Religion, disease and the First Amendment

[obsrvr524]

is there a level of crisis in which religious freedom might take a back seat to public health?[/color][/b]

Brief answer - no.

If religious people want to kill themselves by that means, it is their prerogative. If they are known to be spreading their medical disease to others, government has the prerogative to isolate the two groups - tell people that going to their church is dangerous. They have decided to do that. What they are NOT permitted to do, by Law, is to stop them from going to church merely because they subjectively believe (more often merely want others to believe) that religious people are spreading disease.

It is the Law that they all signed up for and swore to defend. Come what may.

[iambiguous]

is there a level of crisis in which religious freedom might take a back seat to public health?[/color][/b]

Brief answer - no.

If religious people want to kill themselves by that means, it is their prerogative. If they are known to be spreading their medical disease to others, government has the prerogative to isolate the two groups - tell people that going to their church is dangerous. They have decided to do that. What they are NOT permitted to do, by Law, is to stop them from going to church merely because they subjectively believe (more often merely want others to believe) that religious people are spreading disease.

It is the Law that they all signed up for and swore to defend. Come what may.

Okay, you completely ignore all of the other points I raised above and zero in on this. In other words, about what I expected.

Again, if the coronavirus resulted in the symptoms of AIDS [or worse], was even more easily and stealthily transmitted and with no vaccine in sight, the government could forcibly isolate members of a particular religious denomination from all the rest of us...or just tell them that going to their church was dangerous? And if they refused to listen, went to church, ignored the CDC guidelines, got the AIDS like symptoms and went out into the community and easily and stealthily spread that disease to those who were not in their church community, the government is permitted to do nothing about it?

Or, if it's just a legal issue with you and a law was passed granting the state these powers, that would be, what, immoral?

[obsrvr524]

Read my signature -

Though often tempted to encourage a dog to distinguish color I refuse to argue with him about it.

[iambiguous]

Read my signature -

Though often tempted to encourage a dog to distinguish color I refuse to argue with him about it.

See what I reduce the hapless objectivists down to?

So, sure, of course, I can well understand why I am seen as out of sync with their rendition of intelligent exchanges here. And why some here insist that I am a "troll". Or "foe" me. They've simply got so much invested in their own "real me" in sync with the "right thing to do"

No, instead, it's folks like Karpel Tunnel I am most intrigued by. I assume it revolves around their reluctance to accept that I may be onto something in my signature threads. And that even in rejecting God and objective morality, they still need to feel that in regard to an issue like religious freedom above, there is a part of them they still cling to as a font into which they can anchor their own Self.

I lost that myself, and, trust me, the consequences are grim.

[Karpel Tunnel]

K: and the argument really centers around the question of "who is right" and "who
gets to decide who is right"?

I hold that private citizens holding guns and other such destructive weapons
is an threat to my own personal safety... but the ones' who argue for private weapons
of destruction, hold their beliefs have more value then my beliefs by virtue of ?...

Well, you must know that pro-guns rights argue this from a number of angles including constitutionality. That argument could be summed up that there is a contract in the sense that people born in a country with laws supposedly based on values and ideas in the constitution should expect those values to be upheld. Just as you likely expect certain values you consider constitutional to be upheld also. Ones you support in your posts. IOW both sides are struggling to have their values inform and serve as the basis of law. You may disagree on the constitutionality of rights to bear arms and these are, but BOTH you and the others try here, via argument, and elsewhere by at least those means to have your values reign over others.

IOW you do exactly what you are claiming THEY only do.

In fact any democracy includes people, for example, trying to vote their values into power.

So, what are you talking about here.

You disagree over values, but they are doing something bad when they try to promote their values into law, policy, interpretation....except you do this also.

they have actually never brought their beliefs down to earth and engage in
why their beliefs have more value then my beliefs... their rights to weapons
is greater then my right to safety?.. but why? why do their beliefs get priority over
my beliefs?

