Bob Lee said:

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barbacoa taco said:

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Bob Lee said:

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kurt vonnegut said:

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Jabin said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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What I'm proposing is equal rights under the law regardless of beliefs. You can raise your children how you like. You shouldn't get to tell me how I have to raise my children.

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Except you guys won't let me raise my children how I like. You are increasingly taking away parental rights over children to fit your worldview dogma. You won't allow Christians to teach Christianity in public schools, yet you blanket those schools with secular propaganda.

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Can you expand on the things that secularists are doing that restrict how you raise your children?

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The wrong assumption is that "not religion" is practically different than anti-religion. Leaving children to their own devices when it comes to first principles: how did the world come to exist? Where do our rights come from? Questions about the nature of the human person and epistemological questions. The most basic questions that are the foundation for even just our ability to know anything at all. It's anti Christian. Our entire reason for existing is to love God and serve God. But just pretend God doesn't exist while at school. My kid's not allowed to sing a Marian antiphon in a school talent show but, if she wanted to sing a Miley Cyrus song about how she doesn't need a man and she can love herself better, that's a-okay.

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I find it odd that people equate a secular setting with an anti-Christian setting.

School is not church, and simply acknowledging that is not forcing anyone to "pretend God does not exist." Individual prayers and other religious acts by students are protected. What's not protected is school sponsored prayer or endorsement of any religion. There are Christian student groups, moments of silence, and See You At The Pole. There are even some schools that teach the Bible as literature in English class.

Yet again, you seem to think the lack of special treatment is the same as oppression.

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Secularism requires the removal of religion. That's what it is. How can it be anything but anti-religious?

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barbacoa taco said:

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Bob Lee said:

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barbacoa taco said:

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Bob Lee said:

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kurt vonnegut said:

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Jabin said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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What I'm proposing is equal rights under the law regardless of beliefs. You can raise your children how you like. You shouldn't get to tell me how I have to raise my children.

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Except you guys won't let me raise my children how I like. You are increasingly taking away parental rights over children to fit your worldview dogma. You won't allow Christians to teach Christianity in public schools, yet you blanket those schools with secular propaganda.

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Can you expand on the things that secularists are doing that restrict how you raise your children?

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The wrong assumption is that "not religion" is practically different than anti-religion. Leaving children to their own devices when it comes to first principles: how did the world come to exist? Where do our rights come from? Questions about the nature of the human person and epistemological questions. The most basic questions that are the foundation for even just our ability to know anything at all. It's anti Christian. Our entire reason for existing is to love God and serve God. But just pretend God doesn't exist while at school. My kid's not allowed to sing a Marian antiphon in a school talent show but, if she wanted to sing a Miley Cyrus song about how she doesn't need a man and she can love herself better, that's a-okay.

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I find it odd that people equate a secular setting with an anti-Christian setting.

School is not church, and simply acknowledging that is not forcing anyone to "pretend God does not exist." Individual prayers and other religious acts by students are protected. What's not protected is school sponsored prayer or endorsement of any religion. There are Christian student groups, moments of silence, and See You At The Pole. There are even some schools that teach the Bible as literature in English class.

Yet again, you seem to think the lack of special treatment is the same as oppression.

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Secularism requires the removal of religion. That's what it is. How can it be anything but anti-religious?

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Do you fly at airports? Get your car repaired at auto shops? Go to a department store to buy clothes? Go to Aggie football games? Drive on highways?

All of these are secular settings. Does that make them all hostile to religion?

Oh wait, we now pray before Aggie football games and a lot of airports have chapels. So even those may not be great examples because this country is so accommodating to religion.

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Quote:

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Everyone's religious, everyone serves something; it's just a question of what they worship.

