The Glade 4.0

I didn't say they'd win; just that they would have an argument that is completely foreclosed to people whose impacted beliefs aren't based in religion. You're right, though, that Court doctrine right now basically only provides a Free Exercise religious exemption if the law being challenged is specifically targeted at the religious practice in question. "Neutral laws of general applicability" are practically immune to challenge under the Free Exercise clause. However, that shift in Court doctrine in the early 90s was immediately followed by a wave of federal and state legislation creating religious exemptions with respect to abortion. Legislative exemptions for contraceptive mandates are less widespread, but the HHS contraception mandate being challenged in the courts right now does explicitly exempt organizations that are primarily religious in nature (but, again, not organizations with a primarily moral purpose that isn't religious). The fight is basically over whether that exemption goes far enough - i.e., whether it should also apply to organizations that aren't primarily religious but nonetheless object to the mandate on religious grounds. The Court will get the opportunity to revisit this whole issue as a result, so it's a bit of an open question as to which way things will turn going forward.


That's certainly true, although in practice the only real hindrance is on explicitly religious government actions like posting the 10 Commandments or requiring school prayer. In most cases, as long as the government can offer a not-transparently-b.s. justification that isn't religious, it's free to restrict abortion, prohibit alcohol and drugs, require businesses to close on Sundays, punish adultery, ban prostitution, censor obscenity, etc., etc., even if the Senators and Congressmen pushing the legislation openly acknowledge that their support is based on their religious beliefs and publicly advocate for it in those terms.

But that admission, or even just the accusation, radically undermines their ability to win support, because it gives the other side ammunition to cause them to go on the defensive and prove a negative.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Mm, maybe (though there doesn't appear to be any shortage of elected officials invoking God and religion in support of their political agendas), but that's a political question. I'm just talking about the legal aspects. My whole point here is really just that the law (including Constitutional law) distinguishes between religious beliefs and secular beliefs and provides formal protections for the former that are not available for the latter. Taking your point about the Establishment Clause formally operating in the other direction with respect to government actions, though, I'll amend my point to say that the law provides formal protections for the exercise of religious beliefs by individuals that are not available for the exercise of secular beliefs by individuals.

Personally, I think this is a two-edged sword. Congress is free to pass a law that Evolution by Natural Selection, The Big Bang, and similar scientifically factual but religiously controversially ideas must be taught in school as fact.

They can't pass a similar law trying to treat the fairy-tale known as "Genesis" as science.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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But yet Greek Mythology is taught in every history book in grade-school.

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So we can put the Bible into Mythology and Folklore class. Easy fix.

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Holy shitsnacks!

But it is in history, not mythology and folklore class.

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Greek Mythology for me was -- somewhat ironically, I think -- taught in Grade 9 English Literature.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Except that some of us happen to BE religious, and also on the receiving end of this supposed vociferous prostelytizing because we aren't the right tYPE of religious person, and belong to notably un-aggressive denominations in our evangelizing, and we don't see it either.

Things like office or card decorations are not what we're talking about here, nor even responses to everyday questions. If you think any of that is in-your-face, it speaks to how sensitive you are to religious expression. Religious people being open and honest about their faith in a way not directed at anyone in particular are not being "in-your-face to anyone at all. This essentially amounts to "people of faith are being obnoxious by not keeping their faith properly hidden from me". The reason you don't see this from non-religious people is that they don't HAVE equivalents, for the most part, aside from little Darwin decorations for their cars, t-shirts, social media links.... etc. These things are really not obnoxious on either side and have nothing to do with "spreading one's beliefs" (which isn't a problem at all; it's the MANNER of doing it that we're talking about here). Objections to religious people doing this stuff reflect the sense of entitlement to protection from religion that so many nonreligious people seem to feel, not any untoward behavior by religious people.



Except that they are. You're confusing the NUMBER of Christians with the degree of vocality. Even relatively forward, evangelical types generally outnumber atheists and secularists, so such memes are more common.

Furthermore, those groups you mention at the end (and mentioning prolifers without mentioning their opponents is hilariously biased, since both sides are equally over-the-top) despite NOT outnumbering much of anyone are INCREDIBLY vocal. You don't see little "like if you're blessed" memes from them because their area of concern is more narrow, and doesn't lend itself to generalized memes like that, not because they're less bothersome. Single-issue people tend to be more vocal and annoying that either religious or non-religious people of more generalized belief.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This might be more accurate if Justice Hugo Black's view of what Freedom of Speech/Expression actually meant had been the majority, but it wasn't. Practically anything a person does is an expression of some sort or other under the present 1st Amendment. This even includes payment of monies for various things as the objectors to "corporate personhood" are wont to point out. A secular person could easily make the case that forcing them to pay for abortions violates their freedom of expression. No one has actually tried this argument yet, but it could be done.

