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Forums - Politics Discussion - Should governments start regulating religion?

sabvre42 said:

No. Otherwise we'd need to start regulating aethiests too. It takes more pig headed faith to believe in ansolute nothing than something. Even Carl Sagan was aegnostic instead of aethiest.


I share Einstein's belief that most aethiests are driven by deep harborded insecurities and revenge of some sort. There really is no other reason to troll people 24/7 like an obbsessive. 

And before an aethiest comes in and cuts my head off, I am not a fan of loud mouthed christians, jews... anyone really. I think everyone should just shut the hell up and let everyone else live their life however they want to live it. As long as you're not hurting anyone, I'm fine.



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Aielyn said:

There's no need to regulate religion. Just remove the special treatment - tax-free shouldn't be a given for a religious group, just because they're a religious group. They should also be subject to the same kind of scrutiny that any other company is subject to. Beyond that, existing laws should already take care of the real issues.

Munchies said:

Government is never the answer. Let society rearrange itself and you'll get the optimal result.

Besides, taxing is straight-up looting. No entity should ever pay taxes.

The only people who ever make these suggestions are people who don't have any knowledge of game theory.

Game theory demonstrates why, without some form of government, society would NOT be optimal at all. Even something as simple as two people making independent decisions can result in a worse result for both than if they coordinate. Look into Prisoner's Dilemma, and think about its implications for your viewpoint.

Also, if society were forced to operate on the basis of your idea, including the tax argument, the result would be that roads would only go as far as the company that is building it wants it to go, schools and hospitals would only be built in rich areas, and the entire country would be overrun by those who envy its resources, as there would be no army to defend it. The poor would be locked into a downward spiral, there would be no form of public transport (meaning that only those who could afford cars would be able to travel), the majority of the public would be living without safe drinking water or any form of power, and there would be no publicly-available, free resources where people could learn things (libraries). Those are just a few of the problems with your idea.

Of course, your idea will never happen, anyway. Any attempt to implement it will necessarily fail, for the same reason as why attempts to implement communism inevitably fail. It is inherently unstable, as "no government" very quickly turns into "dictatorship".


Since I actually have no knowledge of game theory, I won't comment on the first part of your post, but the second half has me intrigued.

I think you're underestimating the power of supply/demand. Less tax (or no taxes at all) would increase the purchasing power of the poor, and they'd be able to spend their own money on services they actually want. Besides tax being looting, I don't think there's a service the private sector can't do better than the government. I've seen some charts that exemplify how GDP and overall satisfaction decrease as government spending increases. To bring alleviation of the poor makes the most sense. Free-markets have always worked, because the existence of free services just make those that are paid even more expensive (healthcare, for example). Besides, not everything a private company does has to necessarily charge the customers. As an example, you have sites with unlimited content that are free and they all rely on donations or they charge companies to run ads. You don't have to pay a fee as you walk into a shopping mall. Some points that are also worth addressing:

- The roads would go as far as our needs, since the companies are working to meet demand;

- No factual evidence that public transportation wouldn't exist;

- What does exactly safe drinking water have to do with this? I honestly don't get the connection.

Nothing is indeed free as an entity has to pay for it, you know it. We libertarians just think it's wrong that the whole society has to compulsorily pay for a service which some won't want to use. Let everybody choose what fits their taste best. We despise mandatory charity. 



Cobretti2 said:

That is just stupid.

The church or the people getting married have to fill out the relevant government paper work anyway. It is no different that doing the paper work and getting an elvis impersonator  marry you in las vegas.

They are both government weddings. The only difference is that with a church one you get a free bonus God DLC.

If you believe in separation of church and state, it is the only logical conclusion. A priest should of course, like any other person, be able to get a permit to conduct marriages for the government´s account, but the ceremony must then be free from any religious influence in terms of speeches and so on. The government is a secular construct so it is only reasonable that religion is kept as seperate as possible from it, for the sake of both religious freedom and for the people.



As long as religious practices don't contradict the law or human rights, there is no real need to regulate.
Religion still has a huge place in society and always has.

(Just to clarify, I'm agnostic myself)



Puppyroach said:
Cobretti2 said:

That is just stupid.

The church or the people getting married have to fill out the relevant government paper work anyway. It is no different that doing the paper work and getting an elvis impersonator  marry you in las vegas.

They are both government weddings. The only difference is that with a church one you get a free bonus God DLC.

If you believe in separation of church and state, it is the only logical conclusion. A priest should of course, like any other person, be able to get a permit to conduct marriages for the government´s account, but the ceremony must then be free from any religious influence in terms of speeches and so on. The government is a secular construct so it is only reasonable that religion is kept as seperate as possible from it, for the sake of both religious freedom and for the people.


Again that make no sense. It is just a ceremony, a theme on top of the government approved marriage.