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kurt vonnegut said:

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Bob Lee said:

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The wrong assumption is that "not religion" is practically different than anti-religion. Leaving children to their own devices when it comes to first principles: how did the world come to exist? Where do our rights come from? Questions about the nature of the human person and epistemological questions. The most basic questions that are the foundation for even just our ability to know anything at all. It's anti Christian. Our entire reason for existing is to love God and serve God. But just pretend God doesn't exist while at school. My kid's not allowed to sing a Marian antiphon in a school talent show but, if she wanted to sing a Miley Cyrus song about how she doesn't need a man and she can love herself better, that's a-okay.

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I don't mean this as a judgement or criticism, but this is a far more 'black and white' view than I am accustomed to - even for this board. You've described a view whereby the lack of explicit acceptance and endorsement of your beliefs is equivalent to open hostility against. I don't mean to pass over how you feel, if this is how you feel, but it sorta puts every non-Christian in a tough position as it relates to our relationship to you. Your last few posts read as though we must either agree with your religion, or we are enemies of your faith?

I don't see myself as anti-Christian. By that I mean that even though I don't share your faith, I have respect for your religion and your right to believe and practice as you see fit. If you draw no distinction between this and being ann active agent of opposition to your religion, then I don't know what to say. . . . Are Muslims also anti-Christian? And Jews and Hindus and Buddhists?

And if we follow your logic, does that make your non-secularism akin to anti-secularism? If secular curriculum is anti-Christian, then a Christian curriculum must be anti-secular and anti-every-other-religion.

I apologize if this question comes off as insulting, but do you just not like or respect people that think different from you? I want to give you the benefit of the doubt after the last page of dialogue we had . . . . But I don't think you've described anything like a path to mutual understanding and mutual respect.

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Macarthur said:

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Bob Lee said:

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barbacoa taco said:

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Bob Lee said:

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barbacoa taco said:

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Bob Lee said:

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kurt vonnegut said:

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Jabin said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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What I'm proposing is equal rights under the law regardless of beliefs. You can raise your children how you like. You shouldn't get to tell me how I have to raise my children.

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Except you guys won't let me raise my children how I like. You are increasingly taking away parental rights over children to fit your worldview dogma. You won't allow Christians to teach Christianity in public schools, yet you blanket those schools with secular propaganda.

---

Can you expand on the things that secularists are doing that restrict how you raise your children?

---

The wrong assumption is that "not religion" is practically different than anti-religion. Leaving children to their own devices when it comes to first principles: how did the world come to exist? Where do our rights come from? Questions about the nature of the human person and epistemological questions. The most basic questions that are the foundation for even just our ability to know anything at all. It's anti Christian. Our entire reason for existing is to love God and serve God. But just pretend God doesn't exist while at school. My kid's not allowed to sing a Marian antiphon in a school talent show but, if she wanted to sing a Miley Cyrus song about how she doesn't need a man and she can love herself better, that's a-okay.

---

I find it odd that people equate a secular setting with an anti-Christian setting.

School is not church, and simply acknowledging that is not forcing anyone to "pretend God does not exist." Individual prayers and other religious acts by students are protected. What's not protected is school sponsored prayer or endorsement of any religion. There are Christian student groups, moments of silence, and See You At The Pole. There are even some schools that teach the Bible as literature in English class.

Yet again, you seem to think the lack of special treatment is the same as oppression.

---

Secularism requires the removal of religion. That's what it is. How can it be anything but anti-religious?

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Do you fly at airports? Get your car repaired at auto shops? Go to a department store to buy clothes? Go to Aggie football games? Drive on highways?

All of these are secular settings. Does that make them all hostile to religion?

Oh wait, we now pray before Aggie football games and a lot of airports have chapels. So even those may not be great examples because this country is so accommodating to religion.

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If my kid prays the liturgy of the hours, should she be allowed to leave class without being made to feel like some kind of mutant outcast? Or the parents made to feel like a burden on the school? You want to see what genuine disgust looks like? Take your kid out of school every holy day of obligation for mass and adoration, and tell them that's why you're doing it. The idea that religion is separate from education or education is separate from religion doesn't even make sense. And schools are purportedly FOR education. Eradicating institutions so intertwined with our history and legal tradition from all our schools' curriculum everywhere takes real effort and contempt. It's not that easy to do, and we've actually done it.

