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To: meadsjn
Any religion or religious group attempting to exert "authority" over any citizen of the USA is attempting to impose some "form of tyranny over the mind of man" that violates the rights of free citizens.

Again, you are sadly mistaken because you have no nuanced understanding of "authority." There's LEGAL authority; and then there's SPIRITUAL authority.

Any religion or religious group attempting to exert SPIRITUAL authority is exposing that authority to a group of people; it has not the LEGAL authority to be imposing. You sadly seem ill-advised to know the distinction between the two.

Every commercial you see on TV, radio, the Web, billboards, etc. is a marketer's attempt to expose their worldview to us. They don't "impose" tyranny upon us.

Likewise, any message that has a religious underpinning may "expose" some kind of "frown" upon what you're doing or not doing, but that hardly constitutes either "tyranny" or militating vs. the "free rights of citizens"...unless you want to provide some strictly SPECIFIC LEGAL examples for discussion.

In this country, people have a right to worship as they see fit, so long as they do not infringe on the rights of others in the process. Unfortunately, most religions and religious people are not content to respect the rights of others...I do not care what religion you escaped from, or what religion you are now enslaved by, or what religion dominates your obsessions, whether for or against."

Actually, it's apparent you do care, after all...otherwise you wouldn't be tossing around words like "tyranny" and "violate" -- all minus ANY examples whatsoever of where religious folks have ACTUALLY imposed certain LEGAL tyrannies or violations upon others.

And, hey, I've got news for you: A legal right to practice religion doesn't come with a legal mandate to others that all others MUST respect the worldviews that accompany that religion.

If you elect you worship the tulips in your backyard, I respect your LEGAL right to practice it; that doesn't mean I have to respect the veracity of it -- and that your tulip-worship is somehow immune to critique. (That's BOTH ludicrous and hypocritical...because somebody's "right to worship as they see fit" often includes the religious worshipful to critique competing worldviews!)

Unfortunately, most religions and religious people are not content to respect the rights of others.

You simply need to clarify this statement. If you accuse religious people of ACTUALLY taking away LEGAL rights of others, then be specific vs. generic/vague in your accusations. If, instead, you simply mean that because you've detect a "frown" upon the faces of some religious people over how others utilize their religious rights, then sorry...you don't have the legal OR moral authority to mandate how people's faces are to be arranged while they assess others' religious worldviews.

Otherwise, since you seem to frown yourself upon how some of us on FR choose to "worship" in the form of how we express our religious vantage points on FR, you would thereby be guilty of the very disrespect you generically accuse others of!

66 posted on 12/30/2013 2:12:46 PM PST by Colofornian
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To: Colofornian
What did Jesus mean when he said, “Upon this rock I will build my church”?
68 posted on 12/30/2013 3:04:46 PM PST by meadsjn
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