[Note Immanuel, that this is a long response. I will be patient to not look for a quick response if you so choose. Break it up if need be. I notice that I made some trivial errors that in context I'll keep in where I think you can recognize. Had to fix the missing quotes but may have left the odd word where I was about to say one thing but opted to change in midstream.
...like when you just peed and thought you were done but then discovered you still had a few drips more ....after you pulled up your pants! 
]
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Nov 03, 2020 6:08 pm
Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Tue Nov 03, 2020 12:56 pm
America's First Amendment was intent on preventing any PARTICULAR religious ideology from imposing laws based on the general
because-God-says-it-is-right type of mentality.
Hmmm.
It was actually created for the opposite: for the prevention of government's "abridging" religion, meaning making edicts to prevent it. One's beliefs were to be guarded by a right of free conscience. It was not the
government it was designed to protect: it was the "religions." So you're about half right, there.
That's a big error on your part. The reasoning was due to the fact that Imperialism of England was imposing their rule over the colonists for merely expecting their own laws as though divinity was proxied through the King. The fact that many believed that some people ARE 'divine' over others relates to the nature of the systems to define SPECIFIC favor of PARTICULAR people who rule based on nothing but declarations of superiority by their self-declared connection to God,...their RELIGION!
To avoid this, which happens to include those who are still religious, is to assert a government constituted to require specific justification of laws based ONLY on Earthly human sources, not things that could not IN PRINCIPLE be proven nor disproven with regards to the speaker's beliefs about themselves. That it happened to favor many anti-Anglican religions was merely incidental. But the fact that the vast majority of people in all times are stupid with respect to their emotional beliefs about Nature (as through their 'gods') assures that they will do whatever it takes to overthrow (or reinterpret) this rule in such a way that will eventually remove it in practice. That is, particular elected governments at critical periods of time will get in power and force a reinterpretation of this to be about religious 'freedom' to IMPOSE upon others their will based upon religious ideology. This is happening right now in the U.S. by how Trump, for instance, has put in place a judge of such religious ideology to make the majority of the INTERPRETERS of the Constitution of final say, dictate what that First Amendment means in a way that favors reilgious lawmaking.
You prove how successful such things play out by how you misinterpret the history and intent of such a law of freedom. Why, for instance, would the purpose of the Amendement regarding the power of government be placed in that particular law regarding free speech if it were not for recognizing the risk of free speech that can be overturned by particular governments? That is, why is 'religion' mentioned at all in a UNIVERSAL clause about all people's rights under your interpretation if it is sufficient that people are 'free' to speak their mind without consequences for just stopping at "Everyone has the freedom to say what they like as long as such freedom doesn't impose upon the rights of others to the same?" (a type of liberal expression that would cover all people)
The ONLY reason that such an addition regarding speech was for the same reason the Second Amendment was set out: to cancel the right of contemprorary governments to overthrow ones' right to free speech, given only THEY have this power. The freedom in the Amendment is about the populous at large. But one's particular religious beliefs, where used as a foundation for their intepretation of making laws when in power, is justified independent of the reasons they use when actually writing laws. That is, you CAN use personal emotional inspiration as an underlying motive for making laws. But to properly set out a law that is DEMOCRATICALLY respective of the populous, requires that you argue to set out the law without reference to things that cannot be equally shared by interpretation across all people in society, not just the relative religious beliefs of the present government.
You DO represent the problem of the present conditions in the U.S. though. If Trump and his followers had their way, they'd remove this caveate in law altogether so that they CAN impose lawmaking that lacks any accountability to the public's share universal beliefs. Thus, for instance, if this 'interpretation' of the Amendment tossed out the limits of government, Trump would easily be able to assert that he made some law arbitrarily of his own
pretense of belief in some claims he makes today by utilizing his religious-like belief that the news is all conspired against him. Without the extension of that Amendment to not establish a religion, he'd be able to create a law that denied the power of the media to say anything he disapproved of on the faulty interpretation that the law asserts his OWN personal right to assume he has potential DIVINE rights to make laws without regardless of the populatity of the people.
