I have taken numerous long-distance trips on Amtrak, on which I have seen a fair number of Amish passengers. I politely asked about their train travel and one of them told me they want their young people to see civilization so that they can appreciate the Amish life by choice. Some, though, seemed to be older people who did not have children in tow.
What’s left that concerns anyone? That she’s Catholic?
You could always read this thread and others about her to find out.
I’m not seeing anything said on here that disqualifies ACB. She’s good enough for the ABA. That should settle it:
a particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies.
an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, especially as manifested by a body of admirers:the physical fitness cult.
the object of such devotion.
a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.
Sociology. a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.
That would define Christianity , Muslims, and other major religions as cults.
Thereby it is a useless and BS definition.
^^ Then go have a word with Dictionary.com and tell them their definitions are wrong and they don’t agree with what you want the word to mean.
Here, you can argue with Merriam-Webster, too.
cult
noun, often attributive
\ ˈkəlt \
Definition of cult
1 : a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious (see SPURIOUS sense 2)also : its body of adherentsthe voodoo culta satanic cult
2a : great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (such as a film or book)criticizing how the media promotes the cult of celebrityespecially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad
b : the object of such devotion
c : a usually small group of people characterized by such devotionthe singer’s cult of fansThe film has a cult following.
3 : a system of religious beliefs and ritualalso : its body of adherentsthe cult of Apollo
4 : formal religious veneration : WORSHIP
5 : a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgatorhealth cults
Bingo.
My thoughts are…so what? I personally think LDS is a cult but doesn’t stop the from for filling their government duties . In the USA you can’t discriminate from serving regardless of religion.
Ideally, that’d be true. That said, I don’t think we’ll see a Supreme Court Justice, or, for that matter, a President, who’s a Muslim, or a Scientologist, or an atheist, any time soon.
You left out the descriptor admitted.
Many atheists, I think, don’t want to face that there is a specific protection for free exercise of religion. Because it is so vague (a general problem caused by the U.S. Constitution being among the world’s shortest), I can’t tell you (without reference to case law that the Supreme Court can change) what it really is that the religious people get that is denied to the irreligious. But it is something.
Cardozo was an avowed agnostic.
Gorsuch is probably an atheist or agnostic, but, pace needscoffee in the last post, won’t say it.
I wouldn’t count on a Muslim or atheist judge being progressive.
I wasn’t familiar with Benjamin Cardozo, but I now see that he was on the Supreme Court from 1932-1938. So, let me rephrase:
Given the conservative, Evangelical wing of Christianity with which the Republican Party has been strongly allied for the past four decades, I don’t think we’ll see an avowed atheist, a Muslim, or a Scientologist making it to those posts any time soon.
No, the first definition fits a real cult not mainstream religions.
2a 2c & 5 has nothing to do with religion
I think POP is more of a sect than a cult, though it doesn’t quite fit that definition, either.
Whatever her affiliations, of course her religious beliefs are relevant. We have confirmation hearings in part because we recognize that SCOTUS justices are flawed humans and that therefor various factors–religion, political affiliations, personal history–might inform their decisions.
I wish ACB weren’t the nominee. If I could’ve, I would’ve pumped Ginsberg full of formaldehyde a la Mr. Burns and kept her on SCOTUS until January. But when I look at ACB’s appellate decisions, I’m not seeing signs of a Stepford Wife judge. I’m seeing the decisions I’d (unfortunately) expect to see from a judge who’s more rigidly conservative than Scalia and whose religious and political beliefs intertwine.
There is another way of looking at why there are confirmation hearings:
As for Amy Coney Barrett, whatever is wrong with her future decisions would be the same if a similarly conservative Federalist Society stalwart, who stays as far away from churches and synagogues as possible, were nominated.
I read a lot about People of Praise when it started making the news with regard to Barrett. I do NOT believe it rises to the level of a cult. It’s a parochial Catholic institution, but there are a great many parochial Catholics who are not a member of any particular sect other than mainstream Catholicism and I wouldn’t describe them as being part of a cult.
I think it’s a continuum, various cults have varying degrees of control.
The worst cults might arrange your marriage or require you to work for a cult-owned business or live on cult property. Now, there might be other groups that are less strict but still controlling. Maybe they just insist on approving your marriage, not arranging it.Maybe they let you work and live wherever you want as long as you can still manage a usurious tithe to the group.
But these less strict groups are frequently “cults-in-waiting”. Maybe their standards for marriage approval become so stringent that there is only one person they’ll approve. Maybe once you can’t make your tithes, they’ll offer to “help” by giving you a job or a place to live.
No one ever says “ I want to join a cult”. Unless they are among the unfortunates that are born into it, they come in voluntarily and most of them stay voluntarily. Some people like relinquishing control.
The problem is that their is such a huge variety of these controlling organizations and only one word.
But when you use the same word for both the FLDS and Mary Kay Cosmetics, you do them both a disservice.
When you paint the “We’re totally sleazy but don’t care what you do as long as you give us half your money” megachurch with the same brush as the “evangelical wife-beating child-raping homeschooling church of granddad the preacher”, you might encourage people comfortable with the former to join the latter.
But then again, we only have one word. We need words like super-cult, super-duper cult, half-cult and petite cult, I guess.
That’s really my view on cults, too. I read the allegations early on in the process, but since it didn’t become a major story, I assume it isn’t really a cult.
Sophistry aside, if she is making her own decisions when she’s up there on the court, and not taking orders from some hooded figure that hangs out in the woods, I don’t really care about her religion.
I think it’s safe to ask someone - as they did with JFK - whether their religion will get in the way of official duties, and leave it at that. Jew, Catholic, Pastafarianism, you name it… same question, hopefully same answer.
~Max
It doesn’t rise to the level of a cult. Not even close.
If we want to look at Catholic groups, People of Praise (which actually isn’t Catholic in particular) is less cult-like than Opus Dei, of which the late Antonin Scalia was believed to be a member.
Amy Coney Barrett appears to be an enthusiasticly believing Catholic. Unless we’re prepared to say that the largest Christian denomination in the world is a “cult,” she’s not a cult member.
I think the answers to the question posed by the OP say more about those answering the question than People of Praise, or the Catholic Church, or religions in general.