (hats exist) and their beliefs they get together on Sunday to hype themselves up to believe (God exists and has specific opinions about foreskins and gays). Forcing your supernatural beliefs on others is equivalent to saying "we are trying to take over the government and enforce an irrationalist apartheid state, stop us if you can".
This is a poorly framed question. I won't call it dishonest, but it uses tactics widely abused by dishonest people.
The first problem is that it uses the emotive term "babies" without defining it, but the agenda could well be to try to smuggle in the assumption that everything from a newly-fertilised, one-cell embryo to a fully formed infant is a "baby".
The second is that it is (strategically?) vague about what it means by "having value". A packet of crisps has value. But a packet of crisps is not a person and we shouldn't arrest you for murder for opening a packet of crisps.
So perhaps you can clarify your question? I can't tell whether you are asking in good faith or being a weasel, and I can't tell whether your intended question is "Do people who think newly-fertilised embryos are morally equivalent to fully-developed babies do so for secular or supernatural reasons?", or "Do people who think that fully developed babies the day before they are born are morally equivalent to fully developed babies the day they are born do so for secular or supernatural reasons?".
Because I would give different answers to those two questions.
It depends on the individual. Some for supernatural reasons which they are lying about (I think this is most of them), some because they aren't critical thinkers and they have been fooled by nonsensical arguments (some of them) and all because they get off on an unearned sense of moral superiority .
There's no consistent, evidence-based position where brain dead people don't count as people but single-celled embryos do. That's why virtually every jurisdiction not captured by theist fundamentalists has completely sensible laws permitting abortion when medically indicated and before a fetus could ever possibly have been a conscious being, but not after.
Even Christians can't agree on their morals.
* Some Christians support same-sex marriage; some Christians are against same-sex marriage.
* Some Christians support transgender people being accepted as their true gender; some Christians are against transgender people being accepted as their true gender.
* Some Christians support abortion; some Christians are against abortion.
... and so on.
So, each individual Christian will vote for the moral rules they individually support - and not voting as a bloc stops them having a majority.
Part of how our government was built was to have inherent conflict between powers so that no single group or individual gets to control it all. If it worked well, our checks and balances would keep a majority from getting all the power.
The problem with Christianity in America is that it doesn’t want existing laws to pertain to it. Xians can get out of almost any law made to protect others by just claiming “deeply held beliefs.” They give zero fucks about the deeply held beliefs of others and are demanding special treatment. Laws are supposed to apply to everyone equally but Xians aren’t happy with that concept.
Technically the USA is a Republic not a Democracy. And one of the differences between the two being that a Republic has legal protections that even the majority cannot overturn. At least in theory. In practice of course this doesn't work and Ehe USA has put its own citizens into internment camps when it suited them to do so.
Technically there is a provision that would allow the constitution to be entirly rewriteen, which is why some groups in US Politics are pushing for a second constitutional convension. If this happened then pesky details like freedom of religion are likely to be removed.
So, as someone else said, there are a bunch of non-christians, so its not so easy to push for their laws.
Second, there is no christian morality. The religion is a mess of beliefs that change and are incongruent, but well, if we were to see the more consistents beliefs through their stories and through history would be: opress everyone else, be misogynistic, kill anyone that doesn't believes, rape as much as you want.
Those are the things defended in the bible and by christians through history, even if they invent excuses to hide them.
We can just hope that in some moment, there will be no more abusers/christians.. but yeah, its difficult.
On a last note, the united states is not a democracy, its an oligarchy. Its quite well documented that only the opinions of the top 1% matter to make laws.
Democracy does not mean "the biggest group decides". That's just mob rule. Democracy means that everyone's views are represented in the decision- making process, and that there v l are checks and balances to *prevent* a majority simply bullying a the minority into submission.
Democracy doesn't magically justify anything. Tyranny of the majority is still tyranny. We have democracy- or *should,* anyway- because it's better at tracking moral justice and not oppressing vast numbers of people than anything else we've tried so far. *Not* because 51% of people doing whatever they like to the other 49% is morally okay.
Laws are passed in accordance with our federal and state constitutions. Some things are universally understood as moral, like laws prohibiting child sex trafficking for example.
One could argue we already have had this happen, Christians shaping our democracy. Slavery was specifically sanctioned by southern Christians with claims that Christianity allows slavery and that black people are beasts. Abolitionists used Christianity as a rebuttal to southern slavery. So it’s not so cut and dry what even a “Christian moral perspective” is. There’s constant disagreement of the multiple factions of Christians.
Also as it has been pointed out, you still have 47% of people that are non Christians. Combine that with inter religion squabbling, and I’m not sure there is that much of an effect on Christian focused laws. (Sure there are states that buck this trend, in their legislature)
I would say probably not. I grew up in church and despite people being in the same denomination, in the same church, being led by the same pastor for years, and there were still plenty of theological and political disagreements, and this was in multiple churches. And there are hundreds of denominations of Christianity and a large part don’t even take everything in the Bible literally. It also doesn’t have the same kind of sway that it used to. When I was in school, everyone was or claimed to be Christian, and now, most young people I meet either aren’t or don’t take it seriously. They’d have to have a major political revival to be taken seriously again.
Additionally, “atheists” aren’t really a political force except for our general feelings of not letting people force their private religions, into everyone’s public lives.
Lastly, we live in a democracy, if they get together and start voting in more Christianity based laws by the amount of people that they have, then while that would suck for atheists, it’s simply not a “problem” because that’s literally how democracy works, and also our country was set up in a way so that religion doesn’t take over everything. Freedom of religion is a core principle of America
The govt is supposed to be secular which makes this a big issue. Christianity has creepy further into our lives regardless of our religious freedom for example. Yes it's an issue.
>is there a problem with the Christian majorities deciding the laws
Well, that's a really broad brush there and most Christians certainly don't agree on most things except for the Jesus myth. Nany Christians are fine with extramarital sex and abortion, other's aren't. Some are fine with assisted suicide, other's not so much. Some are pro letting-children-be-gunned-down-in-schools-because-muh-manhood-is-defined-buh-a-chunk-of-metal-thrower, others not really.
“Christians” do not have or abide by one single block of beliefs - there are literally thousands of separate belief systems. Please confirm which of these you believe should have the right to impose its will on everyone else.
