So Religion's for Fools, eh? Fools and Liberals! [Separation of Church and State Thread]

Couscous

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/02/10/423346/gop-ups-the-ante-introduces-legislation-to-allow-any-employer-to-deny-any-preventive-health-service/

...Despite Obama’s decision to shield nonprofit religious institutions from offering birth control benefits, next week Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is expected to offer an amendment that would permit any employer or insurance plan to exclude any health service, no matter how essential, from coverage if they morally object to it:

...

Under the measure, an insurer or an employer would be able to claim a moral or religious objection to covering HIV/AIDS screenings, Type 2 Diabetes treatments, cancer tests or anything else they deem inappropriate or the result of an “unhealthy” or “immoral” lifestyle. Similarly, a health plan could refuse to cover mental health care on the grounds that the plan believes that psychiatric problems should be treated with prayer.

Individuals too can opt out of coverage if it is contrary to their religious or moral beliefs, radically undermining “the basic principle of insurance, which involves pooling the risks for all possible medical needs of all enrollees.” As the National Women’s Law Center explains, Blunt’s language is vague enough that “insurers may be able to sell plans that do not cover services required by the new health care law to an entire market because one individual objects, so all consumers in a market lose their right to coverage of the full range of critical health services.” As a result, a man “purchasing an insurance plan offered to women and men could object to maternity coverage, so the plan would not have to cover it, even though such coverage is required as part of the essential health benefits.”

I should thank the GOP for showing how trying to give special rights to religions undermines laws.

jothki

It's quite an interesting little war. I've been thinking about it, and yeah, the compromise isn't actually a compromise. The churches wanted to not to be forced to choose an insurance plan that includes birth control coverage. The response was to give them the freedom to choose any plan that they wanted, but to illegalize plans that don't include birth control coverage. Religious institutions now have the freedom to choose from a variety of options, none of which can give them what they actually wanted.

And now the GOP is trying to double up on it. If the administration is up for their offer to play chicken, the obvious response would be to require insurance companies to provide any service that has been left out of a normal plan due to a moral or religious objection on the part of the insurer.

Paladin

Finally, we're divorcing health insurance from the antiquated yoke that is employee benefit coverage

Mill

jothki wrote:

It's quite an interesting little war. I've been thinking about it, and yeah, the compromise isn't actually a compromise. The churches wanted to not to be forced to choose an insurance plan that includes birth control coverage. The response was to give them the freedom to choose any plan that they wanted, but to illegalize plans that don't include birth control coverage. Religious institutions now have the freedom to choose from a variety of options, none of which can give them what they actually wanted.

And now the GOP is trying to double up on it. If the administration is up for their offer to play chicken, the obvious response would be to require insurance companies to provide any service that has been left out of a normal plan due to a moral or religious objection on the part of the insurer.

It's a war that Obama will win and one that will hose the GOP both in the long run and the short one. If the insurance companies have to provide it, then the right can't argue religious freedom and if they rail against it, they're just alienating independents and moderates.

It also dawned on me that this set up possibly makes it possible for employees of religious institutions like the Catholic Church to get coverage for contraceptives without the Church having to pay for it. Also giving the costs associated with pregnancies, the right can't argue that the costs are being passed on since less babies being born means less money that insurance companies need to dole out.

jothki

Mill wrote:

It also dawned on me that this set up possibly makes it possible for employees of religious institutions like the Catholic Church to get coverage for contraceptives without the Church having to pay for it. Also giving the costs associated with pregnancies, the right can't argue that the costs are being passed on since less babies being born means less money that insurance companies need to dole out.

It certainly won't make insurance any cheaper for them, since it would cost insurance companies exactly as much to "not cover" it as it does to cover it.

Edit: Holy shit, this is actually better than I thought. If contraceptive insurance is now effectively free with insurance plans, and insurance plans are mandatory, then that means that we'll have government-mandated universal free birth control.

