Anyway, in regard to Saints Augustine and Aquinas, I’m not finding my electronic copy of the former and frankly can’t be arsed to look further for it, but Aquinas addresses the compulsion of apostates in Summa Theologica 2-2, Question 10. While he does indeed support keeping them in the faith by compulsion, his justification is mostly non-Biblical. The only passage quoting the Bible reads thus: “Accordingly, the meaning of our Lord’s words, ‘Suffer both to grow until harvest’ must be gathered from those which precede: ‘lest perhaps gathering up the cockle, you root up the wheat together with it.’ For, Augustine says, ‘These words show that when this is not to be feared… the severity of discipline should not slacken.’” (He quotes Augustine earlier supporting coercion on pragmatic, not Biblical, grounds, which ) While I’m hardly a fan of this argument, it argues that coercion is not prohibited by the Bible, not that it is Biblically mandated. None of this should be taken to deny the persecution of non-Christians that took place over the centuries —but you need a much better argument that it was supported by scripture.
is just fascist. If concessions based on religious preference are ignored, then so will preferences based non non-religious preference — like conscientious objections. But even on a smaller scale, it would get ridiculous. Many Christians under twenty-one (or nineteen or eighteen, depending on location) would be legally prohibited from taking Eucharist. Jehovah’s Witnesses wouldn’t be able to use emergency services for fear of being forced blood transplants. And of course Antigone would get executed (as she is in the play, but that’s sort of the point.)
I don’t know why not making concessions to religion in the public sphere would stop anyone from practicing their religion outside of that. Want to wear funny head gear at home? Go right ahead. You wear what we require you to at work as a condition of the job. I can’t wear jeans everyday at work because my employer wants me to wear business attire. If he allows me to tape my rubber ducky to my head, then I can work there. If not, I find another job.
Why would people be prohibited from taking Eucharist? Now a church should be subject to full taxation like any other money making scam, uh, scheme. If it wants to serve alcohol it should be licensed to do so like any other bar. And if it serves food, it should be licensed like a restaurant, too.
Who forces Jehovah witnesses to take blood transplants? I can reject any treatmeant that I don’t want to have regardless if it is for religioius or personal reasons, why would it be different for JWs?
Again, Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine who both supported the persecution of heretics would disagree.
Moreover, I already provided a Biblical passage that justified it. You can’t just claim, well it’s in the Old Testament so it doesn’t count. Perhaps some Christians feel that way, but most don’t. Otherwise rather than bringing Bibles to Church they’d merely bring copies of the New Testament.
Deuteronomy 13:7-12
There’s a reason that Christians have a much worse reputation for persecuting heretics or even those they consider bad Christians than Muslims do(though Muslims obviously have been quite bad in that category as well as anyone who goes by the name Ibn Warraq can testify.)
Moreover, there’s more to Christian beliefs than just what is in the Bible, nor are Christians alone in that.
For example, when Muslims call for the death of apostates they almost never quote from the Quran but instead from various Hadiths.
Just because something comes from a Hadith rather than the Quran doesn’t make it somehow less authentically Islamic as my father found out the hard way.
Because it involves drinking wine, which (in the US at least) is prohibited to teenagers, and thus in your world the priest/church would get fined or worse for letting teenagers join the ritualized cannibalism.
What’s your problem? Seriously? This is the same kind of shit that Muslims and Jews in France have to deal with, or Jews in 20th C. Poland, or…seriously.
Shall we prohibit nuns from walking around in public?
Were you really in the service? Do you have a problem with Jewish men wearing kippot while serving? Just curious if that’s the kind of stuff our military breeds.
You really are having a problem keeping up. I never said that nuns couldn’t go out in public, or that you can’t wear your stuff in public. I said the public sphere, not your personal choice. By home I meant on your own time not just in your house. Quit being deliberately thick.
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Because it involves drinking wine, which (in the US at least) is prohibited to teenagers, and thus in your world the priest/church would get fined or worse for letting teenagers join the ritualized cannibalism.
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Is drinking alcohol prohibited to teenagers, or is the drinking of alcohol denied at bars? Seems to very by state or province. Why should the laws of the country be ignored in a place called a church, btw? One law for everyone.
What rational person thinks it is okay to allow minors to join in cannibalistic practices (or anyone for that matter)? I’m with Dawkins when he says indoctrinating children into religion is child abuse.
Actually, I believe I pointed out that following Deuteronomy would lead us to kill Jewish apostates, not Christian apostates.
ETA: the Christian relationship with Jewish law is, as you no doubt realize, complex. We haven’t felt obliged to follow the Sabbath, and Paul explicitly says we don’t need to follow kosher. The cheap’n’easy way to explain it is that we’re supposed to follow the spirit of the laws, but… well, it’s more complex than that. Either way, “It says so in Deuteronomy” isn’t going to be a very compelling argument to a Christian, whether medieval or modern.
Jews, Muslims, whatever. Can we not judge people on their merits? If a Muslims says, ‘this is our law’, and acts upon it, then judge him for it. If another Muslim says, ‘no, this is the law’, and acts upon it, judge him for what he does.
The same applies to Christians, Jews, Buddhists, whatever. I know of no major religion that doesn’t have its own sects.
If a Muslim or a Jew wants to be pious and wear a head covering of sorts, then good for them, I say. It takes a lot to have some conviction these days.
On occasion, my son wants to wear a kippah outside of school or synagogue. It’s his own six year old thing and I don’t mind. I actually kind of admire him as it’s not common in our secular community.
NB: Religion is not ‘culture’ but an indoctrinated belief system predicated upon fiction which oftentimes incorporates various habitual offshoots. For example, bagging one’s wife in a hessian sack in the name of religious observance in order to assuage male insecurity.
Carry on.
Not really sure TBH, but I’ve heard stories about liquor store people refusing to sell alcohol to people who were in obvious “adult buying for a minor” situations so either they err on the side of caution, or the law absolutely forbids minors drinking. I’m sure, as with all such question, the answer is: depends on the State, the county, whether the cop’s in a good mood and whether the teen is black :).
shrug. Should be, but it’s not the way it is. And seeing as it’s not the way it is, then it should be not the way it is for all religions. One exception for everyone.
Then the exception shouldn’t apply to just religions. When did they get the exclusive rights to being responsible custodians of children. Especially the Catholic church with their history of buggery. It wouldn’t surprise me if the ‘blood of Christ’ was being used to get some of the victims drunk.
