Should bad religion be tolerated?

[PoetPhilosopher]

Some people might see bad religion as abusive. But that’s a bit hard to prove in a court of law.

That much is true. However, if I remember right, and I may not, many churches moved away from stuff like "Discipleship" due to lawsuits and the threat of them.

 

[SomeRandom]

That much is true. However, if I remember right, and I may not, many churches moved away from stuff like "Discipleship" due to lawsuits and the threat of them.

Interesting.

 

[Father Heathen]

People should be allowed to believe and speak as they wish as long as they don't act in a way that violates the rights and freedoms of others.

 

[epronovost]

The way secular States deal with "bad religions" isn't to ban a particular faith, but to impose restriction on some of their practices like human/animal sacrifices, homophobia, sexism, racism, polygamy, pederastry, female genital mutilation (though circumcision is still permissible, I think that, at terms, it will also be banned in infants for similar reasons), flagellation, etc.

Dealing with "thought crimes" would force any government to turn into a ruthless authoritarian machine for very little gains. Dealing with "bad behavior" is both more simple and more compassionate. As a positive humanist, I also believe values of tolerance and equality are better from a rational point of view and will win over bigots and even monstruous zealots over time (even if it takes more then one generation). The important is to limit the actual damage caused by bigots and zealots, not try to force them into a specific mold or way of thinking.

 

[robocop (actually)]

Should bad religion, religion that promotes bigotry and prejudice, be tolerated?

At what point does neutral/good religion tip the scale into bad, and who should decide such a thing?

Bad Religion is a punk rock band that's been around since the 80s that should be tolerated.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Ha! You don't live in the U.S., do you?

Yeah, I don't. But you have 'while supremacists' in US too. What I am saying is correct for all places. Exclusivist religions are the problem.

For argument's sake, even Islam, at one place says "To you your belief, to me my belief", but Christianity is not even that charitable:

"I am the gate. If anyone enters through Me, he will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture."

 

[Shad]

Here's one example:

Toronto Catholic board committee votes for code of conduct that excludes stated protections for gender expression | The Star

Personally, my preferred approach would be to just ignore the underlying beliefs and focus on behaviours and actions, dividing them into a few categories:

- those that we should promote and encourage
- those that we shouldn't promote, but should tolerate
- those that we should actively discourage
- those that we should outlaw (i.e. crimes)

Any government will encourage certain things, tolerate certain things, and outlaw certain things, so it's really a matter of being transparent and accountable for the criteria that are being used to put actions into the different categories.

The organization is funded by government.

 

[shmogie]

Should bad religion, religion that promotes bigotry and prejudice, be tolerated?

At what point does neutral/good religion tip the scale into bad, and who should decide such a thing?

Americans, under the first Amendment to the United States Constitution have the right to practice any religion, any way they choose.

One persons bad religion is another´s true religion.

 

[shmogie]

Any religion that says that it is the only correct way is a bad religion, and should be banned. Some time or the other, it is going to bring misery, either to itself or to others. It does not need someone to judge. Just check their scriptures.

Thank God we in America have the right to freely practice our religion, any way we choose.

We have what I consider bad religions, satanism, vodoo, santeria.................................Yet their adherents have every right to practice what they believe.

Banning religions is the act of totalitarian governments and those who support them. It is repugnant.

If a satanist says that satanism is the only true religion, I couldn´t care less.

If I say Christianity is the only true religion, and you don´t like it, tough. Frankly my belief structure is none of your business.

 

[MonkeyFire]

What's bad religion? I can tell you suffering and evil are illusions.

 

[shmogie]

The religions (ideologies) are irrelevant. It's the behavior of groups and individuals that determine social tolerance, or intolerance. This is why it's crucial to have a written declaration of individual rights and responsibilities in relation to the state. And to protect and enforce them to the letter.

more from the totalitarian state. You can practice your religion, under command and control of the state.

The state has absolutely no business being involved in religion in any way.

This kind of government nonsense is one of the key factors in people leaving Europe and coming to America, so they could practice their religion exactly as they chose.