KalTorak

The bishops are bucking again: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us/catholic-bishops-criticize-new-contraception-proposal.html?_r=1&hp

shryke

Paladin wrote:

Finally, we're divorcing health insurance from the antiquated yoke that is employee benefit coverage

Yup, this is the tip of a wedge between the two.

It's like, the best thing ever.

Fencingsax

Mill wrote:

jothki wrote:

It's quite an interesting little war. I've been thinking about it, and yeah, the compromise isn't actually a compromise. The churches wanted to not to be forced to choose an insurance plan that includes birth control coverage. The response was to give them the freedom to choose any plan that they wanted, but to illegalize plans that don't include birth control coverage. Religious institutions now have the freedom to choose from a variety of options, none of which can give them what they actually wanted.

And now the GOP is trying to double up on it. If the administration is up for their offer to play chicken, the obvious response would be to require insurance companies to provide any service that has been left out of a normal plan due to a moral or religious objection on the part of the insurer.

It's a war that Obama will win and one that will hose the GOP both in the long run and the short one. If the insurance companies have to provide it, then the right can't argue religious freedom and if they rail against it, they're just alienating independents and moderates.

It also dawned on me that this set up possibly makes it possible for employees of religious institutions like the Catholic Church to get coverage for contraceptives without the Church having to pay for it. Also giving the costs associated with pregnancies, the right can't argue that the costs are being passed on since less babies being born means less money that insurance companies need to dole out.

Which is why several insurance companies were actually pretty happy to provide preventative care in general, because it's cheaper and more cost-effective than treatment.

shryke

Couscous wrote:

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/02/10/423346/gop-ups-the-ante-introduces-legislation-to-allow-any-employer-to-deny-any-preventive-health-service/

...Despite Obama’s decision to shield nonprofit religious institutions from offering birth control benefits, next week Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is expected to offer an amendment that would permit any employer or insurance plan to exclude any health service, no matter how essential, from coverage if they morally object to it:

...

Under the measure, an insurer or an employer would be able to claim a moral or religious objection to covering HIV/AIDS screenings, Type 2 Diabetes treatments, cancer tests or anything else they deem inappropriate or the result of an “unhealthy” or “immoral” lifestyle. Similarly, a health plan could refuse to cover mental health care on the grounds that the plan believes that psychiatric problems should be treated with prayer.

Individuals too can opt out of coverage if it is contrary to their religious or moral beliefs, radically undermining “the basic principle of insurance, which involves pooling the risks for all possible medical needs of all enrollees.” As the National Women’s Law Center explains, Blunt’s language is vague enough that “insurers may be able to sell plans that do not cover services required by the new health care law to an entire market because one individual objects, so all consumers in a market lose their right to coverage of the full range of critical health services.” As a result, a man “purchasing an insurance plan offered to women and men could object to maternity coverage, so the plan would not have to cover it, even though such coverage is required as part of the essential health benefits.”

I should thank the GOP for showing how trying to give special rights to religions undermines laws.

What does this mean for businesses run by Jehovah's Witnesses?

Professor Phobos

Presumably they could deny coverage for blood transfusions.

Erich Zahn

Why do we not see more priests railing against the church's insistence on controlling their followers and ignoring whatever the fuck it is that they believe in? I mean, isn't the Catholic Church supposed to be a representative republic that serves the interests of Christendom or something?

Professor Phobos

Erich Zahn wrote:

Why do we not see more priests railing against the church's insistence on controlling their followers and ignoring whatever the fuck it is that they believe in? I mean, isn't the Catholic Church supposed to be a representative republic that serves the interests of Christendom or something?

Hell no, the Catholic Church is the supreme spiritual and moral authority. If they are right, YOU are wrong. Arrogance is basically the mission statement.

enlightenedbum

Erich Zahn wrote:

Why do we not see more priests railing against the church's insistence on controlling their followers and ignoring whatever the fuck it is that they believe in? I mean, isn't the Catholic Church supposed to be a representative republic that serves the interests of Christendom or something?