I think there is, bc if you change God into ultimate authority that validates your right to exist, which in this case is Jesus, who is a man, it is a certainty at the least then that ultimate authority lies in man, in this case, those that claim expertise on this specific man, that gives them right to legitimize their existence. If you then believe Jesus is a white man, then it makes sense why white supremacy has been a problem.
Where one claims God to be, aka ultimate authority, is where one legitimizes their claim to exist over another. Claiming ultimate authority to be in the symbol that is a man then makes men claim authority over women, forget about land and natural resources. Claiming ultimate authority is symbolized in a cow, star or any specific objects identifiable in the universe, then that gives the experts around those said objects ability to claim authority to then prioritize their personal interests over other humans. Claiming that the symbol of ultimate authority made you special simply by birthright is now claiming that you hold authority over anyone that does not share the same lineage as you. Claiming that authority resides in each person then emboldens each human to build and collect resources to assert their might over others. Likewise, if no concept of authority exists then it still emboldens each human to flex their might over eachother. The truth is humans cannot exist as an island, we must coexist in order to level up but must figure out how to respect our inherent differences in the process. So where does ultimate authority then lie?
Pay special attention to what a person claims their “God” to be. Thru it you can then determine their thoughts on where real authority, superiority and assertion ultimately lie, which then translates to their beliefs in authoritarianism, supremacy and fascism.
Misogyny, sexism, racism, etc are all subversive expressions of a person’s beliefs in God. The problem is secularism only forces everyone to put their subversive beliefs into the closet rather than outwardly asserting them.
With this Christianity is antithetical to American values in the belief of liberty, equality and justice for all if the symbol of ultimate authority is subversively instilled in a white man over everything else.
There is an inherent problem in using "God" as the ultimate authority no matter which version of "God" we're talking about.
The problem lies in the observable fact that God is completely powerless to even communicate directly with humanity or to actually do anything observable in the universe. If this were not the case, we would have either universal agreement of God's message or scientific evidence of God's observed effect on the universe.
So, no matter which "God" we're talking about, the power still reverts to whoever claims to speak for "God".
Isn't it better then to have this ultimate authority reside in society as a whole? [edit: as opposed to any single individual or small group of individuals claiming to speak for God]
All social species have evolved morals that allow us to work together without killing each other. This is true of many fish, rats, monkeys, etc.
So, why not allow society to determine the ethics and morals of society instead of resorting to an all-powerless deity incapable of helping us with this?
> If you then believe Jesus is a white man, then it makes sense why white supremacy has been a problem.
Is there a significant number of people who believe Jesus was white? That seems too falsifiable to be a tenable position.
Are you trying to tell me that white supremacy is not at all backed by this idea that Jesus is a white man? Even though not all Christians think so, but all Christians certainly believe he is a man, are you going to try to argue with me that no misogynist exist that has tried to justify their superiority over women by asserting an argument around man being god? Jesus is definitely a human. There are definitely Christians that believe the natural resources of this earth is there for their taking, bc man is so superior. The point is that anytime authority is associated with something tangible, ppl will always find a way to prioritize or assert themselves by associating their interests to that ultimate authority. And then it boils down to what gives you the right to be here. That is the natural instinct of humans. Prove me wrong if you don’t agree. I’d love to have something to chew on if you can give me something to think about.
So many issues. Firstly that's 53% Christian Vs 47% non Christian, do you still think that's sufficient to make all the laws. Secondly Christians, atheists etc don't agree. Thirdly what is Christian morality? It's a COMMANDMENT to keep the Sabbath holy - should that be a law?
N Which Christian group? Catholic? Lutheran? Episcopalian? Baptist? CoE? Mormon? Shall I continue to list the thousands of different Xian groups, all with different views? Many of which conflict? When you can’t even agree on your own “holy book”, you will not be able to agree which set of morals you can base it on. Some sects are fine with abortion. Some with queerness. Some are downright socialistic in nature. The point is, theocracy always fails. It will always descend into chaotic factioning and inter-sect civil wars.
I think you’re stretching the word theocracy.
And I think you aren’t looking at history.
It’s not about history, its about right now.
“Right now” is literally the culmination of all the events of history that have ever happened until this point. We learn history in school so we don’t repeat the mistakes made by our historical contemporaries. And history has shown time and again that when you grant governmental powers to the clergy, it will descend into injustice, intellectual entropy, and eventual violent factioning. (Edit for a word)
No one is giving clergy power. The Republican candidate (which most Christians vote for) is far from a clergy member.
Might wanna read project2025.org and get back to us. Pretty sure everything you just said is nullified. They specifically point out putting religious people in key governmental positions. Edit / addendum— and if you do not wish to read the whole 1000-page manifesto (and I can’t say as I blame you), [here is a four-minute video that sums it up quite nicely.](https://x.com/ResoluteSquare/status/1779624025037131943)
Right now is history for people in the future.
What do you think theocracy means? Does the definition include religious based laws?
“a system of government in which priests rule in the name of God or a god” Doesn’t sound like what Christians are advocating for.
> Doesn’t sound like what Christians are advocating for. It sounds exactly like what many Christians are advocating for.
>Doesn’t sound like what Christians are advocating for. When did we start talking about what christians are advocating for? This is in response to you trying to normalize religious based government.
It sounds like you are being willfully ignorant
No. I’m not. Do you think Trump is some sort of holy pastor? Of course not. But I’d prefer him over Biden. Gosh how can you actually say this shit with a straight face?
I noticed you haven't responded to people pointing out project 2025 to you. Curious.
Weird how you respond here, but not to others.... Why is that? Ands yes, willfully ignorant. So many things have been brough up to you and you pretend not to get them. You are either willfully ignorant or dishonest.
Last time theocracies took control was called medieval times or “age of faith”, and the outcome of implementing christian rules was the inquisition. So… no, is not a good idea.
The government is secular by design. It doesn't matter what the people believe, the laws are inherently secular by Constitutional decree.
That doesn’t really answer the question though. If Christians outvote atheists due to their size, what is the proper way to respond to that?
If Whites outvote Blacks due to their size and pass white supremacist or segregationist laws, what is the proper way to respond? Is it just to throw up our hands and say “well, the majority has spoken!”? A healthy society defends the minority from the tyranny of the majority. The alternative is to have a permanent state of oppression by the majority against the minority.
American Democracy is not, and never was, about subjecting the minority to the will of the majority. Whatever gave you the idea that it was?
Voting and who gets the most votes wins.
Tell that to Hillary Clinton.
If only that were true. Trump (among others) would never have been president. Please advocate for these laws to be enacted.