When we elect someone to represent ALL people, those who rule without consent to the people do so by declaring Nature (via God) as favoring their particular action. This is done to evade ACCOUNTABILITY and is a free get-out-of-jail type of leadership.
This hasn't happened in the entire history of the United States, actually. So I can't imagine what you're talking about...it must be some sort of Dictatorial Theocracy, but I can't imagine which one.
I just gave Trump as an example. Note that he is not remotely religious by context to how his beliefs. Yet, he pretends to be 'religious' because he knows that this can justify arbitrary excuses of his own interpretation of expression. He has been making Presidential power laws that disrespect the other houses should they oppose him. The idea of simply being able to have the "unspoken" rules of privilege granted to prior Presidents, have granted him the justification to utilize these rules in a religious-like way: by the nature of BEING the elected President, he presumes that he can utilze the prior nature of 'trust' in tradition of the office to these actions in a way that lacks social appeal. For instance, much of the 'traditional' things that the government has added were initially set out without intended harm. But while society LET the office do these things, Trump interprets the original non-theocratic traditions created by people harmlessly to be rightful to EXPLOIT, just as a lawyer may look for loopholes in corporations to escape prior laws that limited them before.
He admitted as much when he asserted that the Democrats could have set out certain laws that limited his 'right' to exploit such loopholes before. So you are wrong. We also had many similar historical impositions that also abused the intent of that Amendment (not to mention the 2nd Amendment's issues). For instance, they added "God" into printing money, in recreations of National Anthems, and the allowance of Presidents to express their religious beliefs as sufficient justifcations for lawmaking. And this is not limited to parties but because the religious communities tend to have power as blocks, they implant their means of control with relative ease over the independence of the secular class who act with independence and ISOLATION (as individuals). The intent of that Amendement has been and will continue to be dismissed by HOW those in power (who like to utilze the ease of religious manipulation) usurp the role of SPECIAL interpretation when they have the mechanisms to do so through the Supreme Courts.
...when assumptions about what is 'right' or 'wrong' is relative and/or arbitrary, we cannot have our government acting on the JUSTIFICATION of some action as due to some particular assumptions not originating with people.
But you've got that wrong. If judgments about right and wrong are "relative and/or arbitrary," then nobody needs to pay any attention to them, because they cannot be "justified" at all.
False. The governments BECOME the universal 'religion' without imposing 'God' by leaving the sovereignty that used to be granted to 'God' BY AND FOR THE PEOPLE. That is what that particular phrase was meaning. As for other countries who lack such specific protections, the American ideal of that is what and why others everywhere have admired the U.S. in contrast to their own governments they came from before migration.
Why would you think it alright to permit your particular religion but not some others?
No. I'm with John Locke on that. We all have an unalienable right to free conscience, and those who prevent free conscience are acting against God, who gave men free conscience and holds them ultimately accountable for themselves, individually. So even wrong and bad "religions" are to be permitted, if they do not issue in direct harm. People have to be left free to choose how they will live, die and be judged by God.
What you don't respect is that if taken literal AND if you had the power, this kind of justification permits those with even a mere psychiatric impairment to
push-the-button without recourse because it assumes that some 'God' would either intervene or repair the faults of the victims from such deviant behavior. Self-accountability is NOT relevant to a government and should not be permitted in light of this example. Trump accounts for Trump. So, then let him rule arbitrarily just because some subset of the democratic population thinks that God will save the day? This is just another example of IMPOSING your particular religious beliefs if you expect it to be rightfully disrespectful of the accountability TO THE PEOPLE.
... would you think it fair to have a management system run by a tyrant?
Of course not. That's a strange idea.
