Why is this edict not anywhere in the Bible? Why should we believe that homosexuals are an abomination, but that “rendering unto Caesar” OF COURSE has caveats?
The problem I have with you citing non-biblical text is the same problem I have with this law. Anyone can publish a book contradicting the original holy text and then call it the “truth”. Why should the government be asked to respect one document more than another? The government shouldn’t be in a position where it is tasked with judging the validity of one religion versus another, or one religious text over another. It should be neutral to all of them.
If Christians don’t want to hear this “thingy”, maybe they should stop talking about the Bible so much.
But that article is a ridiculous refutation of my argument. And it’s quite lazy of Ají de Gallina to link to it but not defend it.
The writer spends an lot of time actually agreeing with my point, but for some reason then feels the need to lazily tack this on:
The author misses or ignores the logical conclusion of his own argument. If the state belongs to God, that means the law belongs to God. What is God’s role as an “owner” if humans are the ones who are doing the judging and the policing? How can you give something to God when he already owns the thing you’re supposedly giving him? How can you give something to Caesar, who belongs to God and receives his authority from God, and then say “no” to him without also saying “no” to God?
Notice that the writer says “The Church also says a clear no to the state”. He then goes on to cite the Catechism, which is not the Bible. I asked about the Bible. Not denominational literature.
[QUOTE=monstro]
Why does it seem like such pragmaticism is discouraged in Christianity?
[/QUOTE]
Because back in Jesus’ day, the Jews/proto-Christians were a tinyass religious minority in a pissant province and just about to be get fed to the lions. Whereas in modern day America, they’re the übermajority, and presumably thus feel it’s their turn to dictate who becomes lion chow.
The Muslims of Dearborn, MI, have not (yet) encouraged their legislature to embed their biases in Michigan law. The “outrage” is merely in regard to a state backing up bigotry in law.
And no “well organized” gays have insisted that heterosexuals engage in homosexual activity. They have simply asked that persons in business not be permitted to discriminate against them in non-sexual actions that the businesses offer to the general public. Not one of the businesses that have expressed horror at being compelled to provide their service to homosexual couples have provided any evidence that they have similarly refused service to couples in which one or both parties have been divorced–a direct violation of the words of Jesus.
= = =
On the other hand, I am not all that impressed with the OP, either. A number of religious institutions in Indianan have spoken out against their new RFRA law. (The Episcopal diocese condemned the law; the Catholic Province of Indiana, while being more wishy-washy in the condemnation, opposed the discrimination that the law serves to protect.) The far Right groups that promoted the new law are not going to be persuaded by any appeals to logic or scripture.
Logical arguments against emotional biases always fail: one cannot rationally argue a person out of a position at which they arrived without rational thought.
I assume we are talking about Indiana’s RFRA law. Do you have the slightest idea what the law says? I’m guessing you don’t, because everything you’ve written about it is flatly wrong.
In the absence of a law, a business owner has the right to refuse to serve anyone, for any reason. The Civil Rights Act outlaws business discrimination based on certain categories, including race, gender, and religion, but not sexual orientation. It is thus legal under federal law to refuse to serve homosexuals (or heterosexuals, or any other -sexuals). Some states and cities outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation. Most don’t. Indiana doesn’t, though a couple cities do. So in most of Indiana, a business can refuse to serve homosexuals legally. This was true before the state’s RFRA.
As originally written, the Indiana RFRA says nothing about homosexuality, or about discrimination against any group of people. Liberals for some reason went coconuts about this law and claimed that it allowed discrimination against gays. This is untrue. If they want to boycott states that allow discrimination against gays, they should have been boycotting Indiana and dozens of other states before the RFRA was passed. No one has come up with a coherent explanation for why they got outraged by this law but weren’t outraged before.
Because these late-model neo-RFRA proposals generally sought to make “because of my religious beliefs” trump *preemptively *any other provision that may be put in effect by any government entity including a local government, to prevent the business owner from doing as he pleases. They could have rendered the protections granted by those cities moot. And unlike for instance Texas’ RFRA, it failed to provide an exception of coverage for Civil Rights actions in general, so it would have seemed to theoretically extend the religious shield to regular Civil Rights actions under current laws.
Meanwhile, if a Muslim business owner in Dearborn says he refuses to serve or admit unaccompanied/uncovered females, he’d risk getting sued out of business in the civil forum. Under the original Indiana/Arkansas RFRAs, may he have been protected? Wonder how the Christian Right would have taken that example…
(BTW, a nitpick about an example used earlier: IIRC in the USA under the last conscription laws a merely liberal Episcopalian would have had a tougher time qualifying as a conscientious objector than someone from a more historically pacifist denomination like Brethren or Quaker. But that also does have some bearing on this, as **monstro **pointed out: it’s one thing to say you think (X) is wrong and claim a belief-based exemption; it’s another to say your belief has always compelled you to resist (X) and you are willing to face the consequences.)
You did ask about the Bible, fair enough.
However, let’s remember for a majority (once you add up the various lines of Catholicism and Orthodoxy) of the world’s Christians, “Scripture Alone” is not the sole source of revealed doctrine, thus someone from those traditions can be expected to use one of the other reference sources for the Magisterium.
A lot of Christians opposing governments in causes both righteous and unrighteous cloak themselves in the Beatitude about being Blessed when persecuted (Matt. 5, 10-11). But the Christian Right in the US too often uses a definition of “persecution” that is nearly meaningless, extending to being merely inconvenienced or denied privilege.