It's more a vast criminal conspiracy to fuck boys.

shryke

Erich Zahn wrote:

Why do we not see more priests railing against the church's insistence on controlling their followers and ignoring whatever the fuck it is that they believe in? I mean, isn't the Catholic Church supposed to be a representative republic that serves the interests of Christendom or something?

What ever gave you that crazy idea?

syndalis

Erich Zahn wrote:

Why do we not see more priests railing against the church's insistence on controlling their followers and ignoring whatever the fuck it is that they believe in? I mean, isn't the Catholic Church supposed to be a representative republic that serves the interests of Christendom or something?

The Catholic Church is a racket established by the Romans waaay back to consolidate a bunch of disparate Judaic gnostic cults under one banner, by manipulating core texts to make it appear that the Holy See had the power of Dogmatic Law (as it is on earth, it is in heaven) - In other words, if the vatican decides 100% forgiveness for a child rapist in their ranks is okay, thats fine, because God did it too.

edit- the closest way you could call it representative is that the clergy politics amongst itself to elect their higher officers. These elections in no way whatsoever reflect the will of the Catholic people, who clearly would have elected a Hispanic or African pope by now.

Void Slayer

Fencingsax wrote:

Mill wrote:

jothki wrote:

It's quite an interesting little war. I've been thinking about it, and yeah, the compromise isn't actually a compromise. The churches wanted to not to be forced to choose an insurance plan that includes birth control coverage. The response was to give them the freedom to choose any plan that they wanted, but to illegalize plans that don't include birth control coverage. Religious institutions now have the freedom to choose from a variety of options, none of which can give them what they actually wanted.

And now the GOP is trying to double up on it. If the administration is up for their offer to play chicken, the obvious response would be to require insurance companies to provide any service that has been left out of a normal plan due to a moral or religious objection on the part of the insurer.

It's a war that Obama will win and one that will hose the GOP both in the long run and the short one. If the insurance companies have to provide it, then the right can't argue religious freedom and if they rail against it, they're just alienating independents and moderates.

It also dawned on me that this set up possibly makes it possible for employees of religious institutions like the Catholic Church to get coverage for contraceptives without the Church having to pay for it. Also giving the costs associated with pregnancies, the right can't argue that the costs are being passed on since less babies being born means less money that insurance companies need to dole out.

Which is why several insurance companies were actually pretty happy to provide preventative care in general, because it's cheaper and more cost-effective than treatment.

The new health insurance plan I am going to put together under the bill at the top of the page will cut the costs by removing all possible treatments, drugs and tests as possibly against someone's beliefs.

And it will only cost $1 a month! Employers* will love it!

*Who only want to skirt the law to save money.

syndalis

I really like where this is going.

We have stated that it is the Woman's right to have birth control / contraceptives. If the employer's insurance plan does not cover it, the insurance company is required to provide it, free of charge, to the employee, as a rider policy.

Now, imagine if we said the same thing about annual checkups, generic medicine, emergency room services, etc? If the employer does not provide these services, the insurance company has to via rider... and since they won't do it for free at that level... the government can pay them to provide the services... and we are getting closer and closer to insurance for everyone.

It's fucking grand.

Tofystedeth

Someone at my office (I work in IT for a Catholic hospital system) brought up a good point the other day. In our orientation and in newsletters and stuff they talk about our Catholic founding, and mission, and values and such, and you know what, despite the problems I have with the catholic church, I chose to work here. But we also bought a clinic system that represents about half the clinics in our city and surrounding area. They were not Catholic in origin. A strictly secular company. I would suck hard if suddenly those people who did not choose to work here like I did suddenly lost coverage on all this stuff.

So basically what I'm saying is I'm all for this.

Mill

I find it funny that the Catholic Church somehow thinks that insurance companies are going to have a problem with this on moral grounds. Do they not get that most of them are run by secular individuals or religious hypocrites that would rather pay for the coverage rather than pay for all the costs associated with pregnancies. Also if I'm not mistaken don't most of them already cover contraceptives already and don't some of the contraceptives serve purposes other than make sex safe?