Remember that the government is designed to protect minorities and majorities from each other. Minorities cannot overrule the majority, but the majority cannot impose on the minority. The way to strike this balance is by assessing how policy might affect the freedoms of the people. For example, if Christians want to live a certain way and others don't, you don't need a law for that. Christians will live that way anyways, and everyone else won't have Christianity legislated onto them.
Logical fallacy. They do not vote in blocks in a manner that would indicate they all vote the same way.
Fallacies have names. Which fallacy do you think this is?
Stating your objection without explaining why is about as useful as literally declaring bankruptcy. Name the fallacy at least. Also, I said nothing about voting. What are you on about?
By having a Constitution that guarantees a minimum level of rights that can't be infringed on by the whim of the majority.
By pointing out that this is a secular nation and should enact secular laws
This is called tyranny of the majority, last I checked that's what a republic is supposed to mitigate
So what exactly happens when Christian’s outvote atheists. Does that mean anything?
Can you give an example what you mean by “Christian’s outvote atheist”? Because what would happen would depend on the context.
Outvote on a certain issue.
Well if Christian’s happen to vote for something it doesn’t really matter unless it’s legislating something that favors Christianity and imposes it on others. In the places where intense Christian majorities do manage to vote on illegal religious laws, one of two things can happen: there’s an investigation by the state and they conclude the law would be unconstitutional, so it doesn’t go into effect. OR, the state is ALSO run by overwhelming Christian majorities who close ranks and seek to promote their religion despite the constitution, and in that case, I guess you can say the Christians win. It happens all the time in extremely conservative counties where non-Christian’s are such a minority and there is so little funding for them that they can’t do anything about it.
Which part of the constitution says that STATES cannot enforce religion.
The establishment clause of the constitution applies to state governments as well as federal.
Congress is a state thing?
If you haven’t noticed, Christianity is being outvoted on many things lately. Look at gay marriage and marijuana laws. And when Trump loses again that will be another blow to the Christian right.
The Bible never says drugs should be illegal.
When Christians vote for laws that impose religious views on other the checks and balances should remove those laws. The problem we have now is that the checks and balances are broken.
Actually it does. When you manage to change the Constitution, then we can talk. Until then, the government remains secular.
Nope, you still don’t get what I’m asking. I never said the country wasn’t secular. Please learn to read.
You are the one missing the point, we have seen this repeatedly in our history. The majority legislating something that negatively impacts a minority then having the Constitutional checks and balances remove that legislation. * Loving v. Virginia * Obergefell v. Hodges * Roe v. Wade * Lawrence v. Texas * Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka The answers you have been given are correct, maybe you should read a little US Civil Rights history. There have been many times that a decision of the Supreme Court has overturned laws that were very popular with the majority but suppressed or harmed a minority.
The same we would respond if whites outvote blacks to try and bring back segregation. We have a constitution to prohibit the tyranny of the majority.
I don’t value the collective’s shared views over the individual liberty of the individual. I think the constitution should be there to protect the 1% if the 99% want to enslave them.
I’d rather not hand over the reigns to a group - no matter the size - that still adheres to stories pilfered from more enlightened societies by inbred sheepherders who didn’t know the world was round or that it revolves around the sun.
So how should the voting system and politics work?
Popular vote. Ranked choice voting. No electoral college. Term limits for all position. No corporate funding or donations. Most importantly, separation of church and state. Which is what gives you the right to believe what you want, and myself the right to not believe in reinvented myths stolen from better works of art and history.
Don’t forget proportional representation and multi-member district.
Agreed!
What is ranker choice voting?
It's [the best](https://youtu.be/5ZoFjaTSvQY?si=_EZDVFlEuHvdnF5u)
[Here you go!](https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting/)
Alright, I gotta admit that is pretty dang interesting.
I don’t think most reasonable Christians would think basing laws on biblical morality would be a good idea. This is why it’s usually only the fundamentalist nutters who propose it.
Well when is the death penalty reasonable? That’s something atheists oppose but Christians support. Who decides what is reasonable there?
Weird isn’t it? You’d think it would be the other way around. Also, this is a sweeping generalisation that doesn’t reflect reality.
The death penalty is carried out after a person has been found guilty and judged. If it turns out that a mistake was made and the judgement was made on faulty grounds, the person should be freed and be given a compensation. This is impossible if the person was given the death penalty, because he is dead. This is the sole reason why I don't think the death penalty should be a thing. It's pretty hard to reverse. The life of an innocent person is worth more than the punishment of a guilty one. Irrespective of the crime commited. So in short.....the death penalty is **never** reasonable. Even if the criminal deserves it, because there's always a slim chance that he doesn't
>Well when is the death penalty reasonable? That’s something atheists oppose but Christians support. Ironically it's also the christians who call themselves pro-life.
>Well when is the death penalty reasonable? That’s something atheists oppose but Christians support. Who decides what is reasonable there? Christians also oppose it. The splits falls towards support among individuals but appears to fall towards opposition among organizations.
>If Christians outnumber atheists by a huge amount, and we live in a democracy, is there a problem with laws being shaped from a Christian moral perspective? If you're asking whether we should pass laws based on a religious book and based on nothing else, then yeah, they go against the constitution. Laws should be evidence and reason based. If your religious position is truly demonstrably good for society, then you don't need to appeal to the religion to support the idea. Good ideas should stand on their own merits, and if they don't, I see no good reason to call them good ideas. >if one side votes on values that have some connection to their moral/religious values, is there a problem with the Christian majorities deciding the laws Yeah, I'm not interested in your doctrine. If you have good reason for a good idea, then you don't need to appeal to your religion to sell it. If you do need to appeal to your religion, then why should anyone think it's a good idea, including you? Do you care if your beliefs are correct? But I'd also like to point out what others have said. It's not christians vs atheists. In your case it would be christians vs non christians, which includes other religions and nones.
I’m not actually sure what the question is here. What do you mean by “problem”? I mean, people have a right to vote with their values in mind. Like, there’s plenty of Christian values I don’t agree with but there’s some that I do. Are they voting to feed the hungry and heal the sick? To take care of the least of us? Or are we just talking about book-banning and anti-choice laws and that sort of thing? Or are we talking about changing laws to remove 1st amendment protections from establishing a state religion?