How does it differ than those who have a klingon wedding?  or a lord of the rings wedding? or some other themed wedding?  if you gonna ban religious speeches and so on at church weddings may as well ban every themed wedding and tell everyone to wear pants because a secular construct should not identify male or females as gender equality may come into question. 



 

 

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Puppyroach said:
Cobretti2 said:

That is just stupid.

The church or the people getting married have to fill out the relevant government paper work anyway. It is no different that doing the paper work and getting an elvis impersonator  marry you in las vegas.

They are both government weddings. The only difference is that with a church one you get a free bonus God DLC.

If you believe in separation of church and state, it is the only logical conclusion. A priest should of course, like any other person, be able to get a permit to conduct marriages for the government´s account, but the ceremony must then be free from any religious influence in terms of speeches and so on. The government is a secular construct so it is only reasonable that religion is kept as seperate as possible from it, for the sake of both religious freedom and for the people.

... I know Cobretti basically said the same thing but this is so absurd...  The exact opposite of a logical conclusion.

I just don't even know what to say.  The government's only role is issuing the license.  The party you have when you get it is completely your decision.  Are you saying the government should tell you what you could do at your parties?  Should we establish a special party task force to make sure everybody is partying in accordance with the first ammendment if the party is somehow attached to a government function?  If the state issues you a driver's license can you not use it to go to church? 

As you can tell from my posts here, I'm pretty against religion.  But this is just out there man...



The constitution demands 2 things Freedom OF/freedom from religion and a clear separation of church and state. The problem we face today is because in the US those two commands are ignored. Do we need to tax religion? Absolutely. There is nothing in our constitution that guarantees a free ride. In fact it's quite the opposite. We need to keep religion out of government, politics, and public events/services. This is suppose to be a secular nation where anyone can worship the religion of their choosing. We don't have that now. Now there is one religion that tries to inject itself into every fascist of life with government sponsorship. That's not right and unconstitutional. Religion is a private matter and should be kept private. Do we need to regulate religion? I don't know but we need to stop sponsoring it and forcing it down everyone's throats because that is infringing on everyone's rights.



http://www.youtube.com/v/AoOOpLpcF28 http://www.youtube.com/v/CphFZGH5030

All Hail the Jester King. The King is back, and I am still a dirty girl prof ;)

Yes to taxes. Here in the Philippines, Religious Fundamentalism is so bad that even when they are the ones at fault they still claim the moral high ground. One such group known as the INC even posted this: https://instagram.com/p/65oCQ1CPfb/

However, I'm not sure how you can regulate intolerance.



spurgeonryan said:

Not only do many religious oranization teach many facts that have proven to be false or theories that greatly hold back society, but there are many other problems organized religion brings up too.

 

1. Taxes - how much do governments lose to religion?

2. Cults should not be allowed to get as bad as some do.

3. Religious extremist - causing wars, terrorism, hate crimes, etc

4. Intolerance - how many more humans needs to suffer due to religious "morals"?

In this day and age I just do not think there is room for religion anymore. As a hobby it is fine, but there are so many things wrong with religion that it should not be allowed the power it has over society anymore.

 

Agree?

This logic is warped for the following reason. It assumes religion is the problem and oversimplifies it into a childish concept akin to the boogieman and then use the assumptions made from that simplification to support the assumption.

I've been watching Ancient Aliens and its really similar to the way they argue that everything because Aliens.

Here are some major problems with this argument that are very hypocritical.

1. You can't make religion illegal and tax it at the same time. Taxing it addresses the actual problem of corruption, but that isn't limited to religions. Especially when the religious people with money that you are targetting will simply move it somewhere else.

2. Cult's are not necessarially religious, see Manson family.

3. Because extremism is limited to religions only.

4. You want to take religious intolerance of extremists and institutionalize intolerance of the very idea of people having the freedom to believe in whatever they want. The government that is supposed to protect people and what they want, now actively being intolerant, yeah that's a great idea. Why are anti-religious Morals better than any other kind of Morals, especially when their Morals about hating something simply because its different/you don't agree it with it. Sounds a lot like racism, sexism, homosexuality, etc all rolled up into one little hateful package.

Its not very hard to parrot the ideologies of other people who know what they're talking about without understanding it themselves. That being said, it kind of funny that you are simply replacing religion with its purely dangerous component, ideology. And I'd forgive that mistake, if it wasn't the second time you posted this thread.



In this day and age, with the Internet, ignorance is a choice! And they're still choosing Ignorance! - Dr. Filthy Frank

Let assume in one extreme spectrum of the argument that there is no God or shall we say "higher being." With that logic, religion is what you create it to be because we all live by something or some set of self-proclaim rules. How in the hell are you going to regulate that? With that being said, Jesus Christ in my Lord and Savior. Believe it or not, Jesus is anti-religion. Always had been, always will be. Chew in that for a while.