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Then perhaps they should abstain from a vote that they cannot in good conscience participate in due to a previously held bias

Yeah, cause the religious are the only ones who vote with a bias.

If you think people with bias shouldn't vote, then the election will get determined by a few dozen people every year.

 Paint_To_Redemption wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

 Paint_To_Redemption wrote:

Religious freedom is all well and good when you keep it in your home. When you bring it out into the streets and put it in Government, that's when I take issue. You can worship your fething coffee table while you're at home for all I give a gak.

When you start taking things like abortion, gay marriage, school curriculum etc and injecting your religion into it it is totally inappropriate.

So basically, religious freedom is all well and good as long as you only enjoy that freedom in secret. What is the point of having any sort of freedom if it doesn't extend at least some extent into the public sphere?

Obviously a misrepresentation of what I said. I don't remember putting 'secret' in there at all but fine, I'll rephrase it for the nit-pickers - Religious freedom is all well and good when you keep it in your personal life.

You have churches, friends, groups of people, internet chat rooms etc etc etc etc. Did I really need to spell that out?

It's not an exact quote of what you said, but I don't think it's a misrepresentation. You said "religious freedom is all well and good when you keep it in your home." If you can only practice your religion at home, that would imply keeping it from others, or in other words, secret. At least in terms of the general public.

Well obvious Hordini he just shouldn't vote. I mean, if we ever have a referendum on whether or not religious people should be allowed to voice their religion in public, he'd vote no. Clearly he's biased.

It's never been about the morality of man that bothers me. What bothers me is the historical progression of sin and blood sacrifice in the face of man's eminent death. It's difficult to accept that this is the basis for all human reality. That the connection between an all powerful and loving God, and mortal man is so fragile as to rest on a mystical contract based on blood sacrifice. Then fear of death hits and well...we all die alone. Judgement day.

 LordofHats wrote:
Well obvious Hordini he just shouldn't vote. I mean, if we ever have a referendum on whether or not religious people should be allowed to voice their religion in public, he'd vote no. Clearly he's biased.

Everyone is biased one way or the other, this bias is often referred to as opinion.

I think the key is that religion cannot be changed, therefore giving that person an unchangeable bias. Abortion, according to the Bible is wrong as it is murder, and gay marriage is not allowed. These biases can never be changed, as it is set in stone (so to speak), so no matter how good the argument the bias cannot be shifted.

When you remove yourself from Religion you are not automatically saying everything should be the opposite of the Bible, your bias can be changed with reasonably argument. (For example a non-religious argument against gay marriage is that when two gay people get married they have no rights if they catch their partner cheating with someone of the same sex, as "infidelity" is defined as happening between a man and a woman within marriage, so they have more rights in a Civil Partnership, in UK anyways)

Of course if you are a Christian that does not take he whole of the bible as writ (as it seems most do) then your bias is changeable by reasonably argument, and therefore that bias is fine.

Hope this makes sense.

DacGerm wrote:


I think the key is that religion cannot be changed, therefore giving that person an unchangeable bias.

Then you don't know much about religion. Evangelists 200 years ago would be shocked at how liberal modern Christians are. And 1000 years ago?

EDIT: And I wasn't being serious. I was pointing out how ridiculous another posters comment was on its face.

DacGerm wrote:
I think the key is that religion cannot be changed

Except for when it does, which is all the time. Sure, for some, religion is stone, but for many it is a journey and about reflection on the nature of self, god, and the relationship between the two. It isn't that people who break from older modes of thinking are not practicing their religion, they very much often are. This is why you have many Christians who are ok with gay marriages, nuns calling for birth control, and a myriad of other things that don't fit the paradigm of hate and intolerance that is used to paint the religious. There is no reason to believe that people can expand their understanding of religion with time just as we expand our understanding of any field of endeavor. For example, people are still transforming and coming up with meaning in secular writings like that of Jung and Freud in psychology.

I was only saying that the whole bias thing only applies to people who are unwilling to listen to reasoned arguments (i.e. someone fundamentally religious who sticks to the bible, or numerous other examples, religious or not).

I know that most Christians don't stick to the bible word for word, as I said at the end of my post.

The bias that isn't wanted is the unchangeable kind, which I imagine would be the minority (in religious and nonreligious alike), that was my only point.

It's pretty simple to understand what I've said so I don't feel the need to address all the nit-picks and strawman's.

