nt

when he refers to people being "coerced to put a piece of duct tape over their mouth, keeping them from bring their deepest-held convictions to the conversations." I very much doubt that he thinks that people who criticize religion have had their speech unduly suppressed. For religious folk, the whole "public square" talking point means that religious beliefs and doctrines should be able to infiltrate and influence every aspect of government and public life, but be subject to none of the scrutiny, critical examination and criticism that are part and parcel of that same "public square".

Succinct and spot on.

who tried to peddle this as an "interesting perspective" has no response. Or to any other substantive comments.

These creeps have been pushing the boundary with the IRS for the last couple of decades, discovered that the federal government is too weak/corrupt to push back, and they no longer even bother to pretend they aren't politicking from the pulpit.

does not place any religious view over any other and does not let religion dictate the laws. Get over that!

Yes, candidates used religious rhetoric, but not religious policy. FDR said a prayer on D-Day. But nothing he did in any way was to impose his beliefs on his country.

The smarmy religiosity of the Republicans is disgusting. The fact is that they use this as a weapon to oppose everything that Obama or any Democrat proposes.

Stop it, Cardinal. You're hurting my country. Shame on you!

"The separation of church and state is certainly a major advance in human history and political theory. Under no circumstances should religious leaders ever be given political power merely because they are part of a religious hierarchy. Iran provides the latest example of how theocracy always corrupts both religion and politics."

Flesh and blood people or religiocorporate people?

What do you think?

I think I'm not smart enough to figure it out.

There are a lot of questions to answer. When does a religion become a lobbyist organization or a media empire? When does a religious leader become a lobbyist or CEO? How do we measure, thus regulate, the relationship between organization and membership?

I tend to consider the religious experience an emotional exercise and the collective emotions of any individual or group a natural resource subject to exploitation just like oil or natural gas. Emotion is the currency and in the case of religion or any other lobbyist group votes are the unit of exchange. It could well be argued that politicians and lobbyists deal in "emotional futures".

If the emotional energy flows from the organization to its following it has to be broadcast. That makes it fairly easy to monitor and regulate. If, on the other hand, the organization or leader serves as a focus of that energy upon representatives of government it gets dicey, doesn't it? We have enough trouble with the lobbyists we have now without creating a whole new class of them.

Political realities aside, one way to determine "religious corporate personhood" is to calculate revenue on a per member basis. Thus, a religion could have as many members as it can attract, but there would be a profit cap to deincentivize capital accumulation. Exceed the cap and you just became a lobbyist organization, subject to heightened scrutiny and taxation. Of course actually making that happen would be like regulating air.

Secular public education and social services is probably the best. Of course religion should stay out of conservative pet interests like law enforcement and national defense. It should also stay out of liberal interests as well like feeding and clothing the poor. Both are just privatization of public resources and both erode the only legitimate "political religion" which is liberal nationalism. If religious leaders can't deliver a product to their followers in the form of tailored cultural design they lose their market and along with it their profit motive. Why exploit an energy resource of you can't sell it?

There are a couple of ideas anyway. If nothing else they should be good for a laugh.

I think they should. But that does not speak to the prostituting of religion or a particular church for political influence. The gop does not own Christian belief, and the Cardinal's involvement in petty partisan politics for government influence does not speak well for his devotion to his faith nor his guidance to the Catholic faithful. But, that's just my view.

Get over that!

Let's say there is a tribe that has established a balanced relation with the local ecosystem that it belongs to that does not destroy the carrying capacity of the ecosystem (but rather enriches it) and allows future generations to continue that way of life, based on practical anarchy and animistic world view (one sort of politico-religious entanglement, if you like).

Now let's suppose there is an individual who feels he should be a Big Man and others should respect his wish to establish private ownership and freedom of consumeristic exploitation of the natural resources of the local ecosystem that would lead to gradual destruction of the carrying capacity. Why shouldn't the other members of the tribe have the right to oppress and persecute the individual wanting to be a Big Man by ridicule and other forms of psychological violence and if necessary physical violence and exclusion from the tribe?

