The beginning of the jihad in Europe?

Who's got the right laws?There are literally hundreds of thousands of religions, sects, and other such groups living in the US. Each one believes different things than all the others. Some of their beliefs range from the radical (Islamic sharia) to the innocuous (you can't wear mixed fabric). And many of those beliefs have no basis anywhere else than their religionWhy should everyone have to wear head covering if a party of Islamics came to power? Not everyone is Muslim.Why should we have any mention of a god anywhere on public property? Who's god, if any. Some religions don't even believe in a god.If religious laws are to be displayed in our court houses, who's laws? And why should they be there? Should individuals religious law shape the laws of our society? After all, one religion may not like pork and suddenly we have penalty taxes imposed on pig farmers. Perhaps one religious group comes to power who are entirely vegetarian, and they wage a war on meat.Perhaps to a believer in Christianity, the religion du jur, find the above statements far fetched. But to non-believers like us, when we hear about a bill supporting creationism/ID/banning gay marriage etc., it smacks of the same rubbish as above.So, why do all the above concepts sound distasteful to us in the first place?Well, for one thing, there is NO REASONABLE ARGUMENT FOR SUCH LEGISTLATION, OTHER THAN WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THE RELIGIOUS BELEF OF THE PARTY IN POWER. In other words, there is no argument, aside from religion, as to why there should be laws governing pork consumption, head scarves, or the curtailing of science in public classrooms.Religions believe all sorts of dumb stuff and are often based on unsubstantiated stories in old booksEvery religion has a set of core beliefs. A great majority of religious belief revolves around common myths often said to originate from some sort magical man-thing in another dimension somewhere were nobody can verify that he is actually there or not.If this is the case, why should we listen to laws purportedly spoken by a magical being?For example, the 10 commandments are said to have been given to some obscure Hebrew tribesman with glowing horns on his head. Some sky spirit somehow made stone tablets with the laws on them and spoke through a burning tree. What about this story gives those laws legitimacy?The Mormons contend that a 19th century charlatan uncovered golden tablets and spoke to a winged glowy person who told him to move to Utah and Have dozens of wives.Even modern religions have weird ideas. Lets not forget Xenu and the Thetans. Imagine laws being passed allowing jobs to discriminate against people who haven't reached the state of “clear” yet. ConclusionReligion is a dumb basis for legislation. Legislation should be based on empirical data gathered from assessing actual, emperical, facts and executed in conformity with the constitution, laws of the land, and consent of the people.This message has been edited by Yaro, 11-09-2005 03:27 PM

Really? Show me. I haven't read Ghandi saying that he followed Jesus' teachings. I may be wrong, please show me. I agree, and I never said they were mutually exclusive. My point is simply that the movements they inspired were not religious movements but rather social ones. If Ghandi was protesting Englands consumption of beef, or MLK was lobbying for Jesus being written into the constitution I think they would have failed. So why did he go to india to meet with Ghandi's followers in order to get tips? His beliefs may have been. But that's independant of the movement. It just so happens that the particular beliefs him and MLK chose were ones compatible with the majority of a pluralistic population. I disagree. Not everyone working in Civil right was Black, or christian. Likewise I doubt everyone who followed Ghandi held his religious belifs. It so happens that the movements both leaders inspired were in a common line with the broad desires of a populace.

