Off to church kirkstaller?

Not had enough martyrdom this week?

People can say what they like, but if you climb up a ladder and start shouting out hateful bigoted mumbo jumbo thinking that you're justified to do that because Barry Sandals has esoterically granted you a licence for such activities from two thousand years ago, don't be surprised if you are quite correctly arrested.

Barry Sandals

That was covered in my first statement. No influence in matters of the state includes no exemptions from following rules/laws the rest of us have to follow.

As an atheist but believer in free speech I have no objection to people preaching to those who wish to listen. They can say homosexuality is a sin, drinking is a sin, adultery is a sin or eating pork is a sin. It would be evident to all free thinking individuals that they are talking rubbish. The same would apply to a far right organisation campaigning for repatriation of immigrants. Where the line would be crossed would be if they urged violence to be used against sinners or immigrants.

As for people in politics making decisions based on their religious beliefs, I think this would be a very dangerous idea.

People should be able to hold whatever beliefs they want.

But there is no logical reason that any personal views should gain a particular influence in society on the basis of those views alone.

If someone stands as a political candidate on a clear manifesto based on such views, and wins, then fair enough. But otherwise, no.

In the US, the separation of church and state is inherent to the constitution, as it should be in the UK. The thought of POTUS or the UKPM making decisions based on a conversation with a voice in their head is appalling. This separation appears to have passed by many US voters who continue to hold some remarkable predjudices - it appears you can believe almost what you like as long as you aren't a 'non believer': www.gallup.com/file/poll/155282/ ... ups%20.pdf [i[size=88Between now and the 2012 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates -- their education, age, religion, race, and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be [ , would you vote for that person?[/size[/i [code2012 Jun 7-10 Yes No Black 96 4 A woman 95 5 Catholic 94 5 Hispanic 92 7 Jewish 91 6 Mormon 80 18 Gay/lesbian 68 30 Muslim 58 40 An atheist 54 43[/code

In the US, the separation of church and state is inherent to the constitution, as it should be in the UK. The thought of POTUS or the UKPM making decisions based on a conversation with a voice in their head is appalling. This separation appears to have passed by many US voters who continue to hold some remarkable predjudices - it appears you can believe almost what you like as long as you aren't a 'non believer': www.gallup.com/file/poll/155282/ ... ups%20.pdf [i[size=88Between now and the 2012 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates -- their education, age, religion, race, and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be [ , would you vote for that person?[/size[/i [code2012 Jun 7-10 Yes No Black 96 4 A woman 95 5 Catholic 94 5 Hispanic 92 7 Jewish 91 6 Mormon 80 18 Gay/lesbian 68 30 Muslim 58 40 An atheist 54 43[/code

The great workings of the churches/mosques, changing the meaning of words.

^ All the above.

To reverse the question, what grounds are there for suggesting ANY religious organisation should have a voice in governance, education or any other aspect of day to day life?

I fully agree with you.

One of the stories I mentioned in my opening post was that of a Cumbrian street preacher who was harassed and wrongly arrested for exercising his right to free speech and preaching the Gospel. Thankfully, he later received an apology and compensation from the force.



Fair enough.

That example of a street preacher being arrested is plainly wrong, as long as they're not harassing people then they should be allowed to say what they want.

However there was a bit on the page Kirkstaller linked to that mentioned a registrar not wanting to do certain marriages, that's just tough sh|t. You can't pick and choose which laws you want to obey, if you feel you can't carry out the job then you need to resign.

Also, this made me giggle just a little -
"Earlier this year Lord Carey warned that Christians in Britain are being treated as “bigots” and sacked for expressing their beliefs.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury also warned of a “drive to remove Judaeo-Christian values from the public square”.

He accused Britain’s courts of consistently applying “equality law to discriminate against Christians”."
Is it their faith that leads to such fecked-up reasoning? Or were they born this thick?

That is an interesting case and I don't quite know where I stand on it.

On one hand the nature of this registrar’s job changed after she had already taken up the role. If she had known that she would be compelled to conduct services between same-sex couple beforehand she might not have taken the job. However on the other hand, her religious convictions do not seem to be compromised when conducting civil ceremonies between men and women.

My own view is that in situations like this is best to act pragmatically. If reasonable adjustments could be made whereby she only conducted civil marriages and that civil partnerships were picked up by other colleagues, then that would be the best course of action. I expect that many of the awkward squad will chirp up and say that this would lead to racists being afforded similar adjustments, but that’s just plain silly. We do not have case upon case of racists asking for their beliefs to be accommodated. A person’s religious beliefs should be respected in a civil society and if a resolution can be reached whereby no one is wronged, then such adjustments are sensible.

Indeed.

The 'harassment' aspect is interesting. What actually counts as harassment?

