effective uses of bylaws could easily mitigate these kinds of issues, notwithstanding the more-myth-than-fact quality to these scenarios.
Did you read the facts of the case? Alito and Scalia just invented this “atheists want to join the Bible study group” thing because it sounded better than the real situation they’re deciding on. The group that was actually forbidden from joining the Christian Legal Society were gay Christians. I’m guessing that the conservatives on the court plan on ruling in favor of the CLS but they don’t want to say that colleges cannot forbid student organizations from excluding gay students.
This is going to be a tricky decision for the conservatives to write. Normally, they’d fall back on the libertarian argument - it’s not the government’s place to tell any private entity whether or not it must protect gay rights. That works because usually it’s gay individuals who are trying to assert their rights within some organization. The judges can just invoke non-interference, give the organization a wink, and declare that while they’re not in favor of discriminating against gays in theory they’re not going to stop anyone from doing it in practice.
But here there’s an organization that has enacted an anti-discriminatory policy of its own free will. And there’s another group that’s running afoul of this policy because it wants to discriminate against gays. So the conservatives have to throw out their usual policy of saying the government should keep its hands off and actively tell an organization that it can’t forbid discrimination even if it wants to.
Now if it was just conservatives they were selling this to, it would be enough to say “but these are homosexuals we’re talking about.” That would generally be enough to convince conservatives that they don’t deserve any protection. But there’s a lot of people (who’ve watched too much Will and Grace or something) who’ve started to think that gays are actually entitled to some civil rights. So to win over these people, they’re going to bring in a less sympathetic crowd - atheists. Nobody likes them except for liberals. So the conservatives are turning this into a battle where supposedly some atheists are trying to attack some Christians. This way when they rule in favor of the Christians everyone will cheer.
It was that dingbat Marley. I’ll send him around soon as we take him off the wheel. :eek:
Why would an Atheist, without malice in his heart, join a bible study group?
It’s possible it’s out of a genuine desire to learn other viewpoints. But one doesn’t have to join a group to learn how they think.
There’s no other reason for an organized mass of antithetical people to join a group except for the childish purpose of breaking it up. No way their First Amendment rights, to the extent they exist, trump those of the genuine group members.
Thats it. That is exactly it.
Because the Bible is a very important piece of cultural literacy. Most people know the Bible. Political decisions, like it or not, are made out of biblical justifications. Our very history as an American people is derived from the Bible. We are - or want to be - the “City on the Hill.” It behooves everyone who lives in this society to understand what is in that book.
Additionally, understanding what is in the Bible gives us understanding about our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends, and our relatives - who is this country tend to be overwhelmingly Christian.
I didn’t say it should be illegal or that it’s ultimately wrong, but you’re kidding yourself if you think there’s really any other motive than juvenile provocation.
Because he’s interested in what the Bible says about ancient cultures and what they believed? Because even though he doesn’t believe in God, he finds Jesus’s humanist principles and their explication in parables useful guides to living. Because he wants to know how the opposition thinks? I can think of a dozen reasons just off the top of my head.
I’m fascinated by British coinage. I’m not British, I’m not a coin dealer, Im no longer a coin collector (my father’s and my collection was stolen in the early 1990s). Does lack of those qualifications make me ineligible to join a British Coinage Club?
Please. For an Atheist, studying the Bible in group is like studying Green Eggs and Ham, if they wanted to get inside the head of a believer they’d pretend to be one and there wouldn’t have been a fuss. They WANT to be Atheists in a believers camp.
There is no fuss:
To the extent that collecting and studying coins doesn’t make you British, would you call yourself a British coin if you were enthused enough about the subject?
Oh, I thought this was about Justice Scalia’s public comment.
You seemed to be implying that the atheists referred to in Scalia’s comment during oral arguments (reproduced, e.g., here) were somehow causing “a fuss.” If I misunderstood you, I’m sorry.
Those atheists are hypothetical. The actual people involved in this case are complaining about the Christian Legal Society’s statement of faith because it excludes homosexuals. This is described even in, for example, the Christian Legal Society’s brief.
So I guess I’m not sure what atheists and what fuss you’re referring to here:
That would be dishonest and some believe, unethical. And yeah, you could form a bible study group of non-Christians - my Unitarian church has one - but they actually aren’t that easy to find.
I know of at least one christian, a person whose intelligence and character I have considerable respect for despite our differences of opinion on faith and reason, who would say that the truly christian thing (or in his words, what Jesus would do) would be to welcome as many atheists as possible to a bible study class in the hope that by studying the bible with christians they would be converted. When viewed with that opinion in mind, Scalia comments seem more thoughtless than usual.
I study the bible and I’m not a believer. In fact right now I’m reading a book by Bart Ehrman - a distinguished Bible scholar who is an admitted agnostic. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t based his life’s work on juvenile provocation.
I’m sorry, I don’t get your meaning. How do I sound like a Teabagger?
To expand a bit, to a non-religious historian of social mores, literature, etc., bible study is looking for the truth, i.e., without regard to possible supernatural inspiration, while bible study from a religious viewpoint is looking for confirmation of theological assumptions and support for beliefs.
I’m sure you cannot prove this. The good news is that I can’t either.
My anecdotal response, however, is that I find that the vast majority of the people I speak with who are Christians are not “quite knowledgeable about the Christian Bible.”
Among atheists the percentage is precipitously lower.
Most atheists “are quite knowledgeable about the Christian Bible”?
Get real.