Religion in Government

riVeRraT responds to bob_gray98:

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Yes, and I kind of agree with that. But should I worry about stealing if my neigbhours house gets broken into?

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But your neighbor's house wasn't broken into. Why are you persecuting someone who hasn't done anything wrong?Once again, you are equating being gay to things like theivery, drug dealing, and murder. Those things have victims. The person who is subjected to having his items stolen, falls into addiction, or loses his life does not want those things to happen to him.A gay person, on the other hand, wants another gay person to fall in love with and have sex with. Nobody is harmed.It's a very simple question for you: If the people who are directly involved with what happened don't have a problem with what happened, why are you so upset?You may think it goes against everything that god stands for, but if none of those people are complaining, why do you feel it is your place to stop them from doing it? It doesn't affect you in any way, shape, or form unless you insert yourself into their business.

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They were escaping religious persecution.

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And now you seek to reinstate that religious persecution by denying to gay people equal access to all laws specifically because of your religious attitudes. Why does your religious organization get to be the law of the land and not mine?

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So when we ask the question does religion have a place in government, I would have to say yes. Its there already even if it doesn't specify so.

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The fact that it is there doesn't mean it is right that it should be, wouldn't you say? We are a nation of laws and our laws specifically state that government cannot be based upon religious justification. Wouldn't a violation of those laws be wrong?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

riVeRraT responds to me:

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The difference is I am a god with a small "g"

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When have you ever seen me write "god" with a capital G except at the beginning of a sentence or when quoting someone?Since we're both gods, and since you are clearly not the same god that I am, we have by our mere existence disproven your claim that all gods are the same one god.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

riVeRraT plagiariazes from a spam email:

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As you walk up the steps to the building which houses the U.S. Supreme Court you can see near the top of the building a row of the world's law givers and each one is facing one in the middle who is facing forward with a full frontal view .. it is Moses and he is holding the Ten Commandments!

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(*sigh!*)You act as if that's the only thing in that frieze. They are, from left to right on the South Wall:Menes
Hamurabi
Moses
Solomon
Lycurgus
Solon
Draco
Confucius
OctavianThe North Wall, from right to left:Justinian
Muhammed
Charlemagne
King John
Louis IX
Hugo Grotius
Sir William Blackstone
John Marshall
NapoleonA picture and description of each figure can be found at Courtroom Friezes: North and South WallsSo just as US Law isn't based upon any of the other figures in legal history, US Law isn't based upon the Ten Commandments. It is an historical, allegorical description of legal organizations. As such, of course you would include religious variations.The difference, as stated above, is that the frieze of the US Supreme Court isn't trying to say that the Ten Commandments have any bearing on anything.Would Moore have wanted to include all the other legal codes in his monument?If you want, I can go into a detailed, point-by-point rebuttal to each of your claims. Here's a site that's already done a lot of the ground work: Evidences of Faith in the Buildings, Memorials, and Forefathers of the United States-Truth!, Fiction! & Unproven!It turns out that some of those claims of your are simply not true. for example, the claim that the justices sit in front of a depiction of the Ten Commandments is false. Instead, they sit before a depiction of the Majesty of Law and the Power of Government. Between them is a tablet with the Roman numerals 1 through 10 carved into them.They do not represent the Ten Commandments. Instead, they represent the Bill of Rights.But, that's the intention of the artist and who the hell would believe the artist?But let's just skip to the end:

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How, then, have we gotten to the point that everything we have done for 220 years in this country is now suddenly wrong and unconstitutional?

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Because it is.Even if millions of people do a dumb thing, it's still a dumb thing.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

riVeRraT responds to me:

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I didn't say it was the only thing, just a part of, to answer the original question.

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But the answer that it gives is actually the opposite of what you were making it out to be: The government of the US is in no way founded on Biblical justifications of right and wrong. If it were, if the friezes on the SCOTUS were evidence of the Biblical foundation of American jurisprudence, then we would have to revere the Code of Hammurabi, the Napoleonic Code, Muslim ideology, and Confucianism just as heavily because they are equally represented upon that frieze.

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Even if millions of people do a dumb thing, it's still a dumb thing

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You have no right to say this statement.

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I have every right to it. I am an intelligent being, capable of distinguishing right from wrong, blessed with the gifts of logic and analysis.Something that is wrong is still wrong no matter how many people are sincere in their belief that it isn't.

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In a couple more posts you will declare how millions of people go against what I believe as if millions of people believing in something is valid. You did it already.

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I know.It's called a "rhetorical device."You do understand how rhetoric works, do you not? You are the one claiming that you are right because you are sincere. Well, there are other people who are just as sincere and they contradict you at every turn. In fact, there are more of them than there are of you.So why should we trust you over them?Maybe, just maybe, we need to have a different standard of examination than sincerity.