Then you cannot be reading much in any media about this. Of course they have done this in all sorts of articles, op-ed pieces, speeches, youtube videos and more.

In both the debates around Covid measures and the rights to bear arms we have two types of disagreement:
Values and fact-based disputes.

Different advocates focus on these differently and to different degrees. All of them push for their values to be prioritized. Most of them vote for candidates or protest or advocate for and against policies in the hopes that their values will be accepted and be the norm. Left Right Fringe Center Populist Anarchist Libertarian

AAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

through various means push to have their values accepted which means they will affect other people who at the very least currently disagree with them and/or have differing (if overlapping often) values.

To imply, as your posts do, that only particular positions (coincidentally those you disagree with) are the only ones not trying to have their values affect other people is either confused in the extreme or disingenuous or both.

[iambiguous]

Again, taking this back to the OP:

Okay, imagine if the HIV AIDS virus was able to be transmitted to others just as easily [and stealthily] as the coronavirus. You didn't have to copulate with someone or share dope needles with them to be infected. No, you only had to be in the same room with them when they sneezed or touched a doorknob that they touched. And no vaccine in sight.

Would that constitute a "crisis" great enough to persuade Bret Stephens and his ilk to allow for government restrictions regarding religious gatherings?

Same with masks and social distancing and lockdowns.

What disease in what set of circumstances would it take to make you question your own fanatical assumptions that everything revolves around "me, myself and I"?

This is what is of interest to me. We can talk about this or that government passing this or that law upheld or not upheld by this or that court. Here in regard to the actual existential relationship between religious freedom and public health.

Given that there are various actual political combinations of might makes right right, right makes might or moderation, negotiation and compromise.

Some seem to take the right makes might position that religious freedom here is so important there can be no "crisis" big enough to warrant restricting it.

Well, okay, what if the coronavirus did reconfigure into AIDS, and was even more easily spread with no vaccine in sight.

Would that matter to you in regard to government/state intervention?

[Zero_Sum]

K: not at all... I hold to religion in the original sense of the word...
religion isn't this mass holding of meetings where one watches the preacher
preaching..... no, religion is a far more personal thing to me.....
I don't believe we should have one or two or a hundred of churches....

I hold that there should be 7.5 billion connections to religions.....

I hold that the entire point of religion is to connect to one's god,
individually... we should connect to god in a personal,
one on one affair.... one person connecting to god, in commune
with god, in the silence of one's own home....

where I take time, and I commune with god by myself...
religions is about one person personal connection to a god or gods.....

there shouldn't be hundreds of religions, but millions if not billions..
with every single person on planet earth connecting to god or gods,
in a personal commune with their god/gods....

religion is about one's personal relationship with one belief system..

the book of Job seems to me to be the highest communication we should
have with god.... one man, silently, alone, communicating with god, not
within a group context, but within a Kierkegaardian context....

facing god/gods alone and apart from others..... religion should be
individually and apart from all other people beliefs and context......

the most profound religious context is the one where we stand alone
with our god and professes our "truths" to them... it is a private
and silent matter to have a conversation with one's god.... in the privacy
of one's own home....

I want every single person on planet earth to connect to their god or
to their religion, privately and alone....that is the most profound way we
can connect with god.....

Kropotkin

Somewhere along the line you forget that religion is a community matter relating to a common culture that is upheld. This is why it will never ever entirely be a private affair only.

[Peter Kropotkin]

Peter Kropotkin: not at all... I hold to religion in the original sense of the word...
religion isn't this mass holding of meetings where one watches the preacher
preaching..... no, religion is a far more personal thing to me.....
I don't believe we should have one or two or a hundred of churches....

I hold that there should be 7.5 billion connections to religions.....