For instance, if a doctor tells a patient that he'll pray with them – is that harassment or on a par with someone knocking on your door to preach at you?

I don't think either is 'harassment', as such, but one does mean that someone is taking advantage of a position over someone who is in a more vulnerable one.

I tend toward the argument that there is – and should not be – any law against not being 'offended'. That has to work both ways.



The Lilian Ladele case was (is) deeply annoying. What it amounts to – and this was stated at tribunal – is that she wanted to be favoured over her colleagues, in terms of being able to dictate what parts of her job she carried out and what parts she did not.

The last I heard, she was still campaigning (sending letters to each member of the House of Lords) – and funded by a fundamentalist Christian organisation.

There's been at least one subsequent similar case that I am aware of – which does seem to suggest a situation of councils having a poor recruitment policy or people deliberately getting into such jobs disingenuously in order to provoke a situation over the issue of civil partnerships.



Carey is a particular prat. He also claimed, some time ago, that the court judgement in favour of Max Mosely over the [iNews of the Screws[/i 'story' was bad, since such dreadful behaviour as Mosely's should be revealed to the public for all to judge.

It seems to have passed the old cretin by that:

• most people will have bought the paper and read the story for reasons of titilation. Any subsequent moralising will merely be to clear their own consciences of the initial titilation;

• even if they read the story in order to cast a moral judgement, it rather forgets all that stuff about "he who is without sin".

There's been masses of other stuff: wearing a cross, for instance. It has never been a necessary, mandated part of being a Christian.

Not that this is limited to Christianity. There are stories about Muslim shop workers not wanting to touch alcohol or pork at work. While this is not an indicator of any mass situation, it does appear to have occurred.

Similarly, there are reports of increasing numbers of religious pharmacists refusing to provide the morning-after pill to women – on the grounds of their religious beliefs. We've had nurses going to tribunal because they get upset at being near women who have had or are waiting for an abortion (the employer in this case had already put them onto work patterns that didn't mean they were directly involved in any abortion).

There was a whole fuss about whether Muslims in an operating room could actually wear short sleeves.

A few years ago, I was asked to help with a bit of advice when a new ageish cafe in the north of England was feeling its collar was being metaphorically felt by the local evangelical church (with big local business backer).

Let's be clear that all these cases still only represent a minority of religious people in the UK. But it seems that such incidents are either themselves increasing or are being increasingly reported. Yet this is at a time when it is probably fair to say that religious observance has decreased in the country at large.

So what's actually going on?

Did no religious person ever actually complain about such things in the past – or have employers started making staff do things that go against their particular religion only recently?

Is there a heightened religious sensibility developing – and if so, why and why now?

And this is without mentioning the rise of religious protests against, say, [iJerry Springer: The Opera[/i or books of poetry or plays – acts not limited to adherents of any one religion.

I don't agree with this statement on any level, but particularly not in cases where those beliefs affect a person's willingness to do the job they are paid to do, or to obey the same laws everyone else obeys.

What if she had said that she didn't wish to officiate in same-sex marriages because she thought that all gay people had AIDS and that she could catch it by being in the same room? There would be absolutely no evidence to back up such a ridiculous claim, but it's no more ridiculous than the belief that there is an all-powerful being who doesn't want two people of the same sex to marry each other. Unsubstantiated religious beliefs shouldn't be afforded any more respect or consideration than any other unsubstantiated belief.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-18847588And speaking of such matters...[/url

[i"Cardinal O'Brien has already authorised a plan to raise £100,000 through special church collections to support the Scotland For Marriage campaign against same-sex marriage."[/i

This says everything that needs to be said about the Catholic Church. If they can raise £100k, wouldn't their God prefer that they use it to help those in need rather than to oppress those who are different? Help starving children, or force their dubious 'morality' on others? It's easy to guess which path the Catholic Church will choose every time.

Spot on, Mintball. And personally I think that Christianity is feeling challenged in this country for the first time in recent history, by atheism, Islam and a general lack of respect for religion and Christianity. So some are trying to fight back and their true views on gays, women etc are brought to the fore from being hidden away when things weren't so bad and even if people didn't really turn up to church they still called themselves Christian. For the first time in their lives my parents didn't put themselves down as Christian on the Census. They've never attended church in their lives other than for weddings/funerals etc but have always hesitantly called themselves Christian. That's changed, and I think the more "devout" have noted this steady but gradual change over the last few decades and can see the end is nigh.

Did anyone else see [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-18784782this[/url last week?

It was a story about a medieval Welsh manuscript, [iThe Laws of Hywel Dda[/i, that was sold at auction in the US.

Where this is interesting in terms of this discussion is that this 10th century book indicates that, in Wales at the time, marriage was considered an agreement, not a holy sacrament.

In other words, it shows as factually incorrect the claims that marriage has always been religious.