I know the legislative route is going to fail and hopefully, it takes some shitty republican congresscritters with it. I'm pretty sure it'll also fail in the courts. This should be a really fun politically fight to watch because it's just end badly for the Catholic Church and the GOP.

AManFromEarth

You know why this "people are going to be required to provide a service they find immoral via tax dollars!" thing is total bullshit?

Ask those same people how they'd feel for people to dip out on taxes because they fund the military and that's against their religion.

Kistra

Tofystedeth wrote:

Someone at my office (I work in IT for a Catholic hospital system) brought up a good point the other day. In our orientation and in newsletters and stuff they talk about our Catholic founding, and mission, and values and such, and you know what, despite the problems I have with the catholic church, I chose to work here. But we also bought a clinic system that represents about half the clinics in our city and surrounding area. They were not Catholic in origin. A strictly secular company. I would suck hard if suddenly those people who did not choose to work here like I did suddenly lost coverage on all this stuff.

So basically what I'm saying is I'm all for this.

Oh yeah. This issue is coming up with healthcare system mergers and hospital mergers and buyouts all over when one party is catholic. The scope of practice is also changed on a regular basis when these things happen. The doctors that work there are all of the sudden not allowed to prescribe EC or insert IUDs or perform vasectomies or abortions.

Couscous

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/lew-tweaked-contraception-rule-will-save-insurance-companies

LEW: You know, I have to tell you, as somebody who's done budgets for a lot of years, usually when people say to me that something doesn't cost money, I ask them, how could that be? This is the exception to the rule. If you priced two insurance plans, one of them with contraception and other without, the plan without contraception costs more than the one with it. So this will not cost the insurance companies money. It will not put religious institutions in a position (ph) where they have to violate their principles.

CROWLEY: Why won't it? Why -- why is that?

LEW: Because the total cost of care for persons is higher without than it is with contraception…

Atomika

Couscous wrote:

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/lew-tweaked-contraception-rule-will-save-insurance-companies

LEW: You know, I have to tell you, as somebody who's done budgets for a lot of years, usually when people say to me that something doesn't cost money, I ask them, how could that be? This is the exception to the rule. If you priced two insurance plans, one of them with contraception and other without, the plan without contraception costs more than the one with it. So this will not cost the insurance companies money. It will not put religious institutions in a position (ph) where they have to violate their principles.

CROWLEY: Why won't it? Why -- why is that?

LEW: Because the total cost of care for persons is higher without than it is with contraception…

Awesome.


Insurance companies: "We don't give a shit what your church says. We're giving you access to contraceptives."

DevoutlyApathetic

Erich Zahn wrote:

Why do we not see more priests railing against the church's insistence on controlling their followers and ignoring whatever the fuck it is that they believe in? I mean, isn't the Catholic Church supposed to be a representative republic that serves the interests of Christendom or something?

Yea, no. The Church is very much still in the Absolute Monarch style of thing.

The thing that pisses me off about this is that it all boils down to forcing Catholics to follow dogma without any respect for their freedom of conscious. It's almost like all the people who make up the Church don't really give a fuck what the Church says!

nexuscrawler

Most forms of birth control are old and gneric at this point. they're really not very expensive for the insurance companies to cover in the first place.

I love that the fundies are going crazy over this. Especially since it's partisan nature is so blatant. These are the same people screaming about Sharia law and shit. If religious organizations are given free reign to break the law under the Constituiton Sharia law is totally legal.

shryke

DevoutlyApathetic wrote:

Erich Zahn wrote:

Why do we not see more priests railing against the church's insistence on controlling their followers and ignoring whatever the fuck it is that they believe in? I mean, isn't the Catholic Church supposed to be a representative republic that serves the interests of Christendom or something?

Yea, no. The Church is very much still in the Absolute Monarch style of thing.