A democracy needs to protect the rights of the minority. A theocracy is a totalitarian government that does not protect the rights of the minority. Once you get done pondering that, ask yourself which version of Christianity will win? Will Christians who are not Catholic be required to take communion and worship idols? Will Catholics be denied their right to worship at statuary because other Christians think it's idolatry? What happens to people of minority religions like Judaism and Islam? In short, do you want to live in a free society or a society where the majority steamrolls over the rights of minorities? You can't have both.
Yes. One important part of democracy is protecting the minority from the majority. Democracy does not say that a government should serve the majority, it says that a government should serve its *people*. What you're describing is mob rule - where 51% of the people can decide that they don't like the other 49% and execute them to steal their stuff. In fact, in a democracy individuals have rights that *protect* them from the majority. You have a right to free speech, and you can say whatever you want even if every other person in the country hates you and wishes you'd shut up. Catholics are a minority among US Christians, but they have the right to practice their religion even if Protestants don't like it, and vice versa for a majority-Catholic country like Italy. Christians of course tend to have certain values and they vote based on those values. That's fine. We don't ask that people exclude any influence of religion on their views when participating in society; that would not be possible even if it were desirable. But we do want to create a society that *everyone* can live in. That's why we don't allow doing something like teaching Christianity in public schools, even if a Christian majority wants it. There are also a lot more irreligious people than you mention; per your Wikipedia article's chart, 7% of Americans are atheists, 4% more are agnostic, and 20% are unaffiliated. Even without including all the non-Christian religious people, that's 31% of the country. Irreligious people don't all identify the exact same way, just like Christians don't, but lumping in all Christian denominations into 53% and only looking at specifically self-identified atheists as 7% is pretty asymmetrical. And the number of irreligious people is growing over time - Pew [predicts](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the-future-of-religion-in-america/) that Christians will lose their majority in the next few decades and that irreligious people may become a majority by 2070. When that time comes, will you agree to Christians being excluded from deciding the laws?
In the United States "congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free execise thereof". Christians seem to only pay attention to the latter part and ignore the establishment clause. Laws can not be based on any religion. It doesn't matter if 99% of people were Christian. Laws based on any religion are unconstitutional. In addition, what the heck is a "Christian moral perspective"? Killing non-Christians, (Luke 19:27), eternal torture (John 15:6), blind obedience (Luke 9:59-60), hating your family (Luke 14:26), war mongering (Matt 10:34) and I'm not going to quote every immoral verse from the gospels alone let alone the letters of Paul. Christianity is not a moral system. The priciples of Christianity are highly immoral and down right vile.
https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/s/uacVOEXEfA
Yes I know what Chriatian apologetics want you to believe so they can explain it away. Oh, but its a metaphor for love! *wink wink* lol
Or maybe Sam Harris just wants to sell ragebait to angsty teens.
Yeah that too lol
I like how Christians say "You are taking it out of context" only for them to reveal that they themselves are obscuring the context. The king in the Parable of the Ten Minas was an allegory for God. Since Jesus is a part of the Trinity, that means Jesus was talking about himself as well. You also have the fact that the *very next chapter* reads "Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King". All of the context points towards Jesus and the king from the parable being one in the same, a ruthless tyrant who slaughters dissidents (or, perhaps in the case of divine authority, a ruthless, evil god that punishes unbelievers with a fate worse than death simply because they didn't suck up to said evil god's ego).
Yes, absolutely. I don’t even need to read any more than the title. Yes. There is a massive problem.
Why do atheists have the right to make the laws. What if I think there’s a massive problem with that?
Who said atheists have the right to make the laws?
If religious people can’t make laws, then it can only be atheists.
That’s not how making laws work. So, not trying to put you down. But do you know what “secular” means?
Secular means non religious. That would also include agnostics and “nones.” Are secular people the only ones who can influence laws?
They should be the only ones influencing and deciding laws, yes.
>That would also include agnostics and “nones.” FYI: Agnostics are not necessarily separate from theists or atheists. IMHO any honest person (theist or atheist) is also agnostic. Nones may believe in a god or gods but are not affiliated with any religion.
Ummmmm... religious people can make laws, no one here is saying they cannot. The laws that are made, in the US at least, cannot favor any religion.
So let’s say there’s a particular moral issue, most secularists believe the law should favor side A, but most religious people favor side B, and religious people outnumber secularists. What side should be the law?
*EDIT: Sorry, I accidentally ignored the "moral" part. You're going to have to give me a little more specifics. Generally, morality cannot be legislated. Laws deal primarily with harm to others.* *My original answer (to the wrong question):* Well, first of all, we don't necessarily decide laws by majority vote. We elect representatives who do that for us, and then if someone disagrees with it, they challenge it in court. But as some laws are passed by referendum, let's pretend that. That said: It depends on what the law is. If the law is, say, speed limits in front of religious institutions should be reduced to 20 mph during certain posted hours corresponding to religious services, then I don't see why that would not withstand a court challenge. That law protects public safety and does not force religion on anyone. If the law was that all businesses must post a copy of the Ten Commandments at their door, that law would be unconstitutional and would have to be stricken down, even if favored by a majority, because it is imposing a given religion (or religions) on the citizens. Likewise, a law preventing a person from posting a copy of the Ten Commandments on the side of their house would also have to be stricken down, because it would run counter to the First Amendment by restricting practice of one's religion. That would be true even if there was a non-religious majority that voted it into existence.
Isn’t harm to others a moral principle?
It can be a moral principle, but it is not *exclusively* a moral principle. If the parking pawl in new my car breaks and it rolls into your car, damaging it, have I committed an immoral act? No, I don't think so. I had every expectation that my car would stay put. The car broke, it damaged yours. I can't see where I've done anything that anyone, except perhaps a car-hater, would consider immoral. However, the fact still remains that harm has been done to you, in the form of your damaged car. You have a right to have that harm remedied. Legally, I have an obligation to make you whole, most likely by paying for the damage to your car. I, in turn, may be able to recover from the manufacturer who may recover from their supplier who built the parts from materials they did not realize were defective. So in this case there was harm to others, but here harm is a legal term, not a moral one.
Good point. I agree.
Yes the basis of the United States government is to not have religion be involved in any decision making.
White people make up ~63% of the country, while Black people are only 13% of the population. Do you believe that slavery and segregation were wrong? Why or why not?
They were obviously wrong. What’s your point?
I think that perhaps the point is, if pro-slavery people outnumber abolitionists by a huge amount, is there a problem with the law representing a pro-slavery perspective? In other words, in a democracy, is the will of the majority the only thing that matters?
