Seems like the polite thing for businesses to do is to post a list of who they will and will not do business with -- so we don't have to embarrass the poor cashier who informs us he/she can't sell to us (or the poor bus driver who must ask us to move to the back of the bus). Maybe everyone...
The problem with allowing for all these religious exemptions is that they are so artificial. For example, why should an employer have to try to appease everyone's special needs? Imagine how difficult it would be to host a banquet if everyone has a special diet?
Yes, good point.
I think a problem with laws is that they don't reflect considered beliefs of society for two reasons:
People in society are at odds, having opposing views.
The legislatures making the laws are not able to make good laws because of all the influences from voters and lobbyists...
Is it justified to interpret someone's scriptures differently than those the scripture belongs to?
For example, the New Age teaching that Jesus was a guru who lived in India, and that he was teaching a form of eastern religion.
No he didn't and no he wasn't.
Seems to me, we have to understand...
There are thousands of kinds of UFOs which have been with us for many decades. Why are all these thousands of advanced civilizations interacting with our world, probably billions of years away from home?
Yes. But implicit in your argument is that, for every topic, the truth will eventually be teased out and will become known. Truth isn't relative or subjective, rather, our knowledge is increasing. We should be careful not to believe cutting edge ideas that are not proven with adequate evidence.
Yes, I think your assessment is a good one. I notice you first determined the argument using reason and critical thinking, and only after that, provided a Bible verse that matched. In other words, you could have left out the Bible verse and your argument would have remained unchanged. Your...
Yes, democracy. As long as the needs of the minority are considered as important by the majority. And as long as the voters are not duped into believing crazy ideas by unscrupulous charismatic leaders.
Yes. I wonder if people claiming that morality is too subjective unless you have a religiously dictated moral system; I wonder if they would be willing to accept a moral system based on this kind of rational reasoning?
Yes, a good point, that suffering is the key metric.
In considering what evil is, it seems that suffering is the key ingredient; if no one suffers, there was no evil. (Even someone planning on doing "evil" suffers psychologically, even if he/she never gets to do the evil deed.)
Are you saying a psychologically normal person became permanently psychologically disturbed? What could this UFO possibly be doing that affects peoples' brains like that?