The thing that pisses me off about this is that it all boils down to forcing Catholics to follow dogma without any respect for their freedom of conscious. It's almost like all the people who make up the Church don't really give a fuck what the Church says!

I'm not sure why you think religions (which espouse the idea that they have the one right answer), would ever be any sort of democratic institution.

Kistra

Apparently some republicans are aware that fighting against birth control isn't going to help them. A panel at CPAC recommended calling the birth control mandate an abortion mandate and this would be the only way it would get defeated. The Americans United for Life President then posted on her blog about how the birth control mandate violates the spirit of Roe v. Wade...

http://www.aul.org/2012/02/americans-united-for-life-says-obama-administration’s-strained-health-care-policy-pronouncement-turns-roe-on-its-head/

http://www.americanindependent.com/211450/at-cpac-leaders-urge-steering-birth-control-conversation-toward-abortion

While framing and naming are always important... is it really possible to rename and reframe something after it has gotten this much publicity?

Spoit

Sure it is, when you own the media

Captain Carrot

AManFromEarth wrote:

You know why this "people are going to be required to provide a service they find immoral via tax dollars!" thing is total bullshit?

Ask those same people how they'd feel for people to dip out on taxes because they fund the military and that's against their religion.

That doesn't count. Why? Shhhh.

enlightenedbum

McConnell is apparently going to push forward and try to get a conscience clause for all employers. Because women are all whores who are giving it up to easily.

Quid

Couscous wrote:

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/lew-tweaked-contraception-rule-will-save-insurance-companies

LEW: You know, I have to tell you, as somebody who's done budgets for a lot of years, usually when people say to me that something doesn't cost money, I ask them, how could that be? This is the exception to the rule. If you priced two insurance plans, one of them with contraception and other without, the plan without contraception costs more than the one with it. So this will not cost the insurance companies money. It will not put religious institutions in a position (ph) where they have to violate their principles.

CROWLEY: Why won't it? Why -- why is that?

LEW: Because the total cost of care for persons is higher without than it is with contraception…

This really is excellent.

KalTorak

We demand the ability to pay more money for inferior coverage!

Couscous

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/mcconnell-gop-will-push-to-let-any-employer-deny-contraception-coverage.php?ref=fpa

Not satisfied with President Obama’s new religious accommodation, Republicans will move forward with legislation by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that permits any employer to deny birth control coverage in their health insurance plans, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Sunday.

“If we end up having to try to overcome the President’s opposition by legislation, of course I’d be happy to support it, and intend to support it,” McConnell said. “We’ll be voting on that in the Senate and you can anticipate that that would happen as soon as possible.”

The Blunt amendment he was specifically referring to would “ensure that health care stakeholders retain the right to provide, purchase, or enroll in health coverage that is consistent with their religious beliefs and moral convictions” under the Affordable Care Act. Similar legislation was introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) before the White House announced Friday that it would allow religious nonprofits such as charities, hospitals and universities to opt out of paying for contraception coverage and force the insurance company to do so instead.

White House chief of staff Jack Lew, asked about the Blunt amendment after McConnell’s remarks, declined to delve into the issue but predicted that “it’s not going to come to pass.”

A debate over access to contraception could be politically problematic for Republicans as polls show Americans overwhelmingly support the use of birth control and want insurance plans to cover the service for free. Tellingly, McConnell was eager to keep the focus on religious freedom as opposed to contraception itself.

“The fact that the White House thinks this is about contraception is the whole problem. This is about freedom of religion, it’s right there in the First Amendment. You can’t miss it — right there in the very first amendment to our Constitution,” McConnell said. “What the overall view on the issue of contraception is has nothing to do with an issue about religious freedom.”

McConnell went on to embellish the argument, claiming Obama is being “rigid in his view that he gets to decide what somebody else’s religion is.” He said that “this issue will not go away until the administration simply backs down.”

