On 01/04/2015 06:24, Quadibloc wrote:
On Tuesday, March 31, 2015 at 12:09:37 PM UTC-6, Uncarollo2 wrote:

Religious belief is meant to be strictly personal,

Meant by whom?

While I agree in general with the sentiments expressed in your post, you are
missing some nuances.

The First Amendment embodies a basic principle required for people who have
different religious beliefs to live alongside one another in peace. They need
to acknowledge the right of other people to have different beliefs, and people
of all faiths must be equal under the law.

So far, so good.

But what the First Amendment does _not_ do is permit one to impose a
reasonableness test for religious beliefs. You can't have equal rights for
mainstream churches, and a law against Fundamentalism.

You can't outlaw them, but you can do everything within your power to
stop them recruiting and brainwashing the next generation.

There is a serious problem with several religions all claiming to
worship "the *ONE* and only *TRUE* God" - they can't all be right. Well
actually they could be but their followers never see it that way.

How do you adjudicate turf wars between competing fundamentalist
religions whose followers do not tolerate any other beliefs?

BTW Have you forgotten the McCarthy witch hunts? The US can be extremely
intolerant of people with non mainstream political views.

The "Land of the Free" today has more people locked up in prison per
capita than even the most repressive regimes like Russia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_..._worldwide.gif

The right to make up your own mind about things... means that the government
can't prevent you from making mistakes and coming to wrong conclusions. It is
dismaying that there are people in this day and age who deny evolution by
natural selection, but the solution is not to wage war on them.

But what are we supposed to do if they want to start a third world war
in the Middle East to bring about "The End Times" and "The Rapture" ?

I honestly don't think you *CAN* allow a fundamentalist religious nutter
with a medieval mindset to become US President and have his finger on
the big red nuclear button in the White House.

Some of the more hawkish Neocons definitely have this mindset.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown