Yes, live and let live, so long as letting live doesn't get in the way of you living. Certainly for the priest who is forced to officiate a gay wedding, letting live is getting in the way of his living. So what shall he do? It seems that the law has condemned him."Live and let live" is itself a principle and a rule of social organization. — Πετροκότσυφας
As you no doubt know, no one--priest, pastor, minister, rabbi, boat captain, airline pilot, or Chief Justice--is required to marry anybody. When a denomination, such as the Lutheran Church decides that it will allow gay marriages to be performed by clergy, that doesn't mean that any Lutheran pastor is required to perform a gay marriage. — Bitter Crank
Just one of many such cases -As you no doubt know, no one--priest, pastor, minister, rabbi, boat captain, airline pilot, or Chief Justice--is required to marry anybody. When a denomination, such as the Lutheran Church decides that it will allow gay marriages to be performed by clergy, that doesn't mean that any Lutheran pastor is required to perform a gay marriage.
The reverse, though, is not true. If the General Conference of the Methodist Church decides it will not allow gay marriages, then Methodist pastors may not perform the ceremony, whatever their personal wishes are.
Whether civil officials (like, justices of the peace, county clerks, etc.) can refuse to marry a couple with a license, I don't know. — Bitter Crank
I'm pretty sure that the Moslem authorities in Saudi Arabia wouldn't permit two men to marry if their lives (the clergy) depended on it. — BitterCranK
[ISIS] hatred of infidels and their belief in martyrdom and armed Jihad have a scriptural basis, and it’s dishonest to pretend otherwise. And their brand of Islam isn’t radically different from the Wahhabism practiced in Saudi Arabia. Most Muslims aren’t Wahhabists and don’t share this vision of life, just as most Christians aren’t stoning adulterers, even though there are biblical injunctions to do so. But it’s disingenuous to say ISIS has no connection to Islamic tradition.
ISIS doesn’t represent true Islam, just as the Westboro Baptist Church doesn’t speak for Christianity. But both are religious problems, and one is clearly more dangerous and ascendant than the other. Insofar as Jihadists believe in specific ideas about apostasy and prophecy and martyrdom and blasphemy and religious freedom, we have to take them seriously, and we have to criticize those ideas. These critiques are not of all or even most Muslims, but only of the tiny minority who hold and act on these ideas. The fundamentalists on the Right won’t acknowledge this distinction, which is exactly why the Left has to make it.
And it's disingenuous to say that the Westboro Baptist Church, or Christians that bomb abortion clinics, or murder dozens of young Norwegians, have no connection to Christian tradition.But it’s disingenuous to say ISIS has no connection to Islamic tradition.
And it's disingenuous to say that the Westboro Baptist Church, or Christians that bomb abortion clinics, or murder dozens of young Norwegians, have no connection to Christian tradition. — andrewk
What traditions and ancient scriptures say is of very little importance. People that wish to be violent will always find ways to justify their violence. What is important is what the people who belong to religions that have those scriptures believe and do. — andrewk
I agree with that, except that I'd rule out the 'responding with a violent spirit' at the very start. Violence is sometimes a necessary part of a multi-faceted solution to domestic and international law enforcement, but it should be done calmly and regretfully, not in a frenzy of hatred, which is what 'violent spirit' suggests to me.How about: "I think we should think hard about the best way to respond to attacks like these. Should we respond to them with a violent spirit? Or should we take a different path?" — Mongrel
In the case of Islamic terrorism the most well-known of causes are war and poverty in regions from which the criminals mostly come, plus US foreign policy. — AndrewK
It's emotional responses to crime that generate harmful actions that make us all worse off.
— andrewk
Emotional responses are the problem? Um.. no. It takes a hardening of the heart to be able to chop somebody's head off. The vileness actually starts with a lack of natural emotion. — Mongrel
Emotional responses are the problem? Um.. no. It takes a hardening of the heart to be able to chop somebody's head off. The vileness actually starts with a lack of natural emotion. — Mongrel
And of course, the Quran and Hadith do in fact justify these behaviours. — tom
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