You fundamentally don't understand, because you have a distorted view of what Christianity IS, and how it's practiced. You think it's something you do in a Church building on Sunday.

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This is an insane amount of hyperbole. You should try raising your kids non-religious in Texas. SMH

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Sapper Redux said:

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Bob Lee said:

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You act like secularism in schools was an organic development. Like it didn't come from anti-religious groups shopping for people to sue their school districts and state governments to have religion removed from schools, and then anti-Catholic supreme court justices didn't invent a separation of church and state and incorporate federal restrictions against them.

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The earliest legal cases to remove religion from classrooms were filed by Catholic parents who were upset about the forced presence of Protestant theology in public schools (see the Edgerton Bible Case).

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kurt vonnegut said:

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Bob Lee said:

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Secularism doesn't accommodate Christianity. Yes. Those things are antithetical. You have to see that. The 1st amendment isn't inherently antithetical to freedom of religion. But it's been morphed into a freedom "from" religion article predominately during a time when Hugo Black, a KKK member who was vehemently anti-Catholic was on the SCOTUS.

How is this 1/300,000,000th of a vote? The Oklahoma Supreme Court recently ruled a district had to pull the charter for a publicly funded Catholic school that had over 200 applicants. Those people don't want their children to receive a secular education. Why should they be denied the opportunity to educate their children the way they want?

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I think you need to expand on what you mean when you say non-Christian is the same as anti-Christian. Saying that non-Christians have beliefs that are different or incompatible with Christianity is a tautology. There must be some reason for introducing the "anti-" into the word. The 'anti-' introduces teeth to the word that were not there before and it implies something offensive or antagonistic about being non-Christian.

If someone tells you that they don't care for country music, then you say 'ok, that person doesn't care for country music'. If someone tells you they are anti-country music, then I think it suggests a deeper dislike for country. Someone that doesn't care for country music couldn't care less if you listen to country music. Someone that is anti-country music wants to rid the world of that terrible sound.

I don't know much about the OK case. My understanding is that they ruled that public funds could not be used to fund a Catholic charter school. I'm sympathetic to a parent that wants their child to go to a Christian school, but cannot afford it, but I think you have to also consider the full implications of the ruling. If state funding can be used to pay for a Catholic charter school, then your tax payer money can also be used to fund Islamic schools and Satanist schools. I think this is one of those issues where a lot of Christians expect to be able to use tax payer money to support their religion, but would lose their Effing mind if their tax payer money was going to support an Islamic school.

School vouchers could be an option. I have my concerns about vouchers, but like I said, I'm also sympathetic to letting parents choose a school for their kids. Because you know. . . . I'm not anti-Christian.

Quote:

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I don't want the ugly public commissioned art, architecture, and music. Abortion, transgenderism, etc that all come from secularism.

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Again, I don't know how to take statements like this as anything other than "I don't like people and things that are different from me".

So fine, commission your own art, build your own buildings, make your own music, don't get an abortion, and don't change your gender. There are all manner of things about religion that I don't agree with. I solve this problem by not participating in religion.

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Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Quote:

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The type of society that Sapper proposes, for example, I find extremely offensive. It is an imposition of his moral values on me and my children. His proposal is to allow only secular views and the relativistic moral values that are incorporated in secularism

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What I'm proposing is equal rights under the law regardless of beliefs. You can raise your children how you like. You shouldn't get to tell me how I have to raise my children.

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This doesn't exist; laws by their nature limit practice of belief. No one actually wants it anyways: surely you don't want child brides married off in smaller mormon sects, for example. Hence the idea of 'neutral' preferences non-theists when they propose it.

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At least you admit you want me to have fewer rights than you.