House GOP leaders also said Friday they will move forward with legislation to repeal the birth control rule in its entirety. Republicans from both chambers are aligning themselves with the Catholic Bishops who say the new policy remains unacceptable.

The push indicates either that Republicans believe there’s still an opportunity to score political points against Obama, or that they’ve simply calculated they cannot back down now. Regardless, the success of the strategy now rests on the gamble that Republicans will be able to continue framing the issue as one over religious liberty and not contraception, despite the new accommodation Obama carved out.

I think I will just start quoting Scalia when it comes to this stuff:

To make an individual's obligation to obey such a law contingent upon the law's coincidence with his religious beliefs, except where the State's interest is "compelling" -- permitting him, by virtue of his beliefs, "to become a law unto himself," Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. at 167 -- contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense. [n2]

I love how the Republicans are now backing an expansionist view of the first amendment.

Mill

DevoutlyApathetic wrote:

Erich Zahn wrote:

Why do we not see more priests railing against the church's insistence on controlling their followers and ignoring whatever the fuck it is that they believe in? I mean, isn't the Catholic Church supposed to be a representative republic that serves the interests of Christendom or something?

Yea, no. The Church is very much still in the Absolute Monarch style of thing.

The thing that pisses me off about this is that it all boils down to forcing Catholics to follow dogma without any respect for their freedom of conscious. It's almost like all the people who make up the Church don't really give a fuck what the Church says!

Well besides not being democratic as someone else pointing out. The Catholic Church is still stock in the mindset that the rabble must out breed pagans and that God will ensure their is enough for everyone and if their isn't it's really a problem with production and not of a true lack of resources. PBS actually did a bit on the Philippines and how the growing population there isn't slowing because the Catholic Church has enough political sway to kill any public effort to endorse birth control.

The Church leader they interviewed really pissed me off because he really felt that the lack of food and poverty was because of production, while ignoring the fact that there are just too many people for the natural resources to support. It also doesn't help that the Church is made of ignorant old men who aren't in a position of poverty where you don't have a warm shelter, good clothes and left wondering when your next meal is. I suspect countries like the Philippines will ultimately do in religious groups that publicly try to block access to contraception because the shit will hit the fan. Those groups won't be able to run away from the fact that they opposed population control and idiotically assume that resources would magically appear to cover the unneeded and avoidable population growth.

Julius

Hamurabi wrote:

Couscous wrote:

Modern Man wrote:

skyrimisneato wrote:

Can someone enumerate those values that Charles Murray advocates, for the benefit of those PA denizens who will never read his book, but want to participate in the thread, please? I followed the links to the stories, but they are pretty light on specifics.

Roughly, get an education, work full-time, be involved in your community and don't have kids out of wedlock.

Oh, and religiosity, though I would put that under community involvement.

Which he uses as a justification for why it totally isn't all the other shit that caused the economic fucking over of the working class. It is the rich person's "those poor people, if only we could save them from themselves outside of telling them how shitty they are" bullshit. Saying you had nothing to do with the poverty of the working class and the solution is to basically bitch them until they stop being so terrible is the opiate of the rich.

From the book reviews, I have a shitload of problems with his shit:
1. Assumes a vision there is little evidence most of the founders believed in it. He relies on the idea that they were mostly unified in their vision.
2. Doesn't really show causation. This is especially a problem when there are plenty of other possible problems such as the decline of decent paying working class jobs meaning they are going to be poorer even if they work as hard.
3. Without knowing causation, there is no real solution possible.
4. As a libertarian, the idea of any government involvement in the solution is anathema so the result is a wishy washy solution that relies on the rich as a deus ex machina that we have no reason to believe will happen.
5. Assumes pretty much everything is getting worse. For example, that the working class is less law abiding despite crime rates dropping.
6. This limits most of the value to a fairly useless description of shit we know happened and correlation we know about.

To be clear, I'm not in here arguing that being religious, prioritizing education, or brushing your teeth before bed make you socioeconomically successful; Murray basically does that in his book, and feels that those are values that ought to be glorified and promulgated, and that's his business.