"oppress and persecute the individual" when he posted that. That's not oppression. That's opposition.

Oppression and persecution are always bad.

are important, IMHO, and I don't know how oppression and persecution could be defined objectively. They are rather subjective sentiments - and as such no less valid - and who am I to say that the Big Man individual wouldn't have right to feel oppressed and persecuted when facing opposition from the rest of the tribe against his own politico-religious dream of becoming Scrooge McDonald.

that meet the scenario you gave. And I don't mean they have to be just dictionary definitions, but that's a place to start.

Claiming "semantics" doesn't do anything to counter the fact that words have actual meanings and those two words do no, in any sense, match your scenario. That Big Man might claim to be oppressed and persecuted is much like Christians in the US claiming they are oppressed and persecuted in our culture. They can say it, but it doesn't make it true.

of words are the actual mental and emotional reactions that happen subjectively. Dictionary definitions and more generally networks of connotations that are studied in general linguistics are potential meanings, actual meanings actualize subjectively.

That Big Man might claim to oppressed and persecuted not unlike Christians, Atheists, Banksters, militant feminists etc. etc. may claim they are oppressed and persecuted in a this or that culture refers to the actualized meaning, not the full potential scope of meanings and connotations of the words.

It's all a social game of playing the victim card and getting an upper hand in terms of guilt-tripping in the politico-religious-ideological-world view games that form our cultures and communities. Of which I'm also part, and from my point of view if I could, I would like to take away from banksters and corrupt politicians and priests and scientists their monetary power and ability to keep on destroying the carrying capacity of this planet. And if and when they claimed oppression and persecution I would just say tell there's nothing better I like to do than oppress and persecute assholes like you who want to be Big Men by oppressing and persecuting others live more modestly and humbly. But alas, I don't have such power...

At least, here in the US, where religion and religious reasoning has no place in governance (and really therefore in politics).

More Christian privilege.

Mr. Dolan claims that "Nor can we argue purely from revelation: why should other citizens respect our opinions if we do not present them as applicable to all people regardless of religion?" That's precisely the problem: hiding under your tax-exempt mantle of “revealed” holiness, you want to tell the rest of us what to do, and how to live. The bottom line is that absolutely NO ONE is coming into our Churches or places of worship and telling believers what to believe.....or forcing them to use contraception. BUT If the Bishops (and other denominations) want to continue running businesses outside of their places of worship...businesses that employ millions of people of varying faiths -or no "faith" at all- THEN they must play by the same rules and rights that other workers live by and enjoy (especially if their businesses use our tax dollars, and skip paying taxes, in the process). If the Jehovah's Witnesses church hires me, can they alter my health insurance to exclude blood transfusions? Even worse- what if they operated a hospital by their “rules”? This is not a “war on religion”. Never was. However, it IS a war BY some religions... on women and men who simply want to plan their families, to control their futures, to keep their jobs, and to have health insurance that allows them to do that. Likewise It is a war -not on religion- but on gays and others who the church deems to be second class citizens, and targets of its venom. The churches (or the IRS) need to decide whether these churches are  going to be political organizations proclaiming and practicing partisan politics from the pulpit...or....tax-exempt places of WORSHIP. Not both. Not in America.

Color me shocked.

Yeah. Don't see that happening. More sickening victimhood from the religious right.

Nobody's coercing anyone to put duct tape on their mouths, but if the religious want to shout their unsubstantiated beliefs in the public square, and inject them into politics, then they have opened those beliefs up for debate and, yes, criticism.

The Fundies' idea of "religious freedom" is the freedom to impose their religion on others.

And their idea of "freedom of speech" is the freedom to speak, without being spoken to.

Those who wish to mingle religion with government should not be voted into office, and those already in office should be voted out. It is one thing to hold religious beliefs for oneself, and an entirely other thing to hold religious beliefs over people's heads.

Let the Cardinal look after his willing flock and leave the rest of us alone. That'd be great.