I hold that the entire point of religion is to connect to one's god,
individually... we should connect to god in a personal,
one on one affair.... one person connecting to god, in commune
with god, in the silence of one's own home....

where I take time, and I commune with god by myself...
religions is about one person personal connection to a god or gods.....

there shouldn't be hundreds of religions, but millions if not billions..
with every single person on planet earth connecting to god or gods,
in a personal commune with their god/gods....

religion is about one's personal relationship with one belief system..

the book of Job seems to me to be the highest communication we should
have with god.... one man, silently, alone, communicating with god, not
within a group context, but within a Kierkegaardian context....

facing god/gods alone and apart from others..... religion should be
individually and apart from all other people beliefs and context......

the most profound religious context is the one where we stand alone
with our god and professes our "truths" to them... it is a private
and silent matter to have a conversation with one's god.... in the privacy
of one's own home....

I want every single person on planet earth to connect to their god or
to their religion, privately and alone....that is the most profound way we
can connect with god....."

J: Somewhere along the line you forget that religion is a community matter relating to a common culture that is upheld. This is why it will never ever entirely be a private affair only.[/quote]

K: as I stated, I hold belief to be on a personal level, not, not on a community level.

religion to me, is not a communal affair. If it becomes a communal affair, it becomes
a democratic matter, subject to votes and compromise and possibly being hijacked
for matters other then religion.. which is how I see religion today.... It has been
hijacked into being about something other then a relationship to god... it has become,
in no particular order, a social event, a community get together, as a political means to
achieve some political goal as it has been for decades....as a means to power as it has
been for decades.. indeed.. when religion focuses on things other then a relationship
to god, it become dangerous... for example, the religious right has been focused upon
gaining power and not upon bearing witness for god...the battle over abortions isn't
about the sanctity of life, God's commandment, thou shall not kill..... no, that clearly
has no place in modern religion.. indeed, if "all life matters" then religion would actually
treat ALL life as sacred, and not just the fetus... but ALL LIFE including life after it
has been born.....the religious right has been in favor of reducing and even eliminating
social programs like the WIC or the SNAP program.. and that isn't treating life as
sacred.. or the religious right has defended the "right" of policemen to shoot, even
to kill BLM or Antifa members.. as URWRONG has advocated and he proclaims himself
as being religious....if you advocate the death of anyone, anyone, you cannot in good
conscience, call yourself a Christian....or proclaim yourself as "pro-life"..

and that is the problem with modern religions, they mix and match which
beliefs that they shall hold and which beliefs they shall not obey instead of
being consistent with the entire 10 commandments...

politics seeks compromise whereas religion should not seek compromise....

Kropotkin

[Karpel Tunnel]

Peter Kropotkin: not at all... I hold to religion in the original sense of the word...
religion isn't this mass holding of meetings where one watches the preacher
preaching..... no, religion is a far more personal thing to me.....
I don't believe we should have one or two or a hundred of churches....

I hold that there should be 7.5 billion connections to religions.....

I hold that the entire point of religion is to connect to one's god,
individually... we should connect to god in a personal,
one on one affair.... one person connecting to god, in commune
with god, in the silence of one's own home....

where I take time, and I commune with god by myself...

So, religous should be a personal thing.
and, you commune with God by yourself.

Tell me again how you and Iambiguous are saying the same thing using different language.

And how did you get from your own personal taste in relating to God to what other people SHOULD do.

[obsrvr524]

politics seeks compromise whereas religion should not seek compromise....

Kropotkin

Politics seeks policy. Religion seeks "good" policy".

Politics seek the policy of power OVER the people. Religion seeks the policy good FOR the people.

Both make mistakes in their aim.

That is why the US Constitution doesn't let either of them have authority over the other.

[Karpel Tunnel]

So one company that will be supplying vaccines is Pfizer. This is a company guilty of crimes and immoral practices related to
consent
labor
pricing
witholding information about drug dangers from both the public and the government
bribery
worker safety
human rights

150 years ago, say, such a company could have had its corporate charter revoked. Now it cannot be sued for any unethical or methodologically negligent practices in producing the vaccine and can, despite its record continue to be in business with the attendant corporate priviledges, which in practice also include corporate welfare.

https://www.corp-research.org/pfizer

Another vaccine supplier with a similar if less extensive history of immoral and illegal activities is Astra Zeneca

https://www.corp-research.org/astrazeneca

[obsrvr524]

"If they aren't HOLY look no further. Everything they do must be evil."