Furthermore, as Kaffis points out, the idea that Free Exercise protects one from having to provide insurance covering abortions has generally not been accepted by the courts. The fact that they'd have an argument doesn't mean they have any greater scope of protection; all kinds of absurd, failed legal arguments are "protected" by that definition.

Also, as Kaffis correctly points out, both Establishment and Free Exercise provide a platform to decry positions held by religious folks as "establishment of religion" while ignoring the secular merits of one position or the other. The gay marriage debate is a perfect example; there is no shortage of people out there that object to it simply because it's sanctioning a sexuality that isn't theirs, and there is a generalized tendency to regard sexual tastes we don't share as weird or disturbing. You can find LOTS of young men that never attend church and at best only vaguely identify with religion, even some that actively reject it, but perceive being a "faggot" as negative.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The problem with this is that the protections of the former necessarily give rise to protections for the latter, because religious beliefs are also restricted from public laws in ways that secular are not. Congress or a State could pass a law that the Big Bang is official doctrine to be taught in science class, and even if that theory were later disproven by science, it could not easily be Constitutionally challenged. Political positions of all stripes (large swathes of feminism, for example) make it into the schools without any avenue for legal challenge despite dubious credibility simply because they don't pertain to anything religious.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It is perfectly legal in the United States to study the bible in a literature class as a work of literature. Greek mythology is covered in the same vein. It is looked at as a work of literature, not as a historical account. This is why people tend to learn about Greek mythology in their literature classes rather than in history. Now, I studied Ancient Greece, Babylon, and Sumer when I was in grades 7-12, and not once did the mythology of any of those civilizations come up. We did discuss Zoroastrianism and its significance as the first monotheistic religion, but we also talked about the persecution of early Christians and the conversion of Emperor Constantine, as well as the rift in the Roman Empire that led to the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Martin Luther popped up, along with the fracturing of the Protestant denominations. You can't talk about the Crusades without a lesson in the history of Islam, so there's that, too.

Reports of Christianity being treated unfairly compared to other Bronze and Iron Age belief systems are overexaggerated. The issue we're seeing is that while we're capable of recognizing the story of Zeus cutting his siblings out of his father's stomach as a story, a substantial portion of humanity thinks that the Bible is a historical record. We could talk about events in the Bible from a historical perspective, but I don't think any Christians really want their children discussing the likelihood that Paul omitted Jesus' wife and children from the account to prevent Jesus' son from usurping the cult when he came of age, or how many of their religious beliefs were decided by Mediterranean kings rather than handed down by God.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Oh, man, it's constant. I've had to filter out facebook rantings from family members who apparently think Christianity is the cause of all problems. People do this at work. People on the street yell at folks that are having some sort of religious event or function. It's awful.

It's so bad that religious folks that you can tell would like to do some of the same are afraid to do so. Most of the religious "rantings" are limited to head shakings and "what is this country coming to" type stuff. I'd say the rants are 10 to 1 against religion in this area.

The most recent rant was from this retard who thought she was being oppressed by religious zealots because a store she wanted to shop at was closed on Sunday.

Considering the Sabbath is on Saturday...yeah.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

So it's oppressing you to close my shop on a particular day?

So?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Jesus, seriously? Where the heck do you live? I've lived both in the northeast and on the west coast (the two supposed bastions of liberal godlessness), and I've never seen anything like that. Not questioning the veracity of your story, mind you; just expressing my bogglement.

Elaboration: Considering that the Sabbath is on a Saturday, yes, it is "retarded" for someone to call a shop closing on Sundays as "oppression by religious zealots." The actual religious zealots would close the shop on Saturdays. (Specifically, from sundown Friday evening until sundown Saturday evening, if you really want to get technical.) Not to mention that someone choosing to not be open on some specific day for their own reasons, religious or not, is not oppression. If the government forced you to be closed (or open!) for a specific religious observance, that would be oppression. *coughChristmascough*

Ergo, I'm agreeing with Arathain. You're looking for snark where none exists.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Out of curiosity, where do you live? I've lived in Fargo, ND, Minnapolis, MN, Dallas, TX and Chicago, IL and I've never experienced anything like that. Typically it's been a religious person starting any discuss. By way of example, a friend of mine was randomly witnessed to on the "L" by a Mormon last week.

This is also true.

There's a subset of the population that will vocally and obnoxiously disagree with anything they don't like in any situation, regardless of its religiosity. However, you simply don't get personal secular evangelism without putting your religious views out there to start with.

There are lots religious types who will try to preach to you unsolicited - in public, on your doorstep, in the workplace, etc. "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour?" is a well known phrase for a reason. "Have you rejected the concept of a personal Lord and Saviour?" is not, also for a reason. "Have you accepted the fact that we evolved from other life forms?" is also not something that gets bandied about unsolicited.

