Of course, it should not. Nor should the sectarian differences of any other religion. Liberalism, Atheism, or Islamism, for example. But, is that the opinion of the society in which we live? Is your disapproval reserved exclusively for Christians (and, perhaps, some Jews)? Do you greet with equanimity the expression of any idea opposing or supporting any doctrine of any ideology other than that of Christians? I have no indication that you do not.
Our Friend BroJoeK has quoted the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law”) in his attack on Kevmo and spirited for their comments regarding heresy. Do you wish to join him in his attack?
I wasn’t aware that Kevmo and spirited were “Congress.” Like the rest of us, Kevmo and spirited have no force behind their comments save opinion.
But, is it your opinion that some opinions are simply intolerable? Does that include the opinion of Phil Robertson? They are, after all, Bible grounded (according to Phil) BTW, what are Phil’s opinions exactly? Can you name them, and remain truthful? Are Phil’s opinions more outside the boundary of Society than (let us say) that of NAMBLA? The GLBT community?
Likewise, the opinions of Kevmo and spirited. Are their opinions more outside the boundary of Society than NAMBLA? The GLBT?
§ 1841. The remaining part of the clause declares, that "no religious test shall ever be required, as a qualification to any office or public trust, under the United States." This clause is not introduced merely for the purpose of satisfying the scruples of many respectable persons, who feel an invincible repugnance to any religious test, or affirmation. It had a higher object; to cut off for ever every pretence of any alliance between church and state in the national government. The framers of the constitution were fully sensible of the dangers from this source, marked out in the history of other ages and countries; and not wholly unknown to our own. They knew, that bigotry was unceasingly vigilant in its stratagems, to secure to itself an exclusive ascendancy over the human mind; and that intolerance was ever ready to arm itself with all the terrors of the civil power to exterminate those, who doubted its dogmas, or resisted its infallibility. The Catholic and the Protestant had alternately waged the most ferocious and unrelenting warfare on each other; and Protestantism itself, at the very moment, that it was proclaiming the right of private judgment, prescribed boundaries to that right, beyond which if any one dared to pass, he must seal his rashness with the blood of martyrdom. The history of the parent country, too, could not fail to instruct them in the uses, and the abuses of religious tests. They there found the pains and penalties of non-conformity written in no equivocal language, and enforced with a stern and vindictive jealousy. One hardly knows, how to repress the sentiments of strong indignation, in reading the cool vindication of the laws of England on this subject, (now, happily, for the most part abolished by recent enactments,) by Mr. Justice Blackstone, a man, in many respects distinguished for habitual moderation, and a deep sense of justice. "The second species," says he "of non-conformists, are those, who offend through a mistaken or perverse zeal. Such were esteemed by our laws, enacted since the time of the reformation, to be papists, and protestant dissenters; both of which were supposed to be equally schismatics in not communicating with the national church; with this difference, that the papists divided from it upon material, though erroneous, reasons; but many of the dissenters, upon matters of indifference, or, in other words, upon no reason at all. Yet certainly our ancestors were mistaken in their plans of compulsion and intolerance. The sin of schism, as such, is by no means the object of temporal coercion and punishment. If, through weakness of intellect, through misdirected piety, through perverseness and acerbity of temper, or, (which is often the case,) through a prospect of secular advantage in herding with a party, men quarrel with the ecclesiastical establishment, the civil magistrate has nothing to do with it; unless their tenets and practice are such, as threaten ruin or disturbance to the state. He is bound, indeed, to protect the established church; and, if this can be better effected, by admitting none but its genuine members to offices of trust and emolument, he is certainly at liberty so to do; the disposal of offices being matter of favour and discretion. But, this point being once secured, all persecution for diversity of opinions, however ridiculous or absurd they may be, is contrary to every principle of sound policy and civil freedom. The names and subordination of the clergy, the posture of devotion, the materials and colour of the minister's garment, the joining in a known, or an unknown form of prayer, and other matters of the same kind, must be left to the option of every man's private judgment."
FRiend, YHAOS, the accusation of "heresy" was historically a threat to murder someone -- as was "blasphemy" in Jesus' time.
Today, such accusations are still as murderous in spiritual intent, a fact easily seen in Kevmo's post #1,983 where he refers to yours truly, BroJoeK as a "God Damned Heretic."
The wickedness of such claims are multiplied when based on nothing, and therefore utterly false.
Kevmo is your FRiend, YHAOS.
His is obviously a sick mind.
Will nobody reign him in?