Does it really take any more to research the science than to research their entire past for virtue signal violations?

[Peter Kropotkin]

Peter Kropotkin: not at all... I hold to religion in the original sense of the word...
religion isn't this mass holding of meetings where one watches the preacher
preaching..... no, religion is a far more personal thing to me.....
I don't believe we should have one or two or a hundred of churches....

I hold that there should be 7.5 billion connections to religions.....

I hold that the entire point of religion is to connect to one's god,
individually... we should connect to god in a personal,
one on one affair.... one person connecting to god, in commune
with god, in the silence of one's own home....

where I take time, and I commune with god by myself...

KARPEL: So, religous should be a personal thing.
and, you commune with God by yourself.

K: yes, having read Kierkegaard, I hold that the real power of religion comes
from the singular relationship one has with god....

think about the history of the Catholic church...if one hold thoughts different then
the orthodoxy of the church, the officially held doctrine of the church, then one
was branded and quite often punished as a "heretic"....in other words, to belong
to the Catholic Church, one has to hold beliefs that were officially sanctified
by the church...you held to the church's doctrine or you were punished
...you can't hold thoughts not acceptable to the church.....your belief system
is handed to you in a neat, clean package....
and you can't changed the package to fit your own needs or desires...
it is an all or nothing package... you either believe it all or you are an heretic....

why can't you hold beliefs from the buddhist camp or the hindu camp or
the native American Indians? for that is heresy.....to belong to an "official"
church means you must hold those beliefs.. you go into a church and pray to
officially sanctioned beliefs.. sanctioned by others, and preached by others......

so is our relationship with god really defined by officially sanctioned beliefs
by others?

must I define my relationship with god with beliefs sanctioned by say,
the Catholic church?

I hold that we can hold onto beliefs that aren't officially sanctioned by
an official church, in the privacy of our own homes? why must our
religious lives be determined by others with their officially sanctioned beliefs?

that is why I say we should have 7 billion religions... a religion for
every person on earth, beliefs held privately and confirmed
by our ongoing engagement with god.. conducted in our daily life....

KA: Tell me again how you and Iambiguous are saying the same thing using different language.

K: I wasn't speaking for Iam, was I? IAM hasn't to my knowledge, ever spoken about
religion.. no, when I say we are talking about the same thing, I was referring to
political, social, historical matters......what religious beliefs IAM holds, I have no idea...

KA:And how did you get from your own personal taste in relating to God to what other people SHOULD do.

K: if you do or don't do, it makes no difference to me... I am simple stating
what I hold to be true... it doesn't mean people SHOULD hold to what I am saying,
I am simply telling you what I believe to be true....

Kropotkin

[Karpel Tunnel]

KA: Tell me again how you and Iambiguous are saying the same thing using different language.

K: I wasn't speaking for Iam, was I? IAM hasn't to my knowledge, ever spoken about
religion.. no, when I say we are talking about the same thing, I was referring to
political, social, historical matters......what religious beliefs IAM holds, I have no idea...

He has address religion and religious people about his and their beliefs hundreds of times. And his beliefs do not fit with yours around God. He is also anti-objectivist which does not fit around your statements about how people should believe. In another thread you said you and he had the same beliefs but used different language. I did think this was the case then and what you wrote that I quoted seems to demonstrate that pretty clearly.

KA:And how did you get from your own personal taste in relating to God to what other people SHOULD do.[/quote]

K: if you do or don't do, it makes no difference to me... I am simple stating
what I hold to be true... it doesn't mean people SHOULD hold to what I am saying,
I am simply telling you what I believe to be true....

You said 'we should...'
for example....

we should connect to god in a personal,
one on one affair.