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kurt vonnegut said:

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Jabin said:

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Quote:

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Everyone's religious, everyone serves something; it's just a question of what they worship.

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This.

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Well, now I'm confused. We just had all this back and forth about how secularism is bad and materialism is bad and secularism is anti-religious. And now we are told that everyone is actually religious. And how can any of us be anti-religious if we are religious ourselves?

Does this mean we can all be friends again now that we are all apparently religious?

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Macarthur said:

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That's a terrible analogy.

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kurt vonnegut said:

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Bob Lee said:

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Secularism doesn't accommodate Christianity. Yes. Those things are antithetical. You have to see that. The 1st amendment isn't inherently antithetical to freedom of religion. But it's been morphed into a freedom "from" religion article predominately during a time when Hugo Black, a KKK member who was vehemently anti-Catholic was on the SCOTUS.

How is this 1/300,000,000th of a vote? The Oklahoma Supreme Court recently ruled a district had to pull the charter for a publicly funded Catholic school that had over 200 applicants. Those people don't want their children to receive a secular education. Why should they be denied the opportunity to educate their children the way they want?

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I think you need to expand on what you mean when you say non-Christian is the same as anti-Christian. Saying that non-Christians have beliefs that are different or incompatible with Christianity is a tautology. There must be some reason for introducing the "anti-" into the word. The 'anti-' introduces teeth to the word that were not there before and it implies something offensive or antagonistic about being non-Christian.

If someone tells you that they don't care for country music, then you say 'ok, that person doesn't care for country music'. If someone tells you they are anti-country music, then I think it suggests a deeper dislike for country. Someone that doesn't care for country music couldn't care less if you listen to country music. Someone that is anti-country music wants to rid the world of that terrible sound.

I don't know much about the OK case. My understanding is that they ruled that public funds could not be used to fund a Catholic charter school. I'm sympathetic to a parent that wants their child to go to a Christian school, but cannot afford it, but I think you have to also consider the full implications of the ruling. If state funding can be used to pay for a Catholic charter school, then your tax payer money can also be used to fund Islamic schools and Satanist schools. I think this is one of those issues where a lot of Christians expect to be able to use tax payer money to support their religion, but would lose their Effing mind if their tax payer money was going to support an Islamic school.

School vouchers could be an option. I have my concerns about vouchers, but like I said, I'm also sympathetic to letting parents choose a school for their kids. Because you know. . . . I'm not anti-Christian.

Quote:

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I don't want the ugly public commissioned art, architecture, and music. Abortion, transgenderism, etc that all come from secularism.

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Again, I don't know how to take statements like this as anything other than "I don't like people and things that are different from me".

So fine, commission your own art, build your own buildings, make your own music, don't get an abortion, and don't change your gender. There are all manner of things about religion that I don't agree with. I solve this problem by not participating in religion.

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Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Quote:

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The type of society that Sapper proposes, for example, I find extremely offensive. It is an imposition of his moral values on me and my children. His proposal is to allow only secular views and the relativistic moral values that are incorporated in secularism

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What I'm proposing is equal rights under the law regardless of beliefs. You can raise your children how you like. You shouldn't get to tell me how I have to raise my children.

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This doesn't exist; laws by their nature limit practice of belief. No one actually wants it anyways: surely you don't want child brides married off in smaller mormon sects, for example. Hence the idea of 'neutral' preferences non-theists when they propose it.

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At least you admit you want me to have fewer rights than you.

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It's a zero sum game bud. Christians that are middle aged have grown up knowing that. The irony is that you feel the same way but you keep calling it 'neutral'.

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It's not zero sum unless you intrinsically believe me having equal rights is a harm to you. In which case, representative government is not what you believe in.

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Bob Lee said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Bob Lee said:

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You act like secularism in schools was an organic development. Like it didn't come from anti-religious groups shopping for people to sue their school districts and state governments to have religion removed from schools, and then anti-Catholic supreme court justices didn't invent a separation of church and state and incorporate federal restrictions against them.