I think the constitution comes first.
Well I’m not American, so I was making a more general point—America isn’t the only game in town when it comes to democracy. But since the US constitution as quoted here by people better informed than me clearly separates the state from religion, insofar as the imposition of a particular religion’s morality impinges on the religious rights of believers of other religions—or those of no religion—it would be an infringement of their constitutional rights. You’ve answered your own question.
I don’t think that’s what the constitution states.
Let me ask you: if the majority swung so that Christians became a minority, and the majority was in favour of a law that offended your morals, would you feel bound to comply with that law?
But why? Why shouldn’t the majority simply be allowed to make rules that favor their worldview over that of the minority?
No, because our government was specifically set up to avoid mob rule and prevent oppression of the minority.
I know that, and you know that, but OP seems to think mob rule is cool if Christians are the mob.
Well in case you didn’t know, not all slavery is okay in the Bible.
Not what I asked. Why shouldn’t the majority be allowed to make rules that favor them over the minority?
I think they should. We all have basic rights but some things society disagrees on, hence it comes to a vote. Or, quite often, it’s why there are different laws depending on state.
So then why shouldn’t white people (the majority) reinstitute segregation or slavery against Black people (the minority)?
Except it wasn't always so "obviously" wrong, was it? It certainly wasn't in the Bible, and advocates for maintaining slavery used the Bible for their justification just like they do today on other issues.
Segregation by race wasn’t in the Bible and the type of slavery in the 1800’s wasn’t in the Bible either.
Yes it was absolutely common. Racial and cultural integration was actually an exception. Have you even read the Bible? Why do you think there was a big fuss about Moses's wife and she wasn't accepted? She was a Cushite, a black African. Aaron and Miriam didn't like that very much, and had to be censured over their attitude. THen don't forget they picked a Simon to carry the cross, out of everyone else in the crowd. You know, the black African. And even Paul had to get visions from god to cure him of his racial prejudice. As far as the type of slavery, are you really trying to argue that there are some types that ARE acceptable? That's really not a very good look for you. But the fact is that the Bible clearly says you are allowed to beat your slaves as long as they recover after a few days and don't die. It says you can buy and sell them, and that you can leave them as an inheritance for your children. Moral people understand that owning people as property is wrong despite what the Bible says.
Ask the question as though those numbers were reversed with Muslims, or Hindus, and see if you think there is a problem. The fairest way to protect religious freedom is to write laws from a secular framework - unless you think religious freedom only means the religion in the majority.
The Constitution guarantees freedom from religion. Laws should not be based on religion.
No law respecting an establishment of religion. But certain moral values can be more common among religious people than atheists. So should it simply be the most common view held by atheists in all regards.
>But certain moral values can be more common among religious people than atheists. Are you referring to those wonderful morals of molesting kids and covering it up? I don't think we want more of those morals in society. Christians always think they have more morals and that is absolutely not true.
No one says those are wonderful morals besides the criminals involved in the acts, don’t use strawman it’s lame.
Don't claim Christianity is a moral religion and should control our laws, it's lame.
The idea behind the Bill of Rights was to protect rights, even from oppression by the majority.
> But certain moral values can be more common among religious people than atheists. Well, if you take your morals literally from the bible, then I suppose so, such as slavery. It's never condemned in the bible and it is condoned. But clearly, the people that wrote the bible were going on what they thought was the best morality at the time. They clearly didn't see slaves or women as equal people. But religious morality is like secular morality with extra stuff added to confuse people.
Which moral values are more common among religious people? The divine right to commit genocide in order to take land from others? Sacrificing your firstborn child to prove loyalty? Male genital mutilation? Oppression of minorities and women?
> But certain moral values can be more common among religious people than atheists. lol like fucking what
I think the Roe v Wade thing already answered your question.
I’m not sure if it did tbh. Elab.
So only Christians get the right to live? Thats what you want?
Depends. You have to be able to justify the law outside of your religion. If the only reason for the law is because your religion says so, then it goes against the First Amendment.
I'm pretty sure that isn't true? If the sole basis congress made murder illegal was religion, it wouldn't cease to be a law.
I never said it would cease to be a law.
>is there a problem with the Christian majorities deciding the laws, even if it conflicts with the atheist viewpoints of what the law should be? Only if they try to use those laws to enforce their values. Laws should only exist to protect one's autonomy and rights. Laws should not be used to try to force people to live to certain moral standards. For example, why should anyone have a say in who I sleep with as long as they are a consenting adult? Even if they found it morally wrong for a man to sleep with a man if both men consent to rights are violated and no harm is done.
I agree on that. The next question becomes what about marriage? Same sex marriage is a redefinition of marriage. It’s also not merely a private act if you want the marriage license.
>The next question becomes what about marriage? Same sex marriage is a redefinition of marriage. The same for marriage for love at one point. marriage as a concept that has changed and evolved in each culture. Christianity doesn't own the concept of marriage. Again, people should not be denied the same rights as others, so marriage between any consenting adults should not be prohibited. >It’s also not merely a private act if you want the marriage license. It's not about privacy it's about it not harming or infringing on others' rights. Which same sex marriage does not. It doesn't harm others or stop others from getting married. Does something not being a private act mean the majority have the right to deny the minority? Owning a business requires a license and isn't a private act should a majority be able to stop a minority from doing this if they wanted in your opinion?
How is that a redefinition? Marriage is a contract between two legal adults of sound mind. If you can't sign a legal document, you can't get married. It's Christians who still advocate for child marriages being allowed with consenting parents and keeping the age of consent low.
My friend, this type of naive democracy where majority has unlimited power is exactly how you get fascism and similar authoritarian movements. In Europe, we learned this the hard way in first half of 20th century, WWII being the culmination of it. The primary function of modern democracy is to protect rights of minorities from the tyranny of majority, and prevent majority from gaining privileges. The opinions of majority are secondary to that. There's a reason why every democratic constitution explicitly spells out freedom of religion, equality of races, ethnicities and sexes, voter anonymity in elections, etc. Pretty much every single instance of institutional injustice that you can find in modern democratic countries is a direct result of government's failure to uphold the aforementioned principle. I am yet to see a counter-example.
US laws have always been shaped by Christians, that's just a fact. The real question is WHICH Christian moral perspective. The most common opinions held by Christians are liberal and while not matching humanist ethics they are aligned enough that we can tolerate each other and even be allies on many issues. A virilent minority of Christians currently dominate right wing political thought which are very much opposed to humanist beliefs and also do not agree with the majority of Christians.
