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Morality of this?
MoralityScaling | by /u/hiiloovethis | 118 comments | 2026-09-02T16:11:52+00:00 Central
Comments
| /u/Fal_co1 iirc China does this, you can't take kid to religious service and they can choose to convert at a certain age. EDIT: wow this blew up If you're reading this you're a gay |
| /u/TheMireAngel an etsimated over 1 million Tibbetans were genocided for having a religion. ACTUALY MORALY EVIL https://preview.redd.it/igq5j4edh5nh1.png?width=976&for mat=png&auto=webp&s=cd697fde10537a930b22afc457098c640689 3f9b |
| /u/burncult you couldn't have scrolled a little more to find an actual resource? |
| /u/Odd_Criticism_8830 Yeah but that's made up by a CIA carve out |
| /u/sexland69 china has state atheism-they take it too far (e.g. uyghur muslims) but in theory i'd prefer an atheist government over this dumbass evangelical christian one we have now 🤷🏻♂️ edit: took out the word retarded, you guys convinced me |
| /u/Palachrist https://preview.redd.it/tmxsel4w65nh1.jpeg?width=1290&fo rmat=pjpg&auto=webp&s=44bcde40eb799d9d89a3af1dd18e7349bf 9b213b Me showing you a picture of and talking about the Emperor of Mankind, who I just think is neat. |
| /u/Kriss3d Praise The Omnisiah. Because if you dont, we make servitors tonight! |
| /u/onyx_ic Firmly Cult Mechanicus. You should see my techpriest cosplay. |
| /u/rivirstyx https://giphy.com/gifs/TfLEXiRtYoHUkaPVUk |
| /u/KnifeKnut The true GOD EMPEROR does not need your worship. Nor does He need armor, for he wears the skin of Shai Hulud! |
| /u/PrettyPurrfect Our government is supposed to be atheist. Separation of church and state is supposed to be a thing |
| /u/_itsprobablynothing Secular, not atheist |
| /u/MyldExcitement Still NOT a Christian or any religious country in America. At least that's what our Constitution says. ETA: thanks for the awards, kind internet strangers. |
| /u/Ignivous Yeah these motherfuckers are trying to bring about Revalations or something, NOT something I want from my representatives. |
| /u/Awkward_Turnover_983 Yeah they can feel free to believe in fairy tales I guess, but history seems to show a pattern of these retards dragging everyone else into wars. No thank you. My world doesn't seem to be ending right now, so I don't need your dumb fuckass to try to speed that up. |
| /u/Western_Cry7600 It's wild how history seems to repeat itself, right? It really makes you think about how beliefs can impact everyone around us. |
| /u/LessEnthusiasm8166 Funny...know what else repeats itself? Simulations. |
| /u/Letitsnowgreatballs I mean life itself is technically a simulation since everything is at some point universal coding. Just coding we can't fully interact with yet but we can see it when we use cameras to capture