No, not at all. It's not religious vs. non-religious. It's weighing whats good for a population. In other words, what the population desires in conformity with the constititution. Incorrect. Ghandi and MLK, may have had strong religious beliefs which they used as inspiration, but their struggle was not religiously motivated. It was a struggle against opression. As I said before many other people in the civil rights movement had little at all to do with religion, does that make their contibution any less vital?MLK's struggle dealt with equality. His argument was based on the constitution and the goal of a pluralistic society. Not weather or not Jesus was the king godman. No, I am saying that their religious inclination was a moot point on the issue because religion had nothing to do with the issue in the first place. I would pick a different example, because I'm willing to conseed there shouldn't be gay marriage or any other marriage. I think civil unions should be a legal contract any pair of adults can enter into and let the churches decide who is married. I don't think the Gov. should be in the marriage buissness beyond that.Lets talk about civil rights agin since thats more clear cut. At the time Im sure a sizable amount of the white majority was against civil rights. MLK was still right because his issue was a constitutional one and relvant to the goal of maintaining a pluralistic society.Civil rights was not a religious movement.What we see now adays with the christian right is that they want to legislate purely religious things. Like the 10 commandments.Equal rights applys to everyone in a pluralistic society, the 10 commandments dont. They advocate, and are part if, one distinct religion. As such, they should not be a part of our govt. I think the above answerd this question.

Many "pro-life" people have little argument in their favor other than emotional appeal. I have yet heard a persuasive "pro-life" argument, but if a factual argument that apeals to evidence rather than emotion or religious dictates were presented, Im more than willing to change my mind.I will grant you abortion as an issue that is ripe for debate. I think arguments can be made. Unfortunetly the "pro-life" movement seems to be saturated with "picketing" nutjobs who harass women at the clinic etc. I already said that Im against marrige in general. I think the govt. should call them all civil unions and let the churches decide who is married.In any case, if you are going to have marrige, in the legal/contractual sense, there is no reason not to allow gay folks to get married. It's a matter of equal rights and as of now it seems marrige descriminates between men and women.It wasn't too long ago that we had laws banning interacial marriges and a majority of the population oposed it. But, it was a matter of equal rights. Plain and simple.Can you give me a good reason, aside from religious convictions, why gay people shouldn't be married? Agreed. Left field.... Im not talking about any of those issues. Many conservatives have a very secular philosphy toward govt. your beef is not with liberals in this case. Come back to the conversation. What's your point here exactly? I said it before, and I will say it again, the basis for their struggle was the injustice in their society. Their struggle was not religiously based, though they may have taken strength in their religion, or drawn inspiration.Civil Rights was not religiously motivated. It was a matter of equal rights. Same thing with Gandih who didn't belive in a kingdom of god. Yes, I am not against this, as long as RELIGION IS NOT THE POLATICS. Get it? The people can be religious, the polatics must not be so.Again, if we had a muslem majority, they can belive women should wear headscarves all they want, but they cannot legislate that point. That point is simply a religious matter and not applicable to society as a whole.So when people freak out about Janet Jacksons boob, or try to ban Tom Sawyer, its religious BS that's clouding their judgement. Wrong. It's not part of cultural heritage. Our cultural heritige came over on ships full of starving imagrants from all over the world. A melting pot, tons of different beliefs.Showing the 10 commandments excludes all the other beliefs that are also part of our heritage. If you want to show those, then you gotta show everyone elses. I want a statue of budah, an enshrined koran, and an alter to Vodon. I dunno. Maybe something in their name. Maybe I was unclear. I ment that the legislation must not be religious values. i.e. You cant make a law saying that Jesus is god. or something. You can't exclude people, period. I don't care if you think a flying saucer came down and told you what right and wrong is, I don't care if they told you people have to wear tootsy-pops in their ears, you can't make a law forcing people to wear tootsy-pops in their ears.

As I said, I think there are arguments to be made. But using a religion to make your point is not gonna help your case. There is a question as to when a person gains his autonamy and it's a valid one.

Yep, that's exactly what the "liberls" (whatever that means) want. Pull the babys from the womb and dash them against the rocks.... wait that's from the bible, my bad.No, you have an incredibly skewd version of the pro-choice possition. A human simply is not human at conception. But this is another debate ongoing in countless other threads in the EVC.

Ok. So what are you putting out there?That the rioters real problem is not poverty, opression, descrimination or anything else. The real reason they are rioting is because they are muslem. Is that your point?Isn't that a little backward? Kinda like saying the rodney king riots happend not because of poverty, opression, descrimination, but rather because the people in the riots were mostly christians. huh?

Then why do jews get a special claim?