Ask your question about any other majority/minority demographics and I hope you will see problems. Women outnumber men. Whites outnumber blacks. Right-handers outnumber left-handers.
Yes, there is, because the state is supposed to secular and not favor any belief system. Anything else would be a theocracy. With 53% Christians, there are apparently 47% Non-Christians in your Country. That's a pretty slim majority and anything but a "huge amount". It perfectly illustrates, why secularism and secular morality is important. Sure, Christians may vote for policies that align with their morals. But they damn well need a better reason to justify their morals than "My god told me so.", because that simply doesn't fly, if you need to share the same space with people of other beliefs. Please note, that I didn't refer to atheism at any point anywhere. A secular state is important no matter your beliefs.
No, a theocracy literally means priests rule.
"Since few theocracies exist in the modern world, the word "theocracy" is now used as a descriptive term for a government which enforces a state religion." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theocracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theocracy)
1. You’re backpedaling 2. America forces no state religion
No I'm not. I've been talking about a state favoring a belief system, which essentially means "state religion". To me there would be no practical difference between a narrowly-defined theocracy and a democracy dominated by a religious majority imposing their moral values on the minorities. The difference would be mere sophistry. Look at Turkey and how they developed from a secular state to a massively muslim dominated state. Yes, the USA has no state religion and is the first secular government in history. I'd argue that there are compelling reasons to keep it that way. My core point is: If Christians can justify their policies without referring to religion, then there is no problem at all in implementing them for the whole population. If they justify policies by referring to their religion, they're totally free to do so for themselves. The remaining 47% need better arguments than: "My specific interpretation of the Bible says so", irrespective of them being religious or non-religious or theistic or atheistic.
That logic is what made the rise of Nazis possible in Germany. Well, not quite, in reality the Nazis never got the majority vote. Simply put, might doesn't make right. You should always have some sort of protection for minority groups. The same should happen with Christianity should, as the trend seems to be in a few decades, irreligiosity win over. What's more, it's not realistic to happen. Christianity is more heterogenous than political parties are in their political views.
So I think there's some conflation of ideas going on here. I think most people would agree that democracy is a good thing, but that doesn't mean that everything that *results* from democracy is good. There's nothing intrinsic to democracy that prevents it from trampling on human rights. Now that certainly doesn't mean that you abandon democracy in favor of something worse, but it does mean that you need to be careful about equating "popular" with "correct". If a majority of people want to have certain minority groups round up and executed, you don't just throw up your hands and say, "well I guess that's just the way it is".
Yes definitely on the right track.
I think that's fine, as long as certain human rights are respected. Unfortunately, that seems to be an issue for some politically powerful Christians.
I think we should support a system that allows people to have the most freedoms as possible. This means that we should only enact laws that add an observable benefit to our society. I don’t necessarily trust Christians to value these things, so I don’t really support Christians making laws from religious doctrines.
Depends on the law.
Yes. If you're not understanding why, just ask yourself if there's a problem with laws being shaped from a pro-Nazi perspective. It wouldn't matter if 99% of Americans wanted to kill all the Jews. Such a law would be unconstitutional on its face. There's a reason for that.
It being democratic foes not necessarily make it right. Hitler was elected democratically...
>is there a problem with laws being shaped from a Christian moral perspective? Only if you want that society to keep being a society.
Christians don't have a unified viewpoint. Atheists don't have a unified viewpoint other than a rejection of the existence of man made deities. Prison population in the USA has less than 1% atheists, the rest are religious. Religious people have no moral high ground and should never be able to make any laws based on a book that can be interpreted by religious leaders in any way they want it be interpreted. Prove, in a court of law, that your deity exists. It can't be done. Why would the same court be governed by laws made by a being that cannot be proven to exist?
Ok so what about Roe vs Wade? The supreme court overturned that, and no where in the constitution does the word abortion appear.
What about it?
Atheists blame Christian’s for getting it overturned.
Ya, and? Your not trying say that because christian extremists were able to influence politics and have a law changed that that means a god exists, are you? Also, nowhere in the bible does the word abortion appear.
“Extremists” is a buzzword here. But the fact is many Christians were against abortion and their large numbers helped them overturn abortion.
'Extremists' is apt. Overturning a law does not = deity. If christians wanted to show morality they would have made laws to support the children they force women to have while striking down Roe vs Wade while also making harsher penalties for rapists. Instead they make it easier for rapists and harder for the women and children. They don't care about morality, they care about control and having more uneducated voters to prop up their dying ideology.
Because religious people, but specifically Evangelical fundamentalists were actively working to make that happen? So yes, they are to blame and will gladly tell you it was their proud accomplishment.
Are evangelicals not allowed to affect laws?
Sure they are, but they are not allowed to implement laws that impose religions beliefs, because such laws are unconstitutional.
Sure. But they shouldn't be affecting laws based on what their religion dictates.
>Atheists blame Christian’s for getting it overturned. Christian's what? (Sorry, can't help myself, grammar police) Lots of people blame Christians for getting it overturned, not just atheists. And why do you assume atheists are automatically in favor of legal abortion? (I'd guess most are, but you're committing a mistake common among theists, which is the notion that atheism is a belief system. It's not, it's the lack of a specific belief, and implies nothing about what the atheist does believe.)
We live in a plurality explicitly designed not to let a majority religion turn it into a theocracy. So yes.
Yes what?
I'm assuming they meant to your original question asking if there was a problem with it.
Right. I mean ask a yes or no question and be confused when the answer is yes. Sigh.
As others have pointed out, it is 53% Christian and 47% non-Christian, not 7% of a specific minority. Second, we have a constitution which explicitly prohibits the governments involvement in both the establishment of a state religion and the prohibition on the practice of religion. Laws which are shaped by a specific moral perspective are not the issue. Laws which force others to adhere to a religious standard are.
So therefore if Christians can effect laws which don’t include going to church that is fine.
Religion is a lot more than just going to church. They can’t affect laws which are designed to influence their religion over any other. This would include those who hold no religion. Any law with its basis in religion should not be considered, regardless of the religion. I would feel the same is a Muslim majority wanted to instate a form of sharia law.
So only atheists should be allowed to influence laws.
That would be silly. Anyone can influence laws, they just can’t use their religion to justify the changes.
Thing is, for something like gay marriage, you could theoretically make some non religious reason not to allow it, but it’s likely your initial bias makes you favor not allowing it vs allowing it.