YOu didn't write 'my belief in God is a private affair.' or 'I don't belong to a church, that's not for me.' You wrote that 'we should connect to God....'etc. That means it is either morally or practically correct or both. I didn't weigh in on whether you care if we do what is right, according to you, just that you made a moral claim about what 'we' humans should do.

And, well, of course I understand that you are asserting what you think is true. You think it is true that we should connect to God in a personal way and that, according to argument in that post, people who do not are incorrect. And so I asked you by what reasoning you got from your personal taste to what everyone should do?

[Peter Kropotkin]

Karpel Tunnel:
And, well, of course I understand that you are asserting what you think is true. You think it is true that we should connect to God in a personal way and that, according to argument in that post, people who do not are incorrect. And so I asked you by what reasoning you got from your personal taste to what everyone should do?


K: question asked and answered...

Kropotkin

[iambiguous]

Peter Kropotkin: not at all... I hold to religion in the original sense of the word...
religion isn't this mass holding of meetings where one watches the preacher
preaching..... no, religion is a far more personal thing to me.....
I don't believe we should have one or two or a hundred of churches....

I hold that there should be 7.5 billion connections to religions.....

I hold that the entire point of religion is to connect to one's god,
individually... we should connect to god in a personal,
one on one affair.... one person connecting to god, in commune
with god, in the silence of one's own home....

where I take time, and I commune with god by myself...

So, religous should be a personal thing.
and, you commune with God by yourself.

Tell me again how you and Iambiguous are saying the same thing using different language.

And how did you get from your own personal taste in relating to God to what other people SHOULD do.

On the contrary, I don't say what any others on this thread say here about the existential relationship between religion, disease and the first amendment.

Or is Karpel Tunnel aka Curly just trolling here? Attempting to derail the thread and make it all about me?

My point is that some seem to argue that religious freedom takes precedence over any and all health care crises such that any attempt on the part of the government to impose mandatory restrictions on congregations in regard to such things as masking and social distancing is unconstitutional. Many then go on to insist as well that it is objectively immoral.

Then in the OP, I raise the stakes:

Okay, imagine if the HIV AIDS virus was able to be transmitted to others just as easily [and stealthily] as the coronavirus. You didn't have to copulate with someone or share dope needles with them to be infected. No, you only had to be in the same room with them when they sneezed or touched a doorknob that they touched. And no vaccine in sight.

Would that constitute a "crisis" great enough to persuade Bret Stephens and his ilk to allow for government restrictions regarding religious gatherings?

Same with masks and social distancing and lockdowns.

What disease in what set of circumstances would it take to make you question your own fanatical assumptions that everything revolves around "me, myself and I"?

My point is always that moral and political and spiritual convictions are derived existentially from dasein. And that, given a new set of circumstances, "I" can find itself reconfigured in ways that "here and now" it can scarcely imagine.

I call this the "Song Be Syndrome" myself.

[iambiguous]

politics seeks compromise whereas religion should not seek compromise....

Kropotkin

Politics seeks policy. Religion seeks "good" policy".

Politics seek the policy of power OVER the people. Religion seeks the policy good FOR the people.

Both make mistakes in their aim.

That is why the US Constitution doesn't let either of them have authority over the other.

No, authority here revolves largely around attempts on the part of the government to create a state religion or to ban particular religious denominations from existing at all. Or for any one particular religious denomination attempting to make the government accept only their own God on their own terms. For example, evangelical Trumpworld Christians who would reconfigure America into a theocracy if they had the chance.

Here, we have a government insisting that existential threats to the health of the general public allow them to impose restrictions on the practice of religion.

Just as existential threats to the health of a child allows the government in some jurisdictions to impose restrictions on religious fanatics who refuse to allow their children to receive medical treatment. Again, back to this: https://youtu.be/kKQkUcJioxU

I just upped the ante by asking others to imagine if the coronavirus was as virulent as AIDS, even more able to be transmitted and with no vaccine in sight.

[obsrvr524]

Both make mistakes in their aim.

That is why the US Constitution doesn't let either of them have authority over the other.