Religion is part of our cultural heritage. To pretend otherwise would be ridiculous. But some of the claims of some people are far from having any historic accuracy. So when people either lie – or are utterly uninformed – why should they be able to have a special voice in public life on the basis of the beliefs that causes them to spout misinformation?

None whatsoever.


Yes.


They haven't been.

[urlhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2174181/Sales-rep-repeatedly-accused-gay-didn-t-like-football-wins-44-000-payout-harassment.html[/url

Sometimes having strong religious views can lead to expensive court cases...

If your religious beliefs are compromised by your job its time to change profession.

On a side note, i have never understood why homosexuals would seek to be in a religion which demonises their sexual orientation. All religions, like this forum, have their rules and if you don't like them don't join.

If your religious beliefs are compromised by your job its time to change profession.

On a side note, i have never understood why homosexuals would seek to be in a religion which demonises their sexual orientation. All religions, like this forum, have their rules and if you don't like them don't join.

The sad and inexplicable thing is how, in the 21st century, so many people still feel the need to believe in some god or other, instead of just accepting full personal responsibility for their actions.

Adults should within legal limits have freedom of expression, which involvs beliefs, however dotty, as long as this odes not infringe on the rights of others to go about their lawful business.

However the law should ban any child being in any way indoctrinated in any form of religion. Religion should be allowed for adults only. The sad fact is that the overwhelming majority of the religious are only adherents of their flavour of religion because they were brainwashed into it during their infancy and youth, and are now pressurised in very many cases to conform.

I've got to agree with this, it baffles me.

Agreed. And if such a law was passed we'd see the (almost) complete disappearance of religion within a generation or two.

I don't know whether it's the more "devout", Him, or just a certain type of devout people.

I think that, post 9/11, it became clearer that the religious mainstream had pretty much faded away (certainly in terms of Christian attendance etc in the UK. Perhaps a vacuum in that part of religious life in the country has then allowed the more extremist or fundamentalist types to move into that space and effectively become much more mainstream? Perhaps it was also partly a defensive reaction to the extremism highlighted by 9/11, and the widespread response to that?

I'd also throw into the mix that perhaps there's also an element of the general state of affairs in the world/country leaving people feeling that things are so bad they need an alternative – and this is perhaps particularly true when, for a long time, we have little in the way of a serious mainstream political alternative.

It's an analysis I've heard of what happened in Middle Eastern countries after the death of Nasser seemed to herald an end to any meaningful, secular opposition to Western-style capitalist exploitation and power. It helped to boost an extremist form of Islam that was or became bound up with nationalism.

I wonder if there's an element of that going on here, because although the mainstream has declined, more fundamentalist groups and churches are growing.

I think that the Vatican certainly saw the gap – perhaps in terms of suiting its hierarchy as to wanting to take the church back to more 'traditionalist' attitudes. You see this in a number of things, but it includes the reintroduction of some older liturgy by the current pope.

The Anglican church is in a different situation, with opposites almost pulling apart the Anglican communion.

But perhaps there's also an element of prudery in the general population that gives the religious an easier time of it. Just look at [url=http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/uk-politics/2012/07/school-sex-education-genitalsthis[/url. But even non-religious people have difficulty with the issue – and indeed, often come down on similar lines as the religious, for a whole range of reasons, including an absolute terror of the idea of child sexuality (and there's a religious undercurrent, in seeing sexuality as something only for adults that remains essentially a bit naughty). So the religious get to have an easy run at things like this.

Yet we know that poor sex education – including abstinence-only sex education – produce poor results. There are reasons that the Netherlands has lower rates of teenage pregnancy and single parenthood than anywhere else in western Europe (and the US). It has very good sex education – and also a lower age of consent.

But religion is also about control. And I do wonder how many of the politicians of the last 20 years, who have sucked up to religion, actually share those beliefs or just mouth the correct platitudes.

Actually, I wonder how many people do that in general – calling for the plebs to be more religious in order to be better behaved (obviously not them, because they don't need religion to be good – see Dally and Titan)?

Well, anyway – just a few thoughts.

Quite a few, I reckon.
There does seem to be a view out there that one cannot have a moral compass or decide for oneself what is right or wrong without the word of a deity to provide the rules.
I guess, once someone has accepted that the men (rarely women) who wrote it down were given the words direct from a deity, then it's not possible within the framework of their belief to accept a moral code that doesn't have that stamp of divine approval.
Hence, it's pointless arguing that issue with those who have that belief.

Nonetheless, despite my being an atheist, I do reckon that Jesus' philosophy was a decent one.
It doesn't actually matter whether it was god's word, Jesus' word or someone else's word written years later ...what matters to me is the validity of the philosophy and whether the rules seem right.
And, in general, they do.
Would that Christians would abide by them.