But of 'course' you can just arbitrarily self-interpret when or if someone is NOT being a 'Tyrant' if they favor you uniquely? I don't recall if you favor Trump; But if you happen to, I'm betting that you'd approve of his potential to rule out those votes FOR democrats by declaring them 'fraudulent' while arbitrarily looking this over when or where he appears to win, even if that too might be corrupt.
That is, if you think that socialism, for instance is abusive...
I think human beings are often "abusive." Socialism just gives them
broadest scope to be abusive, because it quickly dissolves into an ideological dictatorship...as we have abundantly seen from Socialism's own history.
This needs a sepate digression to address your interpretation of "socialism". I interpret this as "any laws that deal with the welfare of its citizens, especially when or where particular individuals lack the power of numbers (whether isolated from others of similar concern) [ie, "democratic"] or by those weakened by lack of wealth unfairly [ie, lack of "republic" representation who favor those with money if NOT democratic majorities.]
Let's just deal with one thing at a time. We need to deal with the separation of religious lawmaking apart from your distinct interpretation of 'socialism'. Let's redress this again later.
The reason of the First Amendment's inclusion to deny the management systems (particular elected governements per term) elected BY THE PEOPLE a right to make laws that establish particular religions was to evade dictators.
This is incorrect. The first amendment was to hedge against monarchist-style governments, or even democratic ones, denying the rights of "religions" as a free exercise. I've studied your history...I know.
We need to redress this too in light of what I just responded to all above. The point is that 'dictators' (the contemporary derogatory interepretation) differs from the concept of the term in the 1800s of which those like Marx used. Even the term for the Romans differs from the contextual meaning I just stated in that quote. That is, I MEAN that the Amendment was to prevent the arbitrary rule of any number of people
in power who demand ('dictate' in modern use) that we respect the government (as one in present unilateral control) who
justify their actions without accountability as DUE ONLY to some specific higher authority (their 'god'), references to sacred texts that are not rational to presume 'true' by all, or to behave simply by believing they have the right to for simply BEING in their position. [The last addition is to include those rulers of supposed Atheistic 'dictators' who actually demand absolute faith to their leader or leaders simply for having some presumed fortune to to so. You don't need to actually believe in God to do bad. But it is easier to hold the particular persons who declare themselves as atheistic accountable to explain using science, logic, or other Earthly reasons. The belief that one IS a 'god' is what such behaviors of leaders even in declared atheistic systems would believe in where they act with purely selfish justication.]
Take abortion, as a prime example. HOW does this belief act relevant to today's societies? That is, how is it right that someone else of a religious-only stance think it appropriate to argue that abortion should not exist on the mere basis of disfavoring some God? The original secular reasons were plenty.
Whoa, Tiger. You're taking for granted that something called a "right to abortion" exists. It does not. Nobody has the right to murder another human being, nor should anyone ever have one.
However, a woman does have a right to her own body, given by God...to the extent that she is responsible for what she does with her body, and will answer for it at the Judgment. She exercises that right by whom she decides to sleep with, how, and when...not by killing babies.
Abortion is a moral disaster for everyone. So it's a particularly poor example for you to select. No "rights" exist concerning it, except the right of every person to be allowed to live.
I completely disagree. The arrogance of individuals to think that they have the sole right to even have legitimate children is questionable because they should require being accepted by the population collectively. While abortion is not commendable to prior decisions of an individual (where they weren't raped) the utility of people to USE birth as a means of selfish interests of the parents to 'have children' is abusive when it affects the population pressure that is and continues to be a major contributing factor to the world's environment. Becaue poorer people are more inevitable to have MORE offspring (as per Darwinian evolution), means that the nature of growth when in the hands of individuals is both NORMAL but HAZARDOUS [on the condition that we admire our 'civilized' world.]