People are quite willing to attack views openly in conflict with their own. But even Richard Dawkins, who's about as dogmatic and vicious as an atheist gets, is highly unlikely to walk up to people unsolicited on the street and tell them that the cross they are wearing around their neck is a relic of silly superstition.

While I'm here agreeing with points on both sides, I also want to state Diamondeye made a good point that, at least in North America, Christendom outnumbers secularists by a good number. If you go solely based on relative "noise levels," you're certainly going to hear more out of the bible thumpers. Hell, they irritate each other, let alone us unbelievers.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Because suspecting snark in Hellfire is totally ridiculous!!



That's true, you don't. However, "putting your views out there" includes the innocuous such as the "decorations in my office cubicle thing" mentioned before. What nonbelievers do instead, are the aforementioned drive-by, generalized prostelytizing-by-ridicule, often at the most oblique reference to religion. We have a female (who is a general loudmouth about everything) in my EVE alliance who hardly lets a day go by without needing to get some irrelevant dig in at religion, and relying on the directors to shut down the discussion immediately because of the "no politics or religion on alliance chat" rule, which exists for the obvious reason of keeping comms free of flamewars while someone else is trying desperately to get help because his battleship is pineed by 6 interceptors 2 systems away.

By "irrelevant dig" someone mentioned something about "going to hell" the other day, and I'm pretty sure everyone here understands that references to "going to hell" may be an outgrowth of Christianity on the subject, but are frequently used for a wide variety of colloquialisms that are not related to any actual religious conviction at all. This incident certainly had nothing to do with any religious belief or lack thereof from the speaker, but yet we got a loud interruption from this female talking over everyone else about how there is actually no Hell, as if that were actually a topic at the time, and despite our rule of politeness and civility. This person is not the least bit interested in reasoned discussion on the subject; she's interested in taking a quick **** on it and having any reply silenced as everyone races to remind each other that our standards of politeness mean we don't go down that road. Not that replies would be good; we'd just have a shouting match that might crash the chat with everyone keying at once.



Again, I haven't really seen this from religious people OR nonreligious in the workplace. Religious people don't do it for fear of falling afoul of HR, and nonreligious people do it via the drive-by method. Outside of work in public, religious people DO tend to do it more, but public or at your doorstep is the appropriate format for approaching strangers you with to speak with. Religious people handing out pamphlets on the sidewalk are no more irritating than those handing out pamphlets about the evils of nuclear energy, or at least shouldn't be. Having to answer the door to tell Carlos you don't need your lawn mowed is not any more annoying than telling Maria that you're not interested in the Watchtower - especially down here, where in both cases you almost certainly have to do so in Spanish.

You're right that there IS a reason, and that's that atheism doesn't lend itself well to prostelyzation. That's why the drive-bys, which are more about atheists that aren't actually capable of defending their views needing to splurge and vent, much like Christians who can't defend their theology but are very highly enthusiastic try to substitute zeal. The difference is that Christianity not only has its distinctly theological message of salvation after death, but also a moral message for living in the meantime, while atheism pretty much amounts to "I don't/you shouldn't believe in God because (I think) there isn't one". Ok, so what? How do you make that into an effective moral point? Atheists may not believe in God, but any unified message on how one should live is absent since there's no universal atheist morality, not even the fragmented doctrine of Christianity. It pretty much amounts to "don't follow religious rules because you don't have to", but other than that atheists can run the gamut of political and moral conviction. Every once in a while this becomes hilarious when a certain stripe of atheist disagrees with a certain principle just because there's religious support for it, even though it otherwise fits with his moral philosophy and political outlook.



That's true, but neither does Billy Graham, his advanced age notwithstanding. Both are major public figures. Dawkins also probably doesn't feel the need to engage in drive-by anntagonism as he already gets plenty of attention for his views.



That's true, and my contention is not that evangelicals are never annoying, but that secularists are equally annoying albiet in different ways, as are people going about making a big deal over issues that are not related to religious persuasion, or even just trying to sell you something.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I could show you a few Facebook timelines on my friends list that might disprove this notion.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Please do.

Heheheh. The concept of the Watchtower in Spanish amuses me. "Testigos de Jehova" looks like "Jehovah's Testicles" in English.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Instances such as these occurred in DC, Baltimore, San Fran, and - I kid you not - in Lancaster Pa, where an individual freaked out about how much religion was in the trinkets sold by the Amish.

The most common issues revolve around the question of freedom of religion vs. freedom from religion. People get upset that they "are forced to view" those signs with biblical messages outside of churches, lawn Jesuses at Christmas, Christian postings on crap like Facebook, bumper stickers, or Christian symbols in someone's office.