Mel Gibson's The Passion, sparking concern from the ADL.

George

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I suspect I am more tolerant and occasionally supportive of your arguments than you are of mine.

You know, this has occured to me as well. I think we ought to allow the possibility that you are simply a nicer person than I. And perhaps my goodwill doesn't manage to hack its way through all the twist of verbs and subjunctive clauses to make the sort of appearance it does in the flesh - 'a species of deformed and gorky imbecile smile' is the way it has been described by those who profess to love me. And partly it might be that you hold, and bravely advance, some notions which, when I hear them, produce an urge to throw cheese balls at the speaker.

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I am however concerned about a newly emerging belief system that is unburdened by either the trappings or the political constraints of religion, but which is increasingly intruding on questions of individual morality and ground once at least occupied by religion. The key point here is that the new belief system winds itself into government, making government the instrument of its dictates. That is new.

That's one - the equation of a religious world-view (catholicism, protestantism, sufiism, dervishism) with a non-religious world view. The implication is that they are qualitatively equal, except the latter is without any moral anchor. We've talked about this before, but, like my last wife, YOU JUST DON'T LISTEN!

Let's take the moral anchor point. Can such emerge only within the beating hearts of believers? And which believers? Are animists inherently more morally inclined than a fellow like me? Or within Christianity, are catholics more likely to have a correct moral anchor than, say, versions of african christianity which incorporate elements of ancestor worship and magic?

The only distinction or comparison I made between religious and non-religious world views is that the latter can and does use government to advance its views, and often into areas once the domain of religion.
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For centuries the government and the church were almost one and the same, closely allied, oppressive. That's why our ancestors broke off, came over here, formed what we now know (or like to think) is a government of the people, for the people. The people using themselves (they are the government) to advance their views is exactly what is supposed to happen, within a very sophisticated structure of laws which, among other things, prevents the alliance of church and state.

Like it or not, we lived in a country which respects relious belief, but only so long as religious institutions don't try to interfere with governance-by-the-people and the legal structure. Believers can try to influence, for sure, as equals with their compatriots. But in a secular country, the religious institution really is obliged to be the politer and more yielding of the two in precisely the same way that the citizen must yield to the law. Religion is no more than another citizen. Its domain is the real estate upon which the church sits -- and the heart of the believer.

When you say the non-religious citizen "can and does use government to advance its views, and often into areas once the domain of religion," I hope you are not implying that the non-religious citizen is thereby trampling the territory of the religious.

The only distinction or comparison I made between religious and non-religious world views is that the latter can and does use government to advance its views, and often into areas once the domain of religion.

The supposed wall of separation is sometimes used to aid in the displacement of religion from areas in which it once held influence.

I do believe in the validity of the canon of Western Cvilization in our evolving political and social life. ...a recognition that it is the stream from which ur structure evolved and it remains the starting point for our continued evolution.

........ but let's take up "non-religious types use government to advance their views". I'm not sure just precisely what you are thinking here, so can you provide a specific example. Take note of Tartarin's last sentence, because you are on thin ice, my friend.