Challenge those beliefs. I believe i shouldn't be forced to tolerate them, though.

herein lies my naivety i suppose. :)

>> As to your point about Catholic schools... do you think that a Catholic school ought to be a place where other religious teaching is tolerated? Do you think such a school ought to be required to teach Islam or Protestantism for example? Or, to take a popular topic at the moment, should a church be required to perform same-sex marriages?

no, my point was simply that public and Catholic schools were my only options. and fortunately one of them was suitable for my beliefs (whatever they may have been).

i didn't intend to suggest that forcing public schooling was the best, or even a good solution. but i'm wondering how we extract the logic from that argument without alienating anyone.

Yes, if your religion caused you to harm people by just being near them because it is optional

Again, it's more false equivalency

Some religions require you to not even look at a woman that isn't covered, they need to go and live in an area where that's supported rather than expecting wider society to support that stupid standard

Then again, there are western countries where women cannot control what parts of their body they reveal in government jobs. They have to show their hair-- Muslim women cannot wear a hijab. The problem is when discussions about religion come up people don't think about the experiences of most of the other religions in the world, they default to whatever branches of Christianity exist around them.

>Ironically this runs up against the preferences of the people the left wishes to keep inside their political tent - they are almost universally more religious on average than white people.

Yes. And while I generally support the democrats more, I as a minority feel they are going to run into big problems if they continue the way they do. Allowing the anti-religious sentiments will push away a lot of people that currently make up their base. Whether you like religion or not, it's a bad strategy.

So a religion is fine as long as it is watered down to the point it does not teach what is right.

The US is one of the most religious countries in the developed West and has an atypically high incidence of “social dysfunction like school shootings”.

Absence of religion is not the source of the problem.

I disagree that it does not still matter.

For the past few centuries or so (depending on what country you're looking at) the church had the monopoly on morals and the state had the monopoly on violence. It seems to have in the last 100yr (in the US at least) the government, and to a lesser extent corporations, have replaced the church as the source of morals for a great deal of the population in Europe and North America.

Public education is a great net good but we need to be careful with it because the line between education and indoctrination is a fine one. I think that the replacement of church provided education with public education poses a slow long term risk to secular societies.

You do not want the entity that has a monopoly on violence also controlling education and with it morality. That's how you get the crusades, the USSR, etc. I'm not sure what the solution is. I don't think increased religion is it.

FWIW I am not religious.

Of course not, the idea is completely bonkers. The point is that protections are not extended solely on the basis of "immutable" or inborn characteristics.

Would it be fair to assume religion doesn’t play a central role in your life? It doesn’t in mine, but I have lots of family to whom it does. And they’re hurting.

Practicing ones’ religion is also a fundamental right. For many, education is equally as important as religion.

Your children do not grow up in a vacuum. You as parents have limited influence, the society they grow up in is having at least an equal impact. You cannot successfully transmit values such as "porn is bad" if everyone around you, the media and the teacher in school is telling your kids the opposite. Humans to not get raised and live in isolation or a vacuum, society matters. A lot.

> Otherwise, we have religious fundamentalism.

If you extrapolate your point of view, hopefully finding that is destined to fail, you will have made the first step in realising why religions exist.

No.

I did NOT say banned. That way lies madness. Freedom of religion

However, it should be treated with disdain and scorn by the majority. It should not be a safe refuge for the unthinking.

Why?

I believe all religions are a bunch of bullshit. Almost all of them regard this belief as a mortal insult. Should I get punished for that?

The only tenable way to treat religions in a liberal democracy is like any other belief. You get full freedom to practice any one you want, or none of them, or even more than one at the same time for all I care, but you don't get any special status or moral authority.

This is essentially saying "my (current) religion is the only true one". Look at history. Principles are interchangeable, there's no reasonable way to deny that.

> I believe in some inherent human rights, and the merits of this particular issue are incredibly relevant. The gentleman in question made a substantial monetary contribution aimed at denying a collection of people a set of privileges.

So you don't believe in religious freedom then ? Or rather, if you are offended by this, just how offended are you by, say islam, which openly advocates beheading homosexuals inside America, and practices it in parts of the world. It even advocates beheading victims of homosexual rape (yes, really, they actually mention that).

The majority of humans currently alive are in favor of killing all homosexuals (not just muslims). Do you believe in democracy ?

All these things are in conflict, making reality way more complex than you suppose here.

Or are you merely having this opinion because you have a good chance of imposing it on this particular "witch" ?

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I wonder how they deal with that religious imagery. Or they neglect to mention that unimportant document altogether?

I can understand when people object to school propagandizing religion or requiring some religious rites or observances from non-religious people. But completely removing a part of history because religion is mentioned there or certain figure was, in fact, a religious man? That's just insane, and anti-religious bigot would be as bad as a religious one.

We are allowed to rank them by our preferences.

I do not wish males to be treated more expendable than necessary. I wish they would live fulfilling life.

Catholic church was around in Europe as a force since early Middle ages. Wouldn't call it new, unless you have sources to contrary.

Fair enough. That’s not what I thought you meant by “keeping religious orgs in line with state secular views” or whatever. Even still, you don’t need state control over religion to achieve those ends, and indeed in the US where the state is constitutionally prohibited from interfering with religion, these things aren’t problems (at least not to any reasonable interpretations).

But prohibiting the wearing of religious clothing IS pushing political views.

Honestly, I don't think it does; traditional protected classes, after all, include things that are just as much choice as political ideology (particularly, religion.)