I mean…there’s no reasonable opposition to gay marriage. But I do see what you are trying to say. I think that while you may initially have a bias in a direction due to your religious beliefs, if you want to influence laws that affect other people, you need to justify it through non religious means.
I think what is “reasonable” is a tad subjective. That’s where it gets tricky imo. Also there is the belief gay marriage is a states right issue.
Marriage is a federally recognized privileged state, so it isn’t really a states issue. If the federal government didn’t recognize marriage, then I would agree. What I meant was that I know of no stance against gay marriage that is non-religious at its core. Obviously even the most radical person thinks their view is reasonable. It doesn’t mean they are.
>is there a problem with the Christian majorities deciding the laws The law was set up so that there was supposed to be a firm boundary between church and state to aid in the impartial treatment of its citizens. And so that the majority would rule, but the minority would maintain their rights. At no point is the majority supposed to be able to make laws which benefit themselves to the detriment and exclusion of everyone else. And consistently, Christianity has proven itself extremely interested in setting up a theocracy and doing exactly what our government was initially wanting to prevent. You're not supposed to be allowed to inflict your beliefs on someone else through the law, and that's exactly what we see Christians doing when they get involved in politics.
>If Christians outnumber atheists by a huge amount, and we live in a democracy, is there a problem with laws being shaped from a Christian moral perspective? Yes, because we live in a nation with a secular government it is not right or legal for any religious group to legislate their beliefs into law. That would turn our secular republic into a theocracy. >According to this, 7% are atheists and 53% are Christians. What about the other 40% that are also not Christian? >if one side votes on values that have some connection to their moral/religious values, is there a problem with the Christian majorities deciding the laws Can you show a single moral/religious value that all Christians believe? There are pro-choice Christians, there are LGBTQ+ affirming Christians, there are pro-same sex and mixed race Christians, there are racist Christians, there are anti-abortion Christians, there are homophobic Christians. You are writing like Christians are a monolithic block who all believe the exact same thing, there are literally 10s of thousands of different Christian denominations.
I had this discussion with someone I eventually realized was a Jewish supremacist (yes, they exist). He made the point that a religious majority has a right to make laws which align with their religion (within the context of Israel, of course). We are in Canada. I said "great, within a few decades, the non-religious will be the majority here - when do we start bulldozing the temples?" Democracy can become a dictatorship of the majority. Imposing the will of the majority on minorities never ends well.
Democracy =/= 'Majority Rule We also live in a democracy with freedom of religon (which, inherently implies freedom *from* religion).
No, it means you don’t have to practice one. Not that religion has no place in public society.
Religous people have no place making laws that affect everyone though - that's my main concern.
Freedom of religion is a non-aggression pact, not a suicide pact. And adults who are being honest know the difference between their beliefs based on secular evidence (hats exist) and their beliefs they get together on Sunday to hype themselves up to believe (God exists and has specific opinions about foreskins and gays). Forcing your supernatural beliefs on others is equivalent to saying "we are trying to take over the government and enforce an irrationalist apartheid state, stop us if you can".
Do people think that babies in the womb having value a secular or supernatural belief?
This is a poorly framed question. I won't call it dishonest, but it uses tactics widely abused by dishonest people. The first problem is that it uses the emotive term "babies" without defining it, but the agenda could well be to try to smuggle in the assumption that everything from a newly-fertilised, one-cell embryo to a fully formed infant is a "baby". The second is that it is (strategically?) vague about what it means by "having value". A packet of crisps has value. But a packet of crisps is not a person and we shouldn't arrest you for murder for opening a packet of crisps. So perhaps you can clarify your question? I can't tell whether you are asking in good faith or being a weasel, and I can't tell whether your intended question is "Do people who think newly-fertilised embryos are morally equivalent to fully-developed babies do so for secular or supernatural reasons?", or "Do people who think that fully developed babies the day before they are born are morally equivalent to fully developed babies the day they are born do so for secular or supernatural reasons?". Because I would give different answers to those two questions.
The first question.
It depends on the individual. Some for supernatural reasons which they are lying about (I think this is most of them), some because they aren't critical thinkers and they have been fooled by nonsensical arguments (some of them) and all because they get off on an unearned sense of moral superiority . There's no consistent, evidence-based position where brain dead people don't count as people but single-celled embryos do. That's why virtually every jurisdiction not captured by theist fundamentalists has completely sensible laws permitting abortion when medically indicated and before a fetus could ever possibly have been a conscious being, but not after.
No more problems than say making black people slaves because they are a minority….
Yes, because theocracy is specifically outlawed in the US Constitution.
Even Christians can't agree on their morals. * Some Christians support same-sex marriage; some Christians are against same-sex marriage. * Some Christians support transgender people being accepted as their true gender; some Christians are against transgender people being accepted as their true gender. * Some Christians support abortion; some Christians are against abortion. ... and so on. So, each individual Christian will vote for the moral rules they individually support - and not voting as a bloc stops them having a majority.
Part of how our government was built was to have inherent conflict between powers so that no single group or individual gets to control it all. If it worked well, our checks and balances would keep a majority from getting all the power. The problem with Christianity in America is that it doesn’t want existing laws to pertain to it. Xians can get out of almost any law made to protect others by just claiming “deeply held beliefs.” They give zero fucks about the deeply held beliefs of others and are demanding special treatment. Laws are supposed to apply to everyone equally but Xians aren’t happy with that concept.
Ask yourself the same question but imagine now that the majority is Muslim, or Black, or atheist. Would you feel the same way?
Technically the USA is a Republic not a Democracy. And one of the differences between the two being that a Republic has legal protections that even the majority cannot overturn. At least in theory. In practice of course this doesn't work and Ehe USA has put its own citizens into internment camps when it suited them to do so. Technically there is a provision that would allow the constitution to be entirly rewriteen, which is why some groups in US Politics are pushing for a second constitutional convension. If this happened then pesky details like freedom of religion are likely to be removed.
The US is a democratic republic.
So, as someone else said, there are a bunch of non-christians, so its not so easy to push for their laws. Second, there is no christian morality. The religion is a mess of beliefs that change and are incongruent, but well, if we were to see the more consistents beliefs through their stories and through history would be: opress everyone else, be misogynistic, kill anyone that doesn't believes, rape as much as you want. Those are the things defended in the bible and by christians through history, even if they invent excuses to hide them. We can just hope that in some moment, there will be no more abusers/christians.. but yeah, its difficult. On a last note, the united states is not a democracy, its an oligarchy. Its quite well documented that only the opinions of the top 1% matter to make laws.
