BBO Discussion Forums: Obama vs Roman Catholic Church - BBO Discussion Forums

 kenberg, on 2012-February-14, 08:21, said:

This has been my experience too, but I cannot help but feel that this is the important stuff. It shapes our view of the world, our view of appropriate behavior, and our political idealologies. If no one ever talks about it the result is always partisanship, whether religious or political.

Both our countries political dialogue suffers from having no common ground in terms of the view of man's nature, or role in the universe. Personal responsibility is the most obvious example, in that depending where you stand on the nature-nurture scale poor behaviour can be the result of poor unbringing, society, or the individual, or some mixture, and this has serious implications for the criminal justice system. Objectivity: Can we conclude that our society is better than some other, and does that impose on us an obligation to attempt to westernise other cultures, either violently, or non violently. I firmly believe that most political differences are rooted in the philosophical furniture that makes up our world views, and if no one every talks about it, how will there ever be a consensus?

 phil_20686, on 2012-February-13, 16:24, said:

"An understanding among humans" would be my preferred phrase. And certainly that understanding has been refined and strengthened over the years by a long succession of philosophers and activists, many of them religious. Humanity's understanding of morality evolves slowly over time, and will continue to do so. That holds true for both the religious and the non-religious. Yes, our understanding is "frayed at the edges," but there are great areas of common agreement.

"Basic" is not synonymous with "unchanging" nor with "decreed by god." An atheist can certainly talk of basic human rights without engaging in self-contradiction.

In arguments about morality, people play the "decreed by god" card to advance their own opinions where the edges of mankind's understandings are frayed. And often that card is played to slow the evolution of morality. But, after a time (sometimes a long time), religions inevitably co-opt refinements in morality or fall by the wayside.

About atheists justifying themselves or their views. Of course we cannot. But, in my view, neither can anyone else.

Atheist: Killing people is wrong.
How do you know it is wrong?
I just know it.

Theist: Killing people is wrong because God says so.
How do you know God says so?
I talk to God.
Are you sure that's who you are talking to?
Yep.

I don't see a lot of difference. I usually explain to the Theist that actually I was just talking to God yesterday and He said that you misunderstood Him. Of course the Theist doesn't believe me, but I don't believe him either so we are even.

The argument is often made that if there is no God then everything is possible, rape, torture, murder, etc. True. Possible, but not necessary. We can do better. And as near as I can see, God has not stopped these ills from happening, even among the faithful.

A good friend and I talked much on these things (past tense, he is now deceased). He was deeply Christian. We rarely disagreed on practical matters. Here is one of his observations on personal responsibility (he came from a small town): "Young women sometimes became pregnant with little means of support and no husband in sight. The community would offer its help. It would also make it clear that this was a mistake, and the community expected better of her in the future." No disagreement from me on this.

 phil_20686, on 2012-February-14, 09:04, said:

Please don't suggest that freedom of speech or freedom of religion means that I have to do more than let you go your own way. When someone suggests that I'm violating their freedom of speech by starting a boycott or firing them from a job with public relations implications is NOT violating their freedom of speech. They are still free to say anything and not go to jail or be prosecuted, but I am free to protect myself and have my own freedoms.

Likewise, you are free to your religion and beliefs, but you don't have the right to our money as well. As long as the government enforces these laws across all religions equally, it is not a violation of their freedom...they still have a choice. What's that title, "freedom to choose"? And these hospitals have more freedom than many of the people Milton Freedman originally was talking about.

 phil_20686, on 2012-February-13, 16:24, said:

Work is very hectic right now, so I don't have time to write a long response or search for the quote that I really want to use:

Here's the short version: "I don't have issues with moral relativism..."

I view long didactic discussions that try to prove that "natural rights" depend on god in much the same way that I view debates regarding how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. These might be interesting exercises in logic, but I don't accept the premise that the results of this analysis this has any bearing on the functions of a modern state.

On a practical basis, "we all just agree" is a pretty good description how state's function. Its a very good description how certain innate rights change rather dramatically over time. Case in point: The (rapidly) evolving landscape regarding the "right" of gays to marry in the US.

Gay's aren't being granted the right to marry because We the People suddenly identified an error in logic; rather, the social consensus is evolving and with it, the interpretation of existing legal system.

 kenberg, on 2012-February-14, 08:21, said:

The issue is that the principle of religious freedom often acts as a trump card. If you have a personal disagreement with a law, that doesn't allow you to break it. But if you can couch it in religious terms, then forcing you to obey the law can be viewed as religious persecution.

The most extreme example is when Christian Scientists were allowed to refuse medical treatment for their children. Anyone else would be charged with child abuse, but the church provides them with a Get Out Of Jail Free card (although if the child dies as a result, the religious exemption usually doesn't apply).

