I think this is a point not mentioned frequently enough. Many of us are sufficiently secularist that we think that people having religious objections to something is just a pose.
But that’s not the case. There are many, many people in the world who have actual religious principles and religious scruples. It doesn’t matter if they’re wrong, ignorant, misinformed, etc. They’re not kidding and that’s the reality on the ground.
Dave Schuler: They’re not kidding and that’s the reality on the ground.
No doubt.
Religion is more than “principles and scruples.” It is also a whole lot of ritual, like prayers, sacraments, genuflection, blessing cars, weddings, funerals, and the like.
It is also about inflicting pain like Prohibition, Sunday closings, public prayers, Ten Commandment monuments and Gideon Bibles on non-believers.
No, I think they are damn serious. When they stopped my sister’s insulin and decided they would pray out the demons to make her better they were incredibly sincere and serious. They were still wrong and there is no shortage of people who are sincere and inconsistent.
Steve
It’s not just many people in the world, it’s the vast majority. There are very few that subscribe to our notions of secular small “l” liberalism or secular humanism. Additionally, our own self-righteousness isn’t much different in character from the righteousness found in all other corners of the earth.
And our armies of NGOs, armed with antibiotics, immunizations, birth control, and dangerous ideas are no less threatening to the ways of life of people in many places than our military is.
Oh, and the things others want from us – they want them on their terms, not ours and for their purposes, not ours.
“When they stopped my sister’s insulin and decided they would pray out the demons to make her better they were incredibly sincere and serious. They were still wrong and there is no shortage of people who are sincere and inconsistent.”
Such behavior is the exception and not the rule. You know that. You also are aware that inane beliefs co-exist with more pragmatic ones on this planet. However, IMO, it’s dishonest to equate ‘demon practices’ with those having and espousing long-held conventional religious beliefs — beliefs that value life, even those considered to be viable human beings in early embryonic stages.
That was the crux of this controversial court decision which was so distorted in the NYT and other more liberal news venues. Such media outlets adversely politicized and painted a broad conclusive brush on all contraceptive avenues, rather than truthfully reporting on the 4 out of 20 options that were disallowed under this ruling — the ones that were seen as causing abortion rather than prohibiting conception.
jan: truthfully reporting on the 4 out of 20 options that were disallowed under this ruling
That’s not quite correct. The Supreme Court ordered a review of cases that involve other forms of birth control in light of the Hobby Lobby decision. Of note, while most forms of contraception, including those that Hobby Lobby objected to, work primarily by preventing fertilization, even the Pill can sometimes result in a spontaneous loss of a fertilized egg.
Furthermore, the logic as applied to contraception can be directly applied to most any law where people claim a religious objection.
“The rule respondents favor would open the prospect of constitutionally required religious exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind — ranging from compulsory military service to the payment of taxes to health and safety regulation such as manslaughter and child neglect laws, compulsory vaccination laws, drug laws, and traffic laws; to social welfare legislation such as minimum wage laws, child labor laws, animal cruelty laws, environmental protection laws, and laws providing for equality of opportunity for the races.” — Employment Division v. Smith