What I do see as being a valuable contribution specifically to the discourse on large populations and religion is that, as it turns out, being better educated and making more money don't necessarily make you less religious, which was the impression that I had before hearing that piece on NPR on Tuesday. The "100 pages of data" was in reference to that, since eb was basically dismissing the entire book (including the aforementioned tidbit that I found relevant to this thread) based on an ad hominem against Richard Murray. If he has data that show that upper-middle-class white people -- and he says these trends ring true across all ethnic groups -- are just as or more religious than their lower-middle- and working-class counterparts, then I think that's an interesting finding.

EDIT: Actually, prioritizing education probably would make you more successful... but I feel it's still pretty clear what I meant by listing his list of White People Virtues.

found this


Still reading but it seems that education certainly affects religious beliefs like devils and heavens, and attendance if selected by denomination.

Atomika

Everyone knows Scalia is just a RINO.

DevoutlyApathetic

shryke wrote:

DevoutlyApathetic wrote:

Erich Zahn wrote:

Why do we not see more priests railing against the church's insistence on controlling their followers and ignoring whatever the fuck it is that they believe in? I mean, isn't the Catholic Church supposed to be a representative republic that serves the interests of Christendom or something?

Yea, no. The Church is very much still in the Absolute Monarch style of thing.

The thing that pisses me off about this is that it all boils down to forcing Catholics to follow dogma without any respect for their freedom of conscious. It's almost like all the people who make up the Church don't really give a fuck what the Church says!

I'm not sure why you think religions (which espouse the idea that they have the one right answer), would ever be any sort of democratic institution.

I'm assuming your comment is in response to the second statement and not the first. Free Will is a pretty large part of Catholic Doctrine (any non-Calvinist Christianity really.) This whole thing now appears to be based around them afraid somebody will make the wrong choice. That the option to make the wrong choice is (to them) a god given gift......yeah.

Zython

Mill wrote:

DevoutlyApathetic wrote:

Erich Zahn wrote:

Why do we not see more priests railing against the church's insistence on controlling their followers and ignoring whatever the fuck it is that they believe in? I mean, isn't the Catholic Church supposed to be a representative republic that serves the interests of Christendom or something?

Yea, no. The Church is very much still in the Absolute Monarch style of thing.

The thing that pisses me off about this is that it all boils down to forcing Catholics to follow dogma without any respect for their freedom of conscious. It's almost like all the people who make up the Church don't really give a fuck what the Church says!

Well besides not being democratic as someone else pointing out. The Catholic Church is still stock in the mindset that the rabble must out breed pagans and that God will ensure their is enough for everyone and if their isn't it's really a problem with production and not of a true lack of resources. PBS actually did a bit on the Philippines and how the growing population there isn't slowing because the Catholic Church has enough political sway to kill any public effort to endorse birth control.

The Church leader they interviewed really pissed me off because he really felt that the lack of food and poverty was because of production, while ignoring the fact that there are just too many people for the natural resources to support. It also doesn't help that the Church is made of ignorant old men who aren't in a position of poverty where you don't have a warm shelter, good clothes and left wondering when your next meal is. I suspect countries like the Philippines will ultimately do in religious groups that publicly try to block access to contraception because the shit will hit the fan. Those groups won't be able to run away from the fact that they opposed population control and idiotically assume that resources would magically appear to cover the unneeded and avoidable population growth.

That is if they don't blame gay people. Which they probably will.

Edith_Bagot-Dix

By the logic presented in this case - since people of all religions are the employers of Congress, shouldn't the insurance they receive take all possible religious prohibitions into account?

Couscous

So is there anything that the Catholic Church would accept outside of fucking over women? They would probably consider using taxes to pay for their employees' contraception just as bad. They are currently demanding absolutely no free contraceptive coverage for employees even if the employer is not required to do anything to facilitate it.