Belief THAT an unborn (or even some early born) has some essence of suffering equivalent to the nature of the average life, is itself RELIGIOUS. For instance, a baby when immediately born, doesn't necessarily cry because they are 'sad', but because their initial use of air in their lungs needs to expel the fluids. The baby only infers pain as time goes on. But knowing that you are religious, you'd disrespect this, even if it is potentially provable in some scientific way. What we ALL share better with agreement, even without religion, is that we want to prevent suffering ....as though it were ourselves suffering. Unless you even remember suffering as a zygote or even much of your first few months of birth, you cannot argue THAT we suffer definitively in the way we opt to make laws that permit abortion. ALSO, the nature of admitting the child to live in real environments that they suffer of having parents who may not want them, or their lack of ability to support them, would require the very one thing that you don't approve: SOCIALIST welfare. Rather, you'd prefer these babies to be born regardless of environment for your own selfish religious beliefs AND have your cake by the benefits that overpopulation serves by creating a downward pressure on your tax burden.
The conservative religious beliefs about encouraging children exist after conception, if not religiously derived, has to be due to the recognition of some self advantage you believe you gain for having them live regardless of condition. That is, if not for a 'religious' justification nor prosperity for the whole (a 'socialist' concern), your belief would have to relate to some benefit you percieve would help you and at best the ones you love prosper. So what is it?
Religious ideas are immature, irrational, and threatening if IMPLEMENTED in laws.
Heh. There are plenty of secular ideas that fit that description, for sure. But your claim depends on what "religion" you're talking about, because they're quite different, and rationalize different laws.
Have you ever asked yourself if it isn't consummately arrogant for secular persons to assume that their own view is the only legitimate one, especially when Atheism cannot show
anything is legitimate?
It's all too easy for somebody to assume their own view is unimpeachably good because they are the only right one; but if secularism assumes that, then how does it get off with indicting religious views for being "too narrow"?
Some religious views are at least tolerant...secularism of that sort, not so much.
ALL people act 'secularly' by the atheist interpretation, even the religious. That is the point you keep missing that I'm trying to get you to understand here: Being an 'athiest' is not an
invention beyond the term in contrast to those who have imposed religion upon society. While the religious thinking is 'normal', the particular beliefs regarding a literal 'God' are themselves delusions. And so we look at the religious as either 'mentally deluded' (at worst), or intentionally deceptive (at best)!!
That is, we are all defaulted to be atheistic, meaning that we lack any constructs of religious belief prior to being taught them or by faulty rationalizing of reality by incidental evolution through time. That we can observe a magician to do tricks suffices to demonstrate how we can be deluded rationally (though incorrectly) about reality. Religious thinking is a general function of animal consciousness and relates to how evolution requires INDUCTION to guess at future actions from past behaviors. But while 'normal', it still isn't what we expect to use when we form organizations (governments) that are made up by people ...for people. If some 'god' put us here, why are you religious idiots spitting in Gods' (Nature's) face by expecting it to serve YOU and not the other way around? When societies are formes, we are doing so AGAINST our primitive behavior to struggle as other animals in nature do. We are surpassing our normal life in the jungle so that we can advance (make 'progress') beyond our evolvution as mere apes in the jungle who throw shit at each other. IF you want a 'god' world that is anti-progressive, then let us just go back to nature and let the nature that your supposed 'god' has given us, to fight without order.
You cannot have it both ways. If you favor some 'god', it is because you are lazy to justify rationally why you should even care to NEGOTIATE among your other humans because you already think that God serve YOU in this way without compassion for others. The threat of all 'social' systems, which includes the concept of 'government by the people' (versus rule by private interests antisocially) is due to religious THINKING, even if it can be from those who may assert they are not. And the 'religious' property that is of threatening concern is to how one cannot prove nor disprove any actions to other humans where they are empowered over them when they lack personal accountability to those they SERVE as governors.
China? North Korea? Venezuela? Cuba? I can assure you that you are quite wrong about that.
You keep associating "Communism" with some form of Satan-worship,
I have not said this even once.
That said, Socialism is naive about human nature, and human nature contains possibilities of evil. If Socialism were right about the leaders always being unwaveringly good, kind, generous, public-minded and unselfish, then Socialism
might work; but it's dead wrong about that, and because it's wrong, people end up dead.