 BunnyGo, on 2012-February-14, 09:54, said:

If this were really true, then it would be wrong to provide federal funds for procedures that violate the consciences of an significant fraction of the population. For example, a lot of federal money given out via the HHS mandate will be collected from catholics and evangelicals who do not believe that is a moral purpose to which their money is being put to. This is probably even more clear in the adoption sphere, as opposition to gay couples adopting is moderately widespread, yet you are using this as an argument to deny money to catholic adoption agencies. Really it is an argument to deny money to agencies that place children with gay couples, since "they do not have a right to our money".

Such money arguments are ultimately irrelevant in a modern state, given the fungibility of money, and the nature of fiat currencies. If our democratic process votes something that I dont like, I feel a responsibility to campaign, not to attempt to pay less taxes.

 PassedOut, on 2012-February-14, 09:22, said:

I briefly alluded to this, it seems to be you inherent assumption that our morality now is better than the morality of the past, but I am not at all sure why you think this? There seem to be no logical reason that one should think we are "evolving" in the sense of getting better, as opposite to "devolving" the only thing one can say for sure is that morality is always changing (in your outlook).

@Kenberg: Yes, that is exactly where I was going. All moralities are, at some point, based on a statement of faith. For an atheist, this should indicate that statements of religious faith, as a basis for morality, are exactly equivalent to their own (arbitary) statements. If you are a theist, you will not beleive your statements are arbitary, but that is bye the bye for the moment.

However, you suggest "we can do better". However, to speak of "better" one needs a metric. Theists have a metric given by their belief in God. What is your metric for claiming one statement of morality (however extreme) is "better" or "worse" than another, and if your measure of better is "more like I am thinking now" then a democracy is essentially always at the peak of its morality.

 phil_20686, on 2012-February-14, 07:11, said:

Your overconfidence about how clear-cut these cases are is really getting ridiculous.

Whether you like it or not, the government in the US is heavily involved in controling who is allowed to call himself a doctor. It subcontracts this control essentially by the acreditaion process for medical schools (via a few additional layers, of course). Once a medical school has accreditation, it becomes part of an oligarchy, underwritten by the government, which controls the entrance door to the world of "doctors". Allowing medical schools to discriminate based on religious preference (or a close substitute for religious preference) is a 100% clear-cut violation of the freedom of religion of the applicants. How dare the state enforce that applicants with some set of beliefs have fewer schools to choose from?

You are free to found your own medical school based on your own belief. But if you want to have an official accreditation, you need to play by some basic rules.

 phil_20686, on 2012-February-14, 11:12, said:

Yes, changes can be either better or worse. But we're all bound to consider our current standards as better -- otherwise we'd not have adopted them.

Note that the religious face exactly the same reality. When religions change, however slowly, those changes are justified as reflecting a better understanding of god's will, rather than as simply a better understanding.

But -- as with our human understanding of morality -- there is no metric to show whether or not a change in the understanding "of god's will" is better or not. When the Roman Catholics changed the Nicean Creed from that established by the church fathers, that change was certainly not accepted as "better" by Orthodox Christians.

 phil_20686, on 2012-February-14, 11:02, said:

Perhaps you read the following decisions, and we can talk again once you actually "know" enough to handle a conversation:

EVERSON VS BOARD OF EDUCATION
SERBIAN EASTERN ORTHODOX DIOCESE VS. MILIVOJEVICH
McCOLLUM VS. BOARD OF EDUCATION
ENGEL VS. VITALE
REYNOLDS VS US
WEST VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION VS BURNETTE
SCHOOL DISTRICT VS. SCHEMP
WALZ VS. TAX COMMISSION
BRAUNFIELD VS BROWN
SHERBERT VS VERNER (highlighted)
WISCONSIN VS YODER
HAMILTON VS REGENTS OF U OF CALIFORNIA
US VS SEEGER
NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH VS OREGON

Remember, we're not discussing what you think, we're discussing the law as it currently stands. Some of these cases suggest the limited situations where your view is taken, largely they do not. You may find reading these cases easier than you might think, and enlightening.

As for your example, it's exactly backwards. The point is not that the government makes laws enshrining the majority religions opinion. The point is that it makes laws and mandates beneficial to society (where these intersect is debatable). In your example, if the government were to disenfranchise homosexual couples from adopting by barring funding for any organization that aided them, this would likely not stand (once DOMA falls) as they would be singling out individuals for different treatment. You are probably thinking, "THAT'S THE SAME AS SINGLING OUT CATHOLICS WITH BIRTH CONTROL!!!ONE" But it really isn't. With the birth control issue, there's a documented health policy reason for it, a large benefit to a large segment of the population, and it specifically is protecting an employer from imposing the employer's belief structure on the employees. The mandate is not one that says, "Catholic hospitals cannot receive funding" it's one that says, "hospitals must provide the following services to be considered fulfilling their obligations to society as hospitals, and thus be deserving of funding from the government." Furthermore, as catholic hospitals in a majority of this country already follow such provisions, they obviously do not think it is such a horrendous concern that they cannot adhere to it in the minimum limited capacity required--but that's a separate issue.

If the above post sounds condescending, it wasn't meant to be. It was meant to suggest that this is a deep and difficult issue, and one should spend the time and effort enlightening oneself on what greater thinkers than any of us have already concluded.

And yes to respond to the first line of your post, it really is true.

 kenberg, on 2012-February-14, 06:59, said:

I am not religious at all, but it seems to me that if you live in a country where very first passage in the Bill of Rights protects the free exercise of religion, then that ought to mean something. There is a big difference between a witness in court who wishes to cover their head for religious reasons and someone who just prefers to wear a hat. Actually I think it's reasonable for the government to prohibit the second, but not the first, even without any constitutional protection for freedom of religion.

 nigel_k, on 2012-February-14, 13:06, said:

But none of the rights in the Bill of Rights are absolute, they're all subject to interpretation and compromise for public welfare. Freedom of speech doesn't protect libel, misleading advertising, incitement to violence, "shouting 'fire' when there's no fire", etc. And freedom of religion must be weighed against public policy -- you can't invoke the "eye for an eye" quote from the Bible to get away with revenge violence.

If we believe that maintaining public health is a duty of the state, then we have to decide whether this trumps religious freedom where they conflict.

 phil_20686, on 2012-February-14, 11:02, said:

Maintaining an army violates my conscience heavily, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. Nevertheless, I have no way to prevent the German government from spending my tax money on the Bundeswehr.

 mgoetze, on 2012-February-14, 13:51, said:

The issue (in this case) isn't with the conscience of the taxpayers, it's with the actions of the organizations RECEIVING government money. The money comes with strings attached: do as the government says, or you don't get the funds. This is reasonable because the purpose of government spending is to further public policy. The government has a choice of organizations to subsidize; to make the best use of the funds, it should go to the organizations that are most in line with public policy.

I suppose you're saying that it should also work further down the payment chain: taxpayers should be able to put strings on the money they send to the goverment. But that's not the way a democrative republic works. The populace doesn't get to micro-manage government operations. We elect a government, and authorize them to act on behalf of the collective. Since there are practically no issues on which there's 100% agreement among the public, this necessarily involves making decisions that go against the wills of some taxpayers. Sometimes it even goes against the majority -- there was a time when most Americans were racist, but legislators were wise and brave enough to pass civil rights legislation.

 BunnyGo, on 2012-February-14, 12:20, said:

So I took your advice and (skim) read these cases. Some of them were interesting.

So you can bear in mind the following,
(1) I am not a US citizen, my passing interest in these cases comes from the fact that UK law often seems to follow US law, and read a bunch of US centric Christian Blogs, which often reference US judgements.
(2) I don't think we were talking about how the law is, we were talking more generally about how a society should be structured, and the counter balancing of different rights. Law seems to me to be a conflicting mass of often contradictory principles and precedents, and the resolution of any such case is crucially dependent on the predilections of the judges in regard to the importance of various factors. Different countries and cultures often resolve similar cases in widely different ways. For example, the UK and Australia have state funded religious schools, and see no conflict their with freedom of religion. (well some do, but regardless, they are legal).

Your response to the adoption case, was aimed at a rights angle - I was aiming at the money argument. They money argument goes something like: since the money comes from taxpayers, they have a say over how its used, and we should not give money to an institution that uses it in a way many tax payers find reprehensible. However, in any controversial use there are always large segments of the population that disagree with how their money is used.

Paraphrasing on the judgements above, the SC seems to have three main criteria on judging whether an infringement of religious liberty is allowed to stand:

(1) Does the government have a compelling interest in achieving A.
(2) Can the government reasonably be expected to achieve A in some other way that does not infringe.
(3) Is the end A of proportionate importance to the perceived violation.

Even suppose that I ceded (1) (which I don't - but when this comes to the SC I doubt it will be the grounds of complaint), it seems obvious that (2) is (easily) achievable without infringing religious sentiment of the institutions. That is part of what liberal Catholics are so wound up about, it just all seems so unnecessary. If you are mandating individual health insurance, you should remove employers from the game all together, and simply mandate that for a given, minimal government specified policy, you must accept all comers irrespective of pre-existing conditions, and you must charge all takers the same, and they are allowed to do whatever they want with their other policies. Hey presto, employers removed from the loop and no problem. Supposing the individual mandate is upheld, but I have always supposed that it would be.

Alternatively, simply have the government make contraceptives available free at point of access directly, then no health insurance plan need cover them. If you want them, go a hospital that provides them free of charge and then bills the government. No problemo. Even if catholic hospitals/pharmacists do not provide them, you would still have a large enough network of pharmacies to ensure they were easily available to everyone.

Contrary to popular opinion, the catholic church is not that bothered with states offering free contraception. We dont think its a good idea/thing, but catholics believe the purpose of the state is to provide an "ordered and just" society, which is a much lower bar than a perfectly moral society. If I might return the favour to BunnyGo: I suggest reading Aquinas on prostitution (just use google its basically everywhere - or try the end of the Summa theologica part 2, called the treatise on Law ) for the limits of the obligations of the state towards moral. In a sense, only those sins which cause significant material harm to other people not engaged in the sinful behaviour need be restricted by civil statute.

However, as I alluded to before, in Catholic thought there is a distribution of responsibility for money, but it basically ends after one jump. If I buy contraception for A I am responsible. If I pay A for something and he buys contraception I have no responsibility.

 barmar, on 2012-February-14, 14:10, said:

Yes but the government only ever has a problem with the organisations that are receiving government money if they feel they have widespread support - few politicians are prepared to engage in a futile electoral suicide. In the end the population stands at the top of the authority tree in a democracy, it is ultimately their consciences which determine how governments act, because if they are sufficiently incensed the opposition can run on a platform of reversing their actions.

 phil_20686, on 2012-February-14, 14:57, said:

Sometimes it's the wideness, other times it's the loudness (I think that's what's going on in this issue -- the Catholic Church is loud, and so are the Republican candidates who have jumped on this as a campaign issue). And sometimes it's the ones with the most money.

You're right that they can't easily go against overwhelming popular sentiment. But when it's closer to 50/50, I'd like to hope that the people in charge are smarter than the average, and can make the best decisions for us. What's so demoralizing these days is how the government seems more like a pissing match than intelligent people trying to figure out the best ways to run the country.

 barmar, on 2012-February-14, 15:10, said:

It goes a bit further than this. Not only the best way but what if any limits should there be when it comes to govt regulations and mandates.

In this case, assuming the govt has the legal right to force private companies to make birth control free, and lets assume lots of people like free medicine, should the govt force private companies to make free any medicine?

If the answer is yes the govt can force private companies to do it then why stop at birth control?


---

In this case if any part of the Catholic Church or a private company takes any taxpayer money, should the govt basically have no limits in the name of important public policy?

Reading these posts I get the feeling the central govt can do almost anything in the name of taxation, equal rights or public policy.

 phil_20686, on 2012-February-14, 14:52, said:

Ok. Interesting, I hadn't realized you were debating the general "idealist world" should it be, and not the on the ground "is it legal".

As for your interpretation, it's largely correct. I do agree that (1) and (3) are harder to contest, and that it does all come down to (2). I agree there are potentially lots of ways of doing this, but under the current law this does seem to be among the only ways--the others do not seem to resolve the issue (whether this law is legal is to be decided by those wiser than I).

Based on your last statement, it sounds like if you gave me money to buy my insurance and my insurance covered contraception, this would be ok. Is the fungibility of the situation that disturbing to Catholics? If the answer is yes (which I'm not in a position to dispute), then why does Obama's change to "the insurance companies pay for the contraception, not the employer" not resolve it?

Thank you for the suggestion, I've read St. Thomas Aquinas's works (although it was about 10 years ago...sadly I left all my copies of his writing back in the US, but I'll try looking online). Your summary of it is interesting. For informational purposes (it's not relevant since it's a different religion, but it is related) the Jewish take on this is the standing talmudic law that with very few exceptions the laws of the state must be obeyed (famously paraphrased by Jesus as "render unto Caesar...").

The other question I have (again, my knowledge of Catholic law is more than many Jews having spent lots of time in discussion with Jesuit priests, but it's not my specialty) is do Catholics think it's wrong for Hindus or Jews or others to break Catholic law? I know in Judaism we have a very few rules (basically, don't kill don't steal) for non-Jews to be considered righteous and heaven worthy. We don't think others should keep the sabbath, keep kosher, or most of the other 613 commandments. In fact, we keep non-Jews around on the sabbath just so that they can turn lights on for us. The question being, we wouldn't object to paying for a non-Jew breaking a Jewish law, but it sounds like Catholics would, is this correct?