One problem here is that kids are not tiny adults. Thus they don't react to teaching the way adults do.

The most well-known example would be that of child soldiers. They are not only much easier to mold into terrible monsters than adults, but they are also much harder to heal afterwards.

tame_deuces: true. It should be taken into account. In the end I'm probably not looking for some logical principle upon which to decide these issues, I'm just looking for some ad hoc pragmatic judgement that takes into account a variety of factors, a desire to minimize the abrogation of personal freedoms being one, a conservative attitude towards changing social structures too fast being another, but also certainly a desire to prevent harm from being caused to innocents. How that all balances out, I don't really know

At the turn of our present times Christians were persecuted and killed by the STATE to which they went underground and managed reprieve.Likewise the seven million Jews were persecuted and killed because of their beliefs by whatever reason the state could manage.

Does anyone really believe that the best can only come out of the LAWS OF THE STATE ? Do you base your moral compass on our laws and thereby walk away wiping your hands of the contrived mess brought to existence?

It is in no way certain that mankind, 200 years from now, will have fallen into a degenerative state or into a betterment for the individual soul.

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars' ,etc....

Religion is for the INDIVIDUAL Soul and a man with a good heart can enter into any religion and offer a boon to mankind irrespective of what the STATE mandates.

These, like many of the threads here are political issues which just may fall differently from what one considers the best moral choice. Be careful of what you ask, for you may get it.

On a more sobering note: euthanasia of the child in Belgium; certainly debatable, as all things are, but no matter what flag you plant on your front lawn its a done deal, slippery slopes notwithstanding.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26181615

Why limit the focus on just religious faith is dangerous, in my opinion there is a lot more dangerous ideas out there in society that are being taught to young kids.

In the first case, what would change if you made it illegal? How many lives would be saved? My somewhat educated guess would be approximately zero.

The best way to grow a religion is to mildly persecute it. If you genuinely believed that you (and others) go to hell if from getting medical treatment, jail isn't going to be any sort of deterrent.

In the second case, we do have to draw the line somewhere to have a well-functioning society.

But everyone who accepts those ideas is happier and better adjusted than you are.

No harm, no foul. By definition, there has to be harm or a risk of harm for the idea to be dangerous.

If you are going to bring up some silly example on how there is some small risk, I will respond by comparing it to eating being risky because some small percentage of people choke.

I do agree that step dancing should be banned. Horrible idea.

So, for the sake of clarification, say religion x teaches children that snake handling is cool if you're in god's good graces. We then look at snake bites for ten and under children in a state where religion x is fairly mainstream, but not the majority. We find that 95% of children receiving poisonous snake bites were taught religion x! and specifically that belief. 5% of children receiving poisonous snake bites just happened to be handling snakes they thought weren't poisonous.

So, the belief is pretty clearly leading to direct action in this hypothetical. This is not a reflection of reality as far as I know, but if this were the case, is the belief being taught too dangerous?

In your mind, it appears that anything can be justified. We all know logic but does your logic and thought process have anything to do with reality? Have you hit the earth?

Do we really have to lead our lives based upon your thinking which is without substance ? Zeno's rabbit never catches the tortoise, and is logically perfect but it just isn't true.

Also, what does it mean when you say that its not a reflection of reality and then go forward as if it is a good indicator of reality and therefore we reality based denizens should do this, or do that, or agree to this or agree to that, etc.....

Blubber buster, and blubblerest, the biggest danger.

Why worry about hypotheticals? The reality is that the deaths that do happen make international news because they are rare!

The reality is that teaching kids that swimming is a fun activity leads to drowning. And that teaching kids to hike leads to bear attacks and snake bites. And that teaching kids to use transportation leads to traffic fatalities.

