Liberals should welcome people who practice Christianity. That Jesus guy actually makes a lot of sense at certain points.

As liberals + leftists, it is our responsibility to stand up for the freedom for people to practice any religion they want:


https://twitter.com/samswey/status/879350378663473153


https://twitter.com/astroehlein/stat...69234616512512

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theology

So you think that anyone who believes that some people are going to "heaven" and some people are going to "hell" when they die, is unfit for office, and that it should be acceptable to discriminate against them for that reason?

More generally, you think that having a particular (and not uncommon) set of beliefs about the afterlife, should disqualify someone from public office?

Imo this whole discussion stems from some people not being able to understand the word "condemn" in context and thinking it's some horribly discriminatory hate speech type of thing. It's not.

And don't you think he would probably be appalled that there are nitwits who think that other people burn in hell because they don't believe that Mary was a virgin?

This is precisely the thing I'm disagreeing with. We're arguing in circles.

Ah, I see. You've now added the premise that this person you made up wants to join the Democratic party and vote for their candidates. In that case, yes, he or she should do so. I wouldn't urge someone away from voting D based on any sort of ideological or religious purity test.

Not necessarily, no. Someone who believes that, say, murderers and rapists will be condemned has beliefs perfectly consistent with holding office in a secular government. Someone who believes that all Muslims are going to hell just for being Muslim is a bit different.

You're going to have to show your work on that one, and say a lot more than "a bit different" when you're the one saying that a huge % of the population should be disqualified from office for their spiritual beliefs about the afterlife, which do not necessarily reflect beliefs on how to treat people in this world.

1) Why exactly should someone who believes that some people go to "hell" when they die, be disqualified from office?

2) How is this different from an atheist who believes that people are condemned to have their minds, bodies, and souls destroyed forever when they die, who you presumably do not have an issue with?

Interestingly I think that most of the liberals on this forum would have to, perhaps reluctantly, admit that the beliefs that homosexuality is a disease, and that abortion is murder, are both more reasonable than that there is a hell and that you go there if and only if you have significant doubts that Jesus is the son of God.

We're not arguing in circles. I say there is no policy implication following from Christian exclusivism. You say there is. Okay. Tell me what it is.

I forget if "no u" is now frowned upon?

I do, if you care about that. I'm claiming a negative, so I'm not sure how to demonstrate my claim except by showing that your claimed implications are incorrect.

Doesn't Islam itself believe that the only way to the afterlife is through Allah and Muhammed, or at the most liberal through an Abrahamic religion? How many religions are there which disqualify someone from public service?

To be clear, I'm not saying that being an exclusivist (as defined ITT) of any faith should automatically disqualify someone for public office; I'm saying that exclusivism is a fair topic of inquiry and that Vought's responses aren't particularly comforting. Examples of unconstitutional (imho) policies a Christian exclusivist might be more inclined to support include a ban on Muslim immigration or, more OMB-specific, a disproportionate allocation of government funds to grant applications by Christian charities, which I alluded to upthread by my reference to Trinity Lutheran v. Comer.

Based on this I think we are largely in agreement policy-wise. My disagreement with you is that I don't think you are following through the implications of this. If being a religious exclusivist should not automatically disqualify someone for public office, then you shouldn't cite it as the reason you don't support someone for public office. If Sanders' actual reason for voting no was that he soul-read Vought as a religious bigot, fine, vote no. But then he should say, "I don't have a problem with you being a religious exclusivist, but I soul-read you as a bigot, so I'm voting no."

These of course are not policy implications of exclusivist Christianity. You are here just noting that many Christian exclusivists believe these things. I don't need to repeat my argument that it is discriminatory and using a religious test to use a statistical correlation (below 100%) between exclusivist Christians and some other objectionable belief or attitude as the only reason to deny someone public office.

If almost all x's are y's and almost no z's are y's you would need to subject x's to a lot more scrutiny than z's before coming to the conclusion that an x is as unlikely to be a y as a z.

The key quote is this, I believe :

"Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned," Vought wrote."

Sanders is correct to question if the same criteria be applied to Jews. Ie. If 'Muslims' be replaced with 'Jews' we have a clearly antisemitic view, inconsistent with the responsibilities of public duty. What we have is an islamophobic view, legitimised by a western culture where Muslims are the whipping boys of the US led project to dominate middle eastern politics. The ideological justification for the subjugation of Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine is the demonisation of an entire religion. We can't analyse truthfully this spat without paying attention to what is happening in the bigger world. There is no equality of religion, Christians simply aren't oppressed in the same way.

I don't think nominees to deputy director of OMB are a random sample of x's, so even accepting almost all x's are y's, I don't think we get enough to assume they are a y. I also think people are naturally biased to think of religious groups that hold weird and unlikely beliefs that they are almost all y's and so the prior that they are y generally shouldn't be too much higher than the probability of the total population that it is y without scientific objective evidence.

Also, as I've stated, I don't mind extra scrutiny of nominees on the basis of religious beliefs. The principle of political offices being open to all is important enough to justify the extra time and effort required to do this scrutiny. If we don't have the resources to do this scrutiny, then we should err on the side of religious freedom as that is more important than policy bias or incompetence.

I think one disagreement between us is that you envision this as picking the best nominee, and so using almost all x's are y's as a useful heuristic, whereas I am viewing it as a veto point on a decision made by someone else. I don't think Sanders has any obligation to pick an exclusivist Christian for public office if he becomes President. In this case though, he is more like a filter, distinguishing between the acceptable and the unacceptable of a bad (from his viewpoint) bunch of nominees.

Wow...who the **** are you to call them nitwits. I am a devout atheist and I have more class and respect of people when I engage in a debate with religious people to be civil. I somehow don't think you would be using that language to discuss a Muslim politicians views on sharia law. Which we can all agree that Islam is the most ****ed up religion since the Azteacs that hates woman, homosexuals, bankers, artists, and anyone who doesn't want to be one. Hey, isn't it terrible about that terrorist attack caused by a Muslim because of Islam? Doesn't matter when you read this post...something will have just happened. And also, when did they get to be treated with kit gloves and not condemned with all the other ****ing religions. AND all religions a ****ed.

What is wrong with a Christian saying that? I am an atheist. I am condemned i.e. not saved i.e. don't get to go to heaven either. Much rather have him than a Muslim who believes in Sharia law who is going to kill me for being an atheist. Which is required of Muslims btw...read your Koran.

No body reads the Bible, now we got to read our Gideon's Quran too?

Ive already explained what is wrong with it, it's an unacceptable racist slur made acceptable by general islamophobia. Replace Muslim with jew and you have universal condemnation, and rightly so.
Your views on Muslims are ignorant, go speak to some real muslims.

It is not an unacceptable racial slur. Replace Muslim with atheist or Jew and it is still correct to a large number of Christians and does not get universal condemnation. Your views on Christian usage of the word condemnation are ignorant, go speak to some real Christians.

Hint: are you using a racist slur by saying there is universal condemnation for those making that statement but replacing Muslim with Jew?

That guy thinks all people who have not accepted Jesus are going to hell. Hard to call that Islamophobia.

This is why context is so important or you end up arriving at these weird conclusions. The point is that anti semitism is dealt with swiftly whereas Muslim bashing is supported, generally by both liberal and conservative opinion, we have a snapshot here on 2+2.
Questioning whether I am making racist slurs is beyond ridiculous. I am simply calling out an islamophobic statement for what it is. Post title needs changing to 'Sanders vs jingo'.