Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: And I take as genuine some people's belief that life begins at conception.

I don't, because almost all of them treat a miscarriage quite differently than they treat the birth of a child. When these people start holding funerals and writing obituaries for their 5-weeks-gestation miscarried "babies" (and they most certainly will soon!), same as they would for the tragedy of a 4-year-old who dies of leukemia, then I'll believe that they really think life begins at the moment of conception. In the meantime, it's abundantly clear that their chief unstated motive is to exert control over women's bodies and choices.

I had a burial for my 8 week gestation miscarriage, and mourned that child terribly. I honestly and truly believe that life begins at conception.

I haven't the slightest interest in controlling your choices that don't impact others....and ending the life of a child impacts that child. I am personally actually very pro-birth control...I think it prevents abortions, and is just a wonderful advance in people having control over their own reproductive lives, and I've used birth control myself. But I know that there are people who are opposed to it, and don't think they should be forced to pay for birth control when it violates their beliefs.

Shoiuld someone's religious belief trump the need for others to get help for a possible medical condition? If your religion tells you should have as many kids as your are blessed with, great, and if birth control was used ONLY to prevent pregnancy then I understand, but don't agree. However, I take the pill for a condition. If I had to pay full price for it, it would be a strain and I may have to skip a couple of months. That will impact my health and worsen my symptoms and condition.

So is it ok for me or other's to suffer because it goes agaisnt someone's religious beliefs?

So don't work for an institution that takes those beliefs seriously. Work for someone else.

And you call yourself a child of God? You are a good Christian who loves and cares for all? But really you don't care if women suffer because they can't afford a medication they need?

Presumably they'll get their reward in the next life, so it all comes out in the wash.

Oh, wait. I screwed up transcribing that last quote.

Please, in lieu of "liberal, Carter-appointed" it should read "Reagan-appointed conservative justice", and where it says "wrote the justice" it should say, "wrote Scalia, an avowed Catholic and social conservative, in an opinion that was cosigned by four other justices."

As with everything else American "conservatives" do, it's all about situational ethics: IOKIYAR. Freedom for me to remove your freedoms. And an "activist judge" is someone that does what our judges do, but doesn't do it to the benefit of the conservative agenda.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually this sudden burst of issues on this is because the economy is getting better and now it is not clear that the republicans can beat Obama on jobs 9the economy is doing a little better and it is possible by November will be doing much better) so instead they turn to the issues of abortion and contraception and try to swing votes in that way. The republicans can rely on the religious and others that hate women to join in the melee.

No the sudden burst of issues is because Obama's HHS issued a rule that requires religious organizations who have never paid for birth control to start doing so.

Actually, many states have similar regulations. Not only that, but the Supreme Court agrees:

The [liberal, Carter-appointed] justice authored the majority opinion in the 1990 decision Employment Division v. Smith, a critical precedent to the birth control case, decreeing that religious liberty is insufficient grounds for being exempt from laws. The Supreme Court said Oregon may deny unemployment benefits to people who were fired for smoking peyote as part of a religious tradition, seeing as the drug was illegal in the state.

“To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself,” wrote the justice

Anonymous wrote:I a glad that we are seeing such open-mindedness from the left on this thread. Is this same closed-minded attack mentality what you accuse the right of?

You'll have to be more specific. By "closed-minded attack mentality" do you mean "valid and realitively moderate criticism"?

Anonymous wrote:Do liberals not understand they are trying to force their views and their morality on conservatives just as much as conservatives are pushing their views. The only difference is whether or not you agree with the position taken.

In general, the liberal position is the one that increases individual freedom of choice/conscience. The outliers here are "freedom from paying taxes", and "freedom to own as many firearms as you can afford". Even in the case of environmental laws, or say, CAFE standards, "liberal" legislation is not a curtailment of freedom so much as a belief that negative externalities should be paid for.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It boils down to abortion.

Anti abortion people are trying to get the camel's nose under the edge of the tent. Personhood laws are just a first step. If it's a person you can't abort it.

Same thing for the pill/IUD etc. If life begins when the sperm meets the egg, then you can't support interfering with implantation.

Religious people can't compromise on when life begins. They can't give any deadline when eliminating a zygote is OK. Because that would be admitting that there is some deadline where eliminating a zygote is OK.

Now, why this concern for the unborn in a society that shows so little regard for the living? That is another question. Of course there's the adorable little baby factor.

But if you ask many feminists, they will go back to power, specifically sexual power, specifically the awesome power of life that women possess, and me do not. Men's desire to own and control that power is what has defined gender roles and laws for millenia.

Basically I believe that allowing abortion acknowledges that females are the ultimate earthly arbiters of life and death. And no patriarchal religion, and no person indoctrinated by said religions, can tolerate that.

So how do you explain women who are pro-life? Are we all indoctrinated and incapable of coming to a pro-life conclusion without being pressured by men? If that is what you believe, you have a pretty dim view of the intelligence of hundreds of thousands of women.

Exactly! That would mean that there are cultural forces that conspire to make some set of the oppressed class complicit in their own oppression. And obviously that's impossible!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe that if men get prostate cancer, it is the will of the Lord for them to suffer and die and treating this condition interferes with the Lord's will. This affects me because I am part of an insurance group that offers unholy treatment for this condition, and I believe it is sinful to contradict His will yet my money pays for this.

Fine. When you start a company that pursues your set of religious beliefs as part of its mission and you make that public, tell people before you hire them that you won't pay for the coverage. Fine by me.

Meanwhile I'm going to deny black people coverage. Whoopee! Back we go to the days of Jim Crow...

(And you thought many of these questions were settled when blacks were given full rights as citizens at the point of a gun a half century ago. Guess not.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha!!! YOU are tired??? Yooooooooooou are tired?!

I am tired, exhausted even, from fighting to have my relationship recognized by my government. It has real consequences in my life- retirement, custody, insurance, etc. There is no secular argument against recognizing my marriage, only a religious one.

Tired. Pshaw. I'll show you tired.

This is where many conservative religious leaders miss the point. No one is suggesting that a particular church must give blessings to same sex couples. The argument is that the state, not a church, should recognize these relationships. Fundamental difference. Religious conservatives want to impose their views on others. No one is requiring churches to recognize same sex couples, or requiring others to enter such relationships.

Right. To take it a step further, the problem all started when religious institutions agreed to be co-opted into secular affairs. "Marriage" confers a certain set of privileges upon couples. Inheritance rights, visitation rights, insurance coverage, to name just a few. Religious institutions claimed the right to "create" these unions, which then had secular ramifications. If the state had no finger in "marriage" whatsoever, and all couples (whatever the sexual orientation) simply registered for a "civil union", we wouldn't have any of these deeper issues. And religious institutions could either endorse such civil unions via "marriage" if they chose, or not.

It's pretty rich, though, that certain religious organizations fight tooth and nail against same-sex marriage based on the far-fetched possibility they might be required to perform a SS ceremony. Meanwhile, religious institutions that condone same-sex marriage are expressly forbidden by the state from doing so.

Religious freedom for me, but not for thee.

Obviously the people who want to redefine all agnostics as atheists realize that 100% certainty that God doesn't exist is intellectually indefensible. But this has always struck me as silly, because if everybody with a even slight question about God is an atheist, then you've redefined Mother Theresa as an atheist, and you've also redefined all people who call themselves "agnostic" right out of existence by relabeling them all atheists.

Proving a negative a logical impossibility. That is not positive evidence of a god. The strength of Mother Theresa's belief is irrelevant. If I were to make the claim to Dawkins that the tree in my backyard is "God", he would have the same level of "doubt" as he does about claims of any other type of god. No more, no less.

Anonymous wrote:

RantingAtheist wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once again, please explain for us how Mother Theresa, who had a little doubt, is an atheist. If you can't explain this, your fairy analogy falls apart.

Could you flesh this out a bit? Because it doesn't seem to follow.

No, because I've explained it several times already. If you don't want to engage, just say so. Or better, stop posting about fairies already, until you're able to defend the analogy.

"You can't make a man understand what he does not want to understand." (or something like that)
-- Sinclair

Perhaps someone else can explain what PP is talking about.

"If you can't explain how Mother Theresa (who twinges of doubt) is an atheist, then "belief in gods" is saner than "belief in faries"?

Can anyone else follow this argument? Thanks.

Just want to say that...

Democratic Liberalism...[is] universal, prescriptive, and total. [It] provide[s] recipes, rules, and norms regarding every aspect of existence - individual, social, cultural, moral, economic, political, military, and philosophical.

Is one of the more unintentionally hilarious things I've read on DCUM. Presumably this was written (and quoted) by a social conservative "dittohead" of some sort.

Great stuff!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

As in, if the Catholic Church wants to play politics, it can't then cry foul when people play right back.

-signed a liberal Catholic

Secular religions - Democratic Liberalism, Communism, Fascism, Nazism, Socialism

You can try to combine liberal with Catholicism but you will molest both beliefs in attempt to blend them. It's like trying to put the square shape in the round hole.

Just to provide the full quote from your cray-cray website link:

Secular religions - Democratic Liberalism, Communism, Fascism, Nazism, Socialism and other isms - are more akin to Islam than to, let's say, Buddhism. They are universal, prescriptive, and total. They provide recipes, rules, and norms regarding every aspect of existence - individual, social, cultural, moral, economic, political, military, and philosophical.

Good stuff!

Furthermore:

Anonymous wrote:Once again, please explain for us how Mother Theresa, who had a little doubt, is an atheist. If you can't explain this, your fairy analogy falls apart.

Could you flesh this out a bit? Because it doesn't seem to follow.

Anonymous wrote:

RantingAtheist wrote:One last thing: this is usually where the discussion goes of the rails, and we get the inevitable response, "How dare you call me crazy!"

To reiterate, statements like this make you look like a douchebag.

Thanks for reminding me; you're right, of course. What I should have said is, this is where the discussion goes of the rails and the response is either "how dare you call me crazy" or, in your case, some variation of "go fuck yourself."

Yep, the problem is cultural conservatives want to dictate how people live their lives. Rather than stick to matters of the soul, the largest of the organized religions have essentially turned into huge tax-free Super PACs and aligned themselves with a right-wing partisan agenda.

As the saying goes, "politics ain't bean-bag" (whatever that means). Sorry, you don't get to climb down into the muck of partisan politics, doing your damnedest to legislate your moral code on everyone, then the second you get pushback, put your lacy hankie to your lips and cry foul.

It's funny how the larger the religious institution gets, the more political power it craves, and the more it inserts itself into the process. If you're in Saudi Arabia, the Muslims want to write the laws according to Islam. And the Christians are meek and quiet--after all there's an injunction to "render unto Ceasar".

Turn the tables, and in the US, the conservative Christians want to implement their own version of sharia, and the Muslims just want to be left alone.

Either way, bullying behavior by the "over-dog" is inevitable.

But to the subject of the thread, there's no requirement to be tolerant of intolerance.