Those are all much more common, and the links are definitely causal, so we should ban the teaching of them?

carlo: zeno wasn't logically perfect. He didn't know about infinite series with finite sums

roonil: If you make it illegal to handle venomous snakes (like church services in Kentucky) and actually enforce it one would presume it would also act as a deterrent on the teaching of the beliefs behind the acts, or at least marginally delegitimize those beliefs.

Beyond that, there is the analysis of costs and benefit that Brian is making. The "cost" is in creating a legal regime which presumes to regulate beliefs in the abstract, which I think has some pernicious social effects, and then whatever the cost of enforcement is. The benefit is whatever marginal positive benefit there is in having the extra law. My expectation is that the benefit is often quite low, i.e because these cases are rare. They are rare in part because other social factors have done a good job making these beliefs less legitimate, which I think is preferable to making them illegal

So their rarity makes it okay to not worry about it then. Is there a point when the attacks are commonplace enough that you start considering legislation?

I am pretty sure that the benefit would be zero or less than zero. You just turn people into living martyrs if you jail them.

Do you mean snake attacks? There isn't any point in legislating. If snake handling churches were wildly popular, then the legislation doesn't pass. It is no different than trying to ban automobiles (caused 35,332 US deaths in 2010) or alcohol (caused 25,692 US deaths in 2010). The normal social forces of saying "hey, maybe you shouldn't do that" and media attention and people not enjoying their loved ones dying works pretty well in keeping snake handling churches small.

It doesn't worry you that the legislation already existed in Kentucky but law enforcers were too worried about offending the religious to enforce the law? So some degree of ignoring the law, to appease religious freedom, is acceptable, and the rest is negotiating boundaries?

Your questions don't seem to have anything to do with anything I've said

I don't particularly care very much one way or another whether Kentucky either has or enforces a law against handling snakes in religious services. Given that they have such a law, I have no issue with them enforcing it. I certainly don't think they should be afraid of offending the religious by enforcing it. If I haven't been clear enough, I think handling venemous snakes in church services is silly.

On the other hand, unenforced laws are pretty common. Logically, you might argue they may as well just not exist, but it may be too simple of an understanding of how law functions in relation to other societal norms. I'm wary that saying "unenforced laws should not exist. All laws should be enforced" is actually wrong. It's possible that in some cases having a law but not enforcing it is the optimal regulatory solution: what if the deterrent effect that the existence of the law has by its mere existence is good, but the cost of enforcement would outweight the benefits of enforcement in comparison to the benefit of its mere existence? Are snake handling laws in Kentucky an example of this? I don't think so, but it's a more general point. I think the more interesting conversation is a general one, not a specific one about what Kentucky does.

Laws should sometimes remain on the books but not be enforced. The snake law is obviously not one of them.

Yes.

In U.S. jurisprudence, certain kinds of beliefs--among them religious beliefs--are treated differently than others. This is because religion is a "protected class," which means that it is a "characteristic of persons that cannot legally be targeted for discrimination" (other examples are race, gender, age, etc.). Thus, states are more limited in the kinds of regulations they can put on actions which stem from religious beliefs than from other kinds of belief.

I suspect that there is a misunderstanding here. It is state law that prohibits the handling of poisonous snakes in religious services. The reluctance of authorities to prosecute on the basis of this law probably doesn't come because of their not wanting to offend people's religious sensibilities, but because they think that this state law would be overturned by federal laws which protect religious freedom. This is a common reason why laws are not enforced: Prosecutors realize that some state law is not consistent with federal law and so just stop prosecuting on the basis of that law, even though it remains on the books.

It should be illegal to teach children stupid falsehoods and fairy tales, so it should be illegal to teach any religious ideas to children.

Outlaw Santa!

This seems foolish so you should be in jail.

Your belief that he is foolish, and should go to jail, is foolish, and so you should go to jail

Damn i should of seen that coming....

Santa is not a fairy.

Neither are his elves nor Lucky the Leprechaun.

^This.

Otherwise, we're on a perpetual slippery slope that is difficult, if not impossible, to recover from.