We can't afford that kind of wrongness.
You IMPLY this. Religions in general impose that they have the proprietary ownership of what is 'good' (God) versue 'bad'. "Socialism" is STYLE of government that places priority of management to PEOPLE over PROPERTY. It reverses the traditional STYLE that places those who have the control over others through beneficial property or genetic inheritance, including the religious justifications by these 'special' classes of people over those without to be included as MEMBERS of the very government.
The 'conservative' belief is to rule over others WITHOUT a system that protects them outside of other systems, like churches, they also have manipulative power over. "Government" does not serve the masses BY the people when 'consevative' because they are themselves 'owned' by them. If you have the fortune to afford to build strong defenses AND hold the reigns of the most powerful weapons, you COMMAND the rest where you can oppositely prevent the majority to become EMPOWERED themselves of the same. Technically, the 'conservative' forms of government are anti-democratic because not ALL people are born with an EQUAL origin. [And why it pisses some of us off when the religious also demand that no one is permitted to abort. It imposes hardship on those who have 'accidents' or carelessness where we CAN control this technologically now. You are welcome to impose this belief in your own 'castle' (your religion)*]
Religion then gets IMPOSED upon the poor: "You are not successful because you don't try; If you are unsuccessful, it is because you EARNED (deserve) it!"
Well, I can grant you this: that
would be true of Hinduism, say...it holds that if you're a poor "Untouchable" it's because of your
karma; and it's your
dharma (duty) to be untouchable. That's why Hinduism is not a charitable religion. But that's patiently untrue of many other religions, which are often rather charitable to the poor -- statistically, vastly more charitable than secularism ever has been. The truth is that most humanitarian work, most educational, medical, anti-poverty, prison-reform and finance charities are affiliated with a "religion." Check it out.
Perhaps I can speak plainly. I think you don't know much about "religion," actually, Scott. You seem to think you can lump them all into the same thing, and then dismiss the whole bunch at once. Meanwhile, you're not presently speaking as if you're very reflective about your own secularism, if you don't mind me pointing that out.
Thanks for your thoughts, though. You are an interesting person to talk to.
The Eastern religions derive from the prior Egyptian era multi-culturalism before the last dynasties. The 'new' form of religions demanded more universality through the same source origins. The problem with multicultural forms later turn into a mesh of 'gods' with diverse interests. I cannot speak any much for nor against them specifically as for any other religion SPECIFICALLY. What I think is that religion represents the general kinds of processes of thought that demands others TRUST some facts by some people with unilateral power (oneway trust). This is 'normal' but an accident of evolution of consciousness (that derives 'conscience' moral constructs). But while I respect the reality of the emotional MOTIVATIONAL functions that consciouness demands of us, I can intellectually recognize that these are features of the individual mind, not the reality about the real world, ...especially where we want to NEGOTIATE among other SOCIALLY.
Religion had/has a role for each individual. I just don't agree that it can be used in the position of a governing body without risking more freedoms because the particular (not general) ideas get abused to favor conserving powers that effectively harm those without the same power non-negotiably.
Note that I actually have a LOT of religious study background by personal interest. It was a phenomena that I had to figure out and what helped me think the way I do. "Why?-Because-I-said-so" was a motivational consideration to my whole educational self-motivated learning.
I too enjoy discussing with you too. I place the person apart from the argument and actually enjoy those who disagree BUT still engage with compassion. So thank you too.
[* "...your own castle (religion)". Conditioned upon not forcing those within your family who were there without no choice to comply without first agreeing to the religion. I believe that was what was intended by the 'born-again' concept. One should have a choice to accept the social contracts of your
private domain before requiring to comply.]
Nobody in his right mind actually believes any of that. 
Then everything is part of the "process" that leads to the "event." Using cannibus or spitting on the sidewalk is just a few degrees away from Auschwitz.