BTW, Nitpick 2: The very Bible itself contains why the Christians no longer have to observe the mixed-fabrics or shellfish prohibition. Book of Acts, Chapter 15, 28-29, at the end of a meeting the Apostles announce that of the old Jewish Laws on what’s Unclean or Abominable the new non-Jewish Christians only have to continue to observe those about Idolatry, “Blood”, and Sexual prohibitions. Why in the world the Bible Thumpers never seem to be able to quote that as a defense just tells me they are not reading it as thoroughly as they claim…
“Late-model neo-RFRA proposals”? Huh? The federal RFRA was passed over 20 years ago with all-but-unanimous support from both parties. (Jesse Helms voted against it.) The Indiana law closely imitates most of the language of the federal law. Both allow people to argue that their religious beliefs are being “substantially burdened”, and require the government to prove it is using the “least restrictive” means to achieve its purpose. The Indiana law explicitly says that businesses may use the RFRA, while the federal law and most state laws implicitly assume so by failing to say otherwise. There is no large apparent difference between how the Indiana and the federal would respond to a claim of religious freedom.
The Indiana law has two explicit differences from the federal law:
[ul]
[li]It assigns the same religious rights to businesses as are assigned to persons;[/li][li]It prohibits private lawsuits as well as against government interference.[/li][/ul]
While a couple of states have similar language to one or the other of those provisions, only Indiana has both.
monstro the interpretation of the passage you cite is countered by:
[QUOTE=Matthew 6]
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[e]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
[/QUOTE]
In other words let them play their games, go along with it, but realize it has no real meaning and they have no real power, you are on God’s hands, not theirs.
Nothing to do with separation of church and state. Everything to do with God is above all.
Kanicbird, it isn’t the opponents of the Indiana Law who are worrying about petty, trivial, earthly matters. The supporters are the ones who seem to be getting their panties twisted up in a bunch about people not deserving wedding cakes. Really, you can’t get any more petty than that.
But they worship a God they believe cares about such things. So I guess it makes sense.
I’m not really understanding how Matthew 6 challenges any of the scriptures I’ve cited, by the way. I appreciate your effort in providing a cite, but it fails. In fact, it seems to underscore my belief that Christians worry way too much. If the state is in God’s hands, then why not let God take care of things? Do these Christians not have sufficient faith in God’s abilities to rectify wrongs all on his own?
Effectively that piece of the Indiana law is the same as the Federal law. The Federal law just has the definition of person elsewhere while Indiana included it in the RFRA itself.
To add to DinoR’s correction, you may recall the recent case in which Hobby Lobby, a business, invoked the federal RFRA successfully. This might have reminded you that the federal RFRA also protects businesses.
As to your second point, the majority of federal circuits to consider the question of whether the federal RFRA provides a private lawsuit defense like Indiana’s does have concluded that it does. So federal law in that majority of circuits is the same as Indiana’s law.
That actually goes back to Hillel. The rabbis were reducing the hundreds of mitzvot to categories, and Hillel got it down to two: “Love G-D; Love people.”
Jesus’s answer let the people questioning him know that he was familiar with commentary-- he’d done his homework-- and that’s why they left him alone. He did give a somewhat clever answer: the standard answer to “What is the most important mitzvah?” is “The very next one you have the opportunity to do.” But Jesus answer in the form of Hillel’s categories of mitzvot encompasses whatever might be the next mitzvah you have the opportunity to do.
This is so interesting, it’s one of the things (the other is the mistake about the phrase “carpenter’s son”) that makes me think there is at least one real historical figure from around the first century in Jesus.
Can you offer a cite from your wise book that convinces me God doesn’t want his children to sit quietly, meekly, submissively, with their hands folded in prayer and devotion, waiting for him to take care of everything?
I am perfectly aware that Christians feel emboldened to take matters into their own hands. I’m wondering why this is the case though, when the Bible seems to repeatedly instruct them to “let go, let God”.
Can you tell me what I’m missing? And please, no Catechism. Let’s stick to the Scripture.
I keep returning to the Bible because the Christians are telling us this is the source of their morality. If they are going to use the Bible as a code of regulations, it is only fair to challenge their interpretations of the code with that code.
They can’t…because that’s what Jesus said. If someone hits you…turn the other cheek so they can hit you there also. If someone compels you to walk a mile…walk another mile with them also. If someone compels you to give them your shirt…give your cloak also.
Fighting back is expressly against what Jesus said.
Now, in practical terms, this would have led to their total marginalization, like today’s Quakers. The faith would probably have died out.
But it sure is a gigantic leap of unfaith for them to have gone from “Love your enemies” to “Put them all to the sword.”
Let me ask again, do you know or care the slightest bit about what Indiana’s RFRA says, who supports it, and why it was created? If you do, then why do you keep repeating the same untrue things?
Indiana’s RFRA is very similar to the federal RFRA and laws that have passed in dozens of states, typically with near-unanimous support from both parties. Such laws protect the freedom of people of all religions. They have been used by Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and others. They have been used to defend a great many rights, from the right to have religious services in one’s home to the right to grow a beard. (A Muslim in federal prison recently got an exemption to the no-beard rule thanks to the RFRA.) No case involving an RFRA has ever had anything to do with wedding cakes or sexual orientation.
Please educate yourself and stop saying things that are blatantly false. The purpose of the Straight Dope is to fight ignorance, not spread it.