It is a complete unalienable right for an American to practice their religion any way they choose.

The government has absolutely no right to intrude, period.

 

[epronovost]

Thank God we in America have the right to freely practice our religion, any way we choose.

I thought human sacrifices and animal sacrifices were illegal in the US (polygamy it depends on the on the State, same thing with child marriage, but both are illegal in most States). In that sense, Americans can't practice their religion in any way they want. There are limits to it.

 

[Terry Sampson]

But you have 'while supremacists' in US too. What I am saying is correct for all places. Exclusivist religions are the problem.
For argument's sake, even Islam, at one place says "To you your belief, to me my belief", but Christianity is not even that charitable:

Can't argue with your reasoning. But, U.S. Christians are a feisty bunch. Trying to ban any of the groups would very probably lead to armed conflict. Nothing scarier, IMO, than U.S. Christians running around with loaded guns, except maybe the white supremacists. No telling who would get hurt. Heck, I'd probably have to get a gun just to defend the non-Christians.

 

[Shadow Link]

Should bad religion, religion that promotes bigotry and prejudice, be tolerated?

At what point does neutral/good religion tip the scale into bad, and who should decide such a thing?

A bad religion would be that which is capable of deceiving the whole. No true religion would promote things that cap life. It(true religion) might let the sleeping dog lie however. Bad religion has a problem of finding justifiable reason to support itself, like a foundation built on sand — It props itself up on the failures and ramifications existing from many insular wills.

 

[dad]

Should bad religion, religion that promotes bigotry and prejudice, be tolerated?

At what point does neutral/good religion tip the scale into bad, and who should decide such a thing?

By...who? There is only good and bad religion in the world. The folks who love bad religion won't tolerate good religion and will call it bad.

 

[dad]

Catholic prohibition on contraceptives.

A bad religion is one that does not believe in God and that He sends us the babies.

 

[Samantha Rinne]

First off, I hope I didn't make you mad with my post. I realize we seem to come from different sides. Much of what I speak, you may see as buzzwords, etc. for my universalist beliefs. I do have a tendency of focusing on where myself, and others, may have incorrect notions though.

As for the churches loving you, I find it to be passive aggressive love. They want to show you that you are loved, then want to make you feel like a lesser human being due to being LGBTQ+, etc. But that's just what I've seen.


Religion has been invading politics a lot lately, to be fair. Trump just set something in motion to try to bar LGBTQ+ couples from adopting, for example.

Adoption Groups Could Turn Away LGBT Parents Under Proposed Rule

I think it can be a relevant question in some ways.

You do realize that you are talking to a LGBT person, right?

Yet, you have already stereotyped people into two categories, LGBT people who uniformly oppose Trump and backwards bucktoothed hicks who voted for Trump. I mean you might not have said this, but this is basically what you are projecting.

Perhaps you should ask yourself why I honestly don't care about LGBT people getting turned away, why I still view a Trump vote as a vote of support for LGBT people. Hint: it has to do with this event. One presidential candidate wanted people like me not to have any protection against such shooters (I still don't own a gun, because I'm a pacifist, but I support the 2nd amendment). Trump was not this candidate. One candidate wanted to have quotas of LGBT people just for the sake of quotas, despite the fact that with all their hormones and other treatments they would likely be undertrained and thus easy prey for being sent to countries that very much did not share pro-LGBT values. The other, again Trump, interestingly enough protected these people from being slaughtered, despite their cries of "bigotry, bigotry." One candidate would like my dad to be forced out of his job if he didn't want to perform certain weddings, even though the church allows the priest to have personal say in all weddings (usually he rejects weddings where it seems like they have shallow reasons for getting married, or they are marrying for money, but people shouldn't be forced to compromise their values for people who move like 7 states away just to harass them over not baking a wedding cake in Colorado when the wedding was in Massachusetts). Trump did not.