If it's okay for religion to effect what laws are made in any country, then it is okay for extreme interpretations of Sharia law to be imposed. It's okay for Scientology to demand that every child in our schools are tested for Thetans (or whatever it is those loony's do) and that the teachings of the Greek Pantheon be used as school curriculum instead of Evolution. It's okay for blood transfusions to be outlawed for everyone, because Jehovah's Witnesses are against them. Contraception to be banned. On and on and on it goes. I can even invent a religion if I get enough followers and then I can start making laws too!! Now that's a scary thought!

Oh but wait... we all know there IS a problem with all those things don't we? One by one we're eliminating them all. Slowly we're gaining equality for women. No crazy people allowed near our medicine anymore. Contraception given out freely. Evolution is taught in (most) schools. Slowly we're approaching a society where there is some real equality and some real religious freedom, at least in Australia. All we have left are the really tough issues... The ones that the religious don't want to let go of. Those will all get resolved too because most reasonable people agree that your religion should not have an effect on how I choose to live my life.

Since all religions are as valid as each other then there's no problem with putting a country under a law which says woman are not equal to men, allowed to go to school or divorce their husbands. That is the long and the short of allowing religion into government. Just because it's predominantly catholic politicians in my country it doesn't change the fact that policy decisions should not be based on ANY religious doctrine and if a person cannot put aside their religious beliefs in order to govern effectively, then they should step down.

To use the truncated language of the internet:

>> complains about straw men
>> introduces false choice fallacy

 Paint_To_Redemption wrote:
Those will all get resolved too because most reasonable people agree that your religion should not have an effect on how I choose to live my life.

Why should your own personal morality have an effect on how I choose to live mine?

As long as a government is based on democracy there is no problem with proposing laws based on any particular religion.

The proposals that do not find favour with the majority will not pass into the statutes.

 Paint_To_Redemption wrote:
You mean aside from politicians such as Abbot and Katter openly admitting that their religion effects their policy decisions? I'm not talking about 'the religious vote'. I am talking about openly biased politico's making decisions using religion as a basis which Abbot has alluded to doing as Health Minister.

Yeah, we all know about Abbott and his run as health minister. And we know that when he tried to block RU-486 he was openly attacked by most sections of Australian society, and backed down on the issue as quickly as possible.

And when your other reference point is a lunatic that both parties ignore as much as possible, well then... I think you can see my point is quite correct.

And if you think the opinions of the heavily Catholic Liberal party haven't influenced any of those topics then you're not paying attention. You think the Australian Christian Lobby has no political pull with Liberals? Is it a coincidence that most of the vocal opposition comes from the religious right of both parties, but especially from Liberal? I don't think so.

Heavily Catholic Liberal Party? The fething what? I mean, do you follow politics in this country at all?

Because there is decades of discussion about the strength of Catholic groups within NSW Labor... and while there ability to influence policy remains heavily debated to this day, there is nothing like that within the Liberal party.

It seems to me all you've done is notice the Opposition Leader is a Catholic and figured they must control the party. Read more.

Again, I don't blame anything on the religious vote in this country. I blame religion in parliament. Abbot, Katter, Conroy, Keating, Rudd, Pyne, Andrews, Nelson, Turnbull, Hocky... The list goes on. It's fine for these people to have a religion but it's not fine for it to be brought into the halls of parliament.

Turnbull opposes Roman Catholic teaching on abortion and stem cells. Read.

There's also no requirement to seek the blessing of God before each sitting of Parliament. Especially in what is essentially supposed to be a secular Government.

And when that's the issue you have to resort to in order to fidn something to complain about, that's pretty good evidence there really isn't an issue at all.

Religious freedom is all well and good when you keep it in your home. When you bring it out into the streets and put it in Government, that's when I take issue. You can worship your fething coffee table while you're at home for all I give a gak.

Yeah, that's you dressing up your religious intolerance as religious freedom. "Oh, you can be as religious as you want, but you can't do it in the streets." It's douchebaggery of the first kind.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hordini wrote:
So basically, religious freedom is all well and good as long as you only enjoy that freedom in secret. What is the point of having any sort of freedom if it doesn't extend at least some extent into the public sphere?

Exactly. Well said.

It's fairly common for religious people to dress up their own intolerance to others as religious freedom, and now from this thread it appears there's at least one atheist doing the same bs.

FWIW, I don't think it's religious people doing this on one hand and atheists doing it on the other. Religious people and atheist people from the same society seem to have more in common than is different between them. Intolerance is possible in certain societies even if the religions or a-religious values that also exist in those societies do not support or even actively oppose it.