No, authority here revolves largely around attempts on the part of the government to create a state religion or to ban particular religious denominations from existing at all. Or for any one particular religious denomination attempting to make the government accept only their own God on their own terms. For example, evangelical Trumpworld Christians who would reconfigure America into a theocracy if they had the chance.

You are still arguing against yourself and taking sides.

Ask a 1000 auburn dogs and they will probably all say that dogs only come in three colors - white, gray, and black. And are we to say they are "objectively" wrong?

[iambiguous]

Both make mistakes in their aim.

That is why the US Constitution doesn't let either of them have authority over the other.

No, authority here revolves largely around attempts on the part of the government to create a state religion or to ban particular religious denominations from existing at all. Or for any one particular religious denomination attempting to make the government accept only their own God on their own terms. For example, evangelical Trumpworld Christians who would reconfigure America into a theocracy if they had the chance.

You are still arguing against yourself and taking sides.

I can only allow others to decide for themselves what a post this utterly lacking in substance says about you.

Either respond to the points I made above or move on to others who could not care less what you post...just so long as it is entirely in sync with their own political prejudices.

[obsrvr524]

I can only allow others to decide for themselves

Please do - for the sake of all here.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Karpel Tunnel:
And, well, of course I understand that you are asserting what you think is true. You think it is true that we should connect to God in a personal way and that, according to argument in that post, people who do not are incorrect. And so I asked you by what reasoning you got from your personal taste to what everyone should do?


K: question asked and answered...

Kropotkin

Actually, no. YOu denied that you were making an objectivist moral judgment, carried in that word 'should' as applied to 'we' which is everyone. You did not make a case why people should do this. You described your preferences but did not demonstrate why this should carry for others. IOW I am challenging you precisely as someone with Iamb's position would.

You could say that you worded it poorly and you don't think other people 'should' do what you say they should. That you really meant you wish they would. But now you've said it doesn't make a difference to you. So we are left with this objectivist should which you have not demonstrated all rational people should be persuaded to follow.

Nor have you explained how you, a theist, it seems, have the same beliefs as iambiguous but simply use different language to describe those beliefs.

[iambiguous]

I can only allow others to decide for themselves

Please do - for the sake of all here.

Consider it done. But that adds absolutely no substance at all to your post, right?

Go ahead, ask them.

[obsrvr524]

Actually, no. YOu denied that you were making an objectivist moral judgment, carried in that word 'should' as applied to 'we' which is everyone. You did not make a case why people should do this. You described your preferences but did not demonstrate why this should carry for others. IOW I am challenging you precisely as someone with Iamb's position would.

[iambiguous]

Actually, no. YOu denied that you were making an objectivist moral judgment, carried in that word 'should' as applied to 'we' which is everyone. You did not make a case why people should do this. You described your preferences but did not demonstrate why this should carry for others. IOW I am challenging you precisely as someone with Iamb's position would.

I took that here: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=196034

[Karpel Tunnel]

as far as I can tell, nothing useful or good has ever, ever come
out of a religion.. so we know my base line.....
Kropotkin

So, setting aside the objectivist assertions - which while qualified in terms of certainty are objectivist as evaluations from an objective moral perspective -, you seemed to be mentioning both MLK and Ghandi in a positive light elsewhere and their approaches were driven clearly and consciously by religion. And since your on the Left Liberation Theology and the priests and their movements in Latin America against fascist regimes. Even Jesus seemed to be being put forward there, in the condescending (but not angry or hateful?!) lecture to Unwrong, as a postive role model. And in case there's any question about it, he is a religious leader, in this case drawing his whole philosophy from Judaism.

K: so, you wonder why I put forward religious leaders as possible role models when
I myself despise religion?

Maybe you missed what I clearly quoted from your post. You said nothing good ever came out of religion. Whereas you seem to disagree with yourself.

Then there is the issue of 'not getting angry' when you put forward people including those who expressed a great deal of anger and even one who killed.

And then there is the issue of pretending you yourself are not angry.