You know, sometimes people say they love us, but the truth is they are just pandering. Trying to buy our friendship. I was outside like two days ago, and they had a homecoming parade. That's kinda cool. Then midway through, a truck with "___ for Sheriff" and another one with "____ for Congress/Senate/whatever" drive buy. They're throwing stuff at us like candy and such, and suddenly I'm not having as much fun anymore. Instead I'm like, "You guys must think we're idiots. Also, your parade is going too slow, creating a nuisance to people behind you."

How have these "tolerant" people treated LGBT people? Well, conservatives aside from telling them flatly that their lifestyle is likely to hurt them in the long run, overall are okay with them. On the other hand, as I have demonstrated, liberals prefer them unable to defend themselves and dependent on the state. I was forced out of an apartment with the sketchy tactics of (mostly liberal) mooch fratboys and their landlord, himself a gay man. Liberals only like you if you behave like they think you should. So how should LGBT behave? Well, like dependents. Most of them are in homeless shelters. Most of them are on foodstamps. I was on foodstamps in the big city, and they wouldn't hire me as a genderfluid person. I moved to a small town, and got a job at the library. Didn't care how I dressed or who I was, they cared about me doing the job well. Nor did the local church care. Small town folks, not anyone messed with me until I started getting stressed out and actually did a bad job.

It's not about the politics though. Anyone can change, and I was helped, saved if you will by two churches before I found my small-town one. One was a hardcore Baptist type, who taught me what real grace was, and how we have to understand the law first to understand that we don't measure up to the law, and that in fact was the point. I walked out in the middle of the service because it sounded like he was saying that LGBT people wouldn't be accepted (it was a marriage and family sermon). Went to a church that was more liberal, and yes they were kinda committed to alot of the Pride stuff (but when I actually needed to find a job and a place to stay, they really couldn't help). But over time, I realized that the welcome I got from the liberal church didn't serve me as well as understanding what they were trying to tell me before I walked out.

You see, this is where the passage that they mentioned came from. But the next two verses explain what was so difficult at the time.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10

9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

I was transgender rather than gay, but lumped in with all the other stuff thanks to well meaning people who decided it would be nice to treat the whole group as the same. Yeah, you'd leave that church too. But the questions nagged at me until I actually read the passage. Here's what the rest says.

11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Notice that homosexuals are on the same scale as thieves and drunkards and people who are just kinda greedy. And notice that all of this is seen as just history compared to Jesus. None of it is of any consequence. But yes, it sounds bigoted at the time, if you don't bother listening.

12 “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything.

Why shouldn't you receive anal sex? Is it because God will never forgive you? Or is it because God wants you not to hurt yourself. Anal sex, besides being painful has a high risk of disease, and even a risk of anal cancer.

Some things seem like love at the time, but turn out to either be not much good in the long run, or in fact hateful. Other things seem bigoted and hateful at the time, but turn out to be good lessons. Had I not been so upset with this that I started hunting for answers, I would not have found this passage of how grace removes the curse of our pasts. Or I would be sitting around a bunch of nice-sounding people but now probably be homeless. What I value more than people who seem sweet but are trying to use me, are people who care about me enough to tell me, "This is hurting you." Or, "You probably shouldn't masturbate multiple times a day and stay up all night, you look exhausted and sexually depleted."

 

[dad]

For argument's sake, even Islam, at one place says "To you your belief, to me my belief", but Christianity is not even that charitable:"

So they believe in allowing other beliefs flourish eh? Ha.

 

[night912]

I thought human sacrifices and animal sacrifices were illegal in the US (polygamy it depends on the on the State, same thing with child marriage, but both are illegal in most States). In that sense, Americans can't practice their religion in any way they want. There are limits to it.

Religious animal sacrifice is legal as long as it doesn't violate animal cruelty laws.

 

[night912]

Americans, under the first Amendment to the United States Constitution have the right to practice any religion, any way they choose.

One persons bad religion is another´s true religion.

No correct. Under the first amendment people can practice whatever religion they want as long as their actions does not violate government laws. No religious law is above government laws. The reason for it is so the government does not favor one religion over another.