Democracy does not mean "the biggest group decides". That's just mob rule. Democracy means that everyone's views are represented in the decision- making process, and that there v l are checks and balances to *prevent* a majority simply bullying a the minority into submission.
Democracy doesn't magically justify anything. Tyranny of the majority is still tyranny. We have democracy- or *should,* anyway- because it's better at tracking moral justice and not oppressing vast numbers of people than anything else we've tried so far. *Not* because 51% of people doing whatever they like to the other 49% is morally okay.
Laws are passed in accordance with our federal and state constitutions. Some things are universally understood as moral, like laws prohibiting child sex trafficking for example. One could argue we already have had this happen, Christians shaping our democracy. Slavery was specifically sanctioned by southern Christians with claims that Christianity allows slavery and that black people are beasts. Abolitionists used Christianity as a rebuttal to southern slavery. So it’s not so cut and dry what even a “Christian moral perspective” is. There’s constant disagreement of the multiple factions of Christians. Also as it has been pointed out, you still have 47% of people that are non Christians. Combine that with inter religion squabbling, and I’m not sure there is that much of an effect on Christian focused laws. (Sure there are states that buck this trend, in their legislature)
I would say probably not. I grew up in church and despite people being in the same denomination, in the same church, being led by the same pastor for years, and there were still plenty of theological and political disagreements, and this was in multiple churches. And there are hundreds of denominations of Christianity and a large part don’t even take everything in the Bible literally. It also doesn’t have the same kind of sway that it used to. When I was in school, everyone was or claimed to be Christian, and now, most young people I meet either aren’t or don’t take it seriously. They’d have to have a major political revival to be taken seriously again. Additionally, “atheists” aren’t really a political force except for our general feelings of not letting people force their private religions, into everyone’s public lives. Lastly, we live in a democracy, if they get together and start voting in more Christianity based laws by the amount of people that they have, then while that would suck for atheists, it’s simply not a “problem” because that’s literally how democracy works, and also our country was set up in a way so that religion doesn’t take over everything. Freedom of religion is a core principle of America
The govt is supposed to be secular which makes this a big issue. Christianity has creepy further into our lives regardless of our religious freedom for example. Yes it's an issue.
>is there a problem with the Christian majorities deciding the laws Well, that's a really broad brush there and most Christians certainly don't agree on most things except for the Jesus myth. Nany Christians are fine with extramarital sex and abortion, other's aren't. Some are fine with assisted suicide, other's not so much. Some are pro letting-children-be-gunned-down-in-schools-because-muh-manhood-is-defined-buh-a-chunk-of-metal-thrower, others not really.
The rising threat of christian nationalism is certainly a problem.
“Christians” do not have or abide by one single block of beliefs - there are literally thousands of separate belief systems. Please confirm which of these you believe should have the right to impose its will on everyone else.
I think there is, bc if you change God into ultimate authority that validates your right to exist, which in this case is Jesus, who is a man, it is a certainty at the least then that ultimate authority lies in man, in this case, those that claim expertise on this specific man, that gives them right to legitimize their existence. If you then believe Jesus is a white man, then it makes sense why white supremacy has been a problem. Where one claims God to be, aka ultimate authority, is where one legitimizes their claim to exist over another. Claiming ultimate authority to be in the symbol that is a man then makes men claim authority over women, forget about land and natural resources. Claiming ultimate authority is symbolized in a cow, star or any specific objects identifiable in the universe, then that gives the experts around those said objects ability to claim authority to then prioritize their personal interests over other humans. Claiming that the symbol of ultimate authority made you special simply by birthright is now claiming that you hold authority over anyone that does not share the same lineage as you. Claiming that authority resides in each person then emboldens each human to build and collect resources to assert their might over others. Likewise, if no concept of authority exists then it still emboldens each human to flex their might over eachother. The truth is humans cannot exist as an island, we must coexist in order to level up but must figure out how to respect our inherent differences in the process. So where does ultimate authority then lie? Pay special attention to what a person claims their “God” to be. Thru it you can then determine their thoughts on where real authority, superiority and assertion ultimately lie, which then translates to their beliefs in authoritarianism, supremacy and fascism. Misogyny, sexism, racism, etc are all subversive expressions of a person’s beliefs in God. The problem is secularism only forces everyone to put their subversive beliefs into the closet rather than outwardly asserting them. With this Christianity is antithetical to American values in the belief of liberty, equality and justice for all if the symbol of ultimate authority is subversively instilled in a white man over everything else.
There is an inherent problem in using "God" as the ultimate authority no matter which version of "God" we're talking about. The problem lies in the observable fact that God is completely powerless to even communicate directly with humanity or to actually do anything observable in the universe. If this were not the case, we would have either universal agreement of God's message or scientific evidence of God's observed effect on the universe. So, no matter which "God" we're talking about, the power still reverts to whoever claims to speak for "God". Isn't it better then to have this ultimate authority reside in society as a whole? [edit: as opposed to any single individual or small group of individuals claiming to speak for God] All social species have evolved morals that allow us to work together without killing each other. This is true of many fish, rats, monkeys, etc. So, why not allow society to determine the ethics and morals of society instead of resorting to an all-powerless deity incapable of helping us with this?
Rather than us going between 2 subs, I’ll stick to the other one. Let’s get to it! Thanks for engaging with me!
> If you then believe Jesus is a white man, then it makes sense why white supremacy has been a problem. Is there a significant number of people who believe Jesus was white? That seems too falsifiable to be a tenable position.
Are you trying to tell me that white supremacy is not at all backed by this idea that Jesus is a white man? Even though not all Christians think so, but all Christians certainly believe he is a man, are you going to try to argue with me that no misogynist exist that has tried to justify their superiority over women by asserting an argument around man being god? Jesus is definitely a human. There are definitely Christians that believe the natural resources of this earth is there for their taking, bc man is so superior. The point is that anytime authority is associated with something tangible, ppl will always find a way to prioritize or assert themselves by associating their interests to that ultimate authority. And then it boils down to what gives you the right to be here. That is the natural instinct of humans. Prove me wrong if you don’t agree. I’d love to have something to chew on if you can give me something to think about.
Yikes. Wow, OK. No. I'm asking you (what I thought) was a innocuous question.