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The earliest legal cases to remove religion from classrooms were filed by Catholic parents who were upset about the forced presence of Protestant theology in public schools (see the Edgerton Bible Case).

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Not what I'm talking about. Those were apparently people who had a grievance. Not that I think they were right, especially knowing what we know now. I'm talking about a group of people, none of whom are actually impacted and wouldn't have standing to sue, so they shop for people who have standing, but might not have sued otherwise, to serve their interests. Like the American Ethical Union. This is also what happened with Roe v. Wade incidentally.

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dermdoc said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Quote:

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The type of society that Sapper proposes, for example, I find extremely offensive. It is an imposition of his moral values on me and my children. His proposal is to allow only secular views and the relativistic moral values that are incorporated in secularism

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What I'm proposing is equal rights under the law regardless of beliefs. You can raise your children how you like. You shouldn't get to tell me how I have to raise my children.

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This doesn't exist; laws by their nature limit practice of belief. No one actually wants it anyways: surely you don't want child brides married off in smaller mormon sects, for example. Hence the idea of 'neutral' preferences non-theists when they propose it.

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At least you admit you want me to have fewer rights than you.

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It's a zero sum game bud. Christians that are middle aged have grown up knowing that. The irony is that you feel the same way but you keep calling it 'neutral'.

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It's not zero sum unless you intrinsically believe me having equal rights is a harm to you. In which case, representative government is not what you believe in.

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What rights of yours would be taken away?

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Sapper Redux said:

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dermdoc said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Quote:

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The type of society that Sapper proposes, for example, I find extremely offensive. It is an imposition of his moral values on me and my children. His proposal is to allow only secular views and the relativistic moral values that are incorporated in secularism

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What I'm proposing is equal rights under the law regardless of beliefs. You can raise your children how you like. You shouldn't get to tell me how I have to raise my children.

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This doesn't exist; laws by their nature limit practice of belief. No one actually wants it anyways: surely you don't want child brides married off in smaller mormon sects, for example. Hence the idea of 'neutral' preferences non-theists when they propose it.

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At least you admit you want me to have fewer rights than you.

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It's a zero sum game bud. Christians that are middle aged have grown up knowing that. The irony is that you feel the same way but you keep calling it 'neutral'.

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It's not zero sum unless you intrinsically believe me having equal rights is a harm to you. In which case, representative government is not what you believe in.

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What rights of yours would be taken away?

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In a state that privileges your faith, my ability to pursue happiness no longer becomes whether it harms another but rather whether it offends your specific moral code.

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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dermdoc said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Quote:

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The type of society that Sapper proposes, for example, I find extremely offensive. It is an imposition of his moral values on me and my children. His proposal is to allow only secular views and the relativistic moral values that are incorporated in secularism

---

What I'm proposing is equal rights under the law regardless of beliefs. You can raise your children how you like. You shouldn't get to tell me how I have to raise my children.

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This doesn't exist; laws by their nature limit practice of belief. No one actually wants it anyways: surely you don't want child brides married off in smaller mormon sects, for example. Hence the idea of 'neutral' preferences non-theists when they propose it.

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At least you admit you want me to have fewer rights than you.

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It's a zero sum game bud. Christians that are middle aged have grown up knowing that. The irony is that you feel the same way but you keep calling it 'neutral'.

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It's not zero sum unless you intrinsically believe me having equal rights is a harm to you. In which case, representative government is not what you believe in.

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What rights of yours would be taken away?

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In a state that privileges your faith, my ability to pursue happiness no longer becomes whether it harms another but rather whether it offends your specific moral code.

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Why should 'harm' be the standard when it's merely a social construct (re: your specific moral code)? Why should you define harm instead of us? This isn't neutral towards worldview, it's entirely biased towards rational materialism, like we've said.

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