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Stop using points of view only when it suites you best.

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Nope, I guess you really don't understand rhetoric and the art of debate.Of course I will use points of view when they suit me best. That's the entire point.My use of your arguments against you is not an indication that I think your argument carries weight. It means that your argument is self-contradictory.I'm sorry if you don't understand the nuances, but just because you don't understand doesn't mean it isn't right.See...that goes back to my statement: Something that is wrong is still wrong no matter how sincere the belief that it isn't. It doesn't matter how many believe it nor how adamant they are. The universe is not beholden to your whims of what ought to be.Your argument is that the foundation of American jurisprudence is based upon Christian tradition based upon claims that simply aren't true.It doesn't matter how sincerely you believe it. It doesn't matter how many other people believe it with you. It doesn't matter how many people in the past thought it did. It doesn't matter how powerful they were.The foundational document of this country, the Constitution, is explicit in separating religious justification from legislative action.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

riVeRraT responds to me:

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Something that is wrong is still wrong no matter how many people are sincere in their belief that it isn't.

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Everything you think is right, may one day turn out to be wrong.
Try not to be so humble.

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BZZZZT!Pascal's Wager. I'm so sorry, riVeRraT. Johnny, tell him what parting gifts he has!Well, Bob, riVeRraT has won himself a lifetime of anguish in someone else's hell! Yes, that's right. After spending all of his life fighting against Satan and worshipping the Christian god, riVeRraT gets a reward of going straight to Hades for his hubris. He'll be sentenced to solve a series of puzzles for which the instructions can be read in many ways. Every attempt to glean more information will be met with "Since it would just be a waste of my time to tell you, I won't." Of course, every proposed solution will conflict with something in the contradictory instructions. This being for his continued insistence that those around him are unworthy of explanations.But, he won't get hungry because he'll have an afterlife-time supply of Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat.You didn't really think that the god that truly exists was the Christian one, did you?

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You also are very repetetive, and do not make a stand on anything.

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I repeat myself because you keep making the same mistakes. Come up with something new and you'll get something new.And I take a stand on plenty of issues. I simply refuse to dwell on irrelevant notions.F'rinstance, it is immoral, unethical, and anti-American to deny gay people complete and equal access to all parts of the law. And that means we need to immediately repeal all sodomy laws, ensure the equal rights of marriage, and start treating those who aren't straight the exact same way we treat those who are.What does my sexuality have to do with that? Surely you aren't saying that the only reason a person could possibly think that is because he's gay, are you?

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You have critized me for not putting my home town and name in my profile,

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Incorrect.Instead, I stated that you are incapable of demonstrating harassment as this is an anonymous forum in which you have provided no identifying information. Thus, there is no way for anybody to force you to engage him without your direct consent. Nobody can flood your email with unwanted messages, nobody can call you up in the middle of the night, nobody can knock on your door unbidden save the admins and I am not one of them.I never said that you should provide that information. I simply pointed out that since you haven't, you have no claim of harassment. As someone who once received a phone call at work from someone who didn't particularly like what I had said on a BBS and physically threatened me, I perfectly understand the concept of harassment.You aren't being harassed, friend. You're simply being trounced.Get over yourself and grow up.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

riVeRraT responds to me:

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Thats getting old already.

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Then stop invoking the wager. Every time you try to say that my actions are going to have effects that god will notice (such as the thinly-veiled implication that "one day", meaning when I die, I'll find that "everything I think is right turns out to be wrong," meaning I'll have splainin' to do to god) is the attempt to claim that I should believe in your god because if I don't, I'll go to hell.You see, the difference between your claim of "you just might be wrong" and mine is that when I state it, the only person I claim you need to explain it to is yourself. When you state it, you imply my immortal soul is on the line.

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What does my sexuality have to do with that? Surely you aren't saying that the only reason a person could possibly think that is because he's gay, are you?

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Nope.

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Then answer my question: What does my sexuality have to do with it? You whined that I never take a stand and yet I just showed you the simplified version of the stand I've been taking with you for weeks now:It is immoral, unethical, and anti-American to deny gay people complete and equal access to all parts of the law. And that means we need to immediately repeal all sodomy laws, ensure the equal rights of marriage, and start treating those who aren't straight the exact same way we treat those who are.And yet, the thing you seem to be most upset about is that I refuse to satisfy your bizarre obsession over whether or not I make passes at boys who wear glasses.

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You aren't being harassed, friend. You're simply being trounced.

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Thats your opinion.

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So prove it wrong.How could you possibly be harmed by what is said in a completely voluntary forum where nobody knows who you are and has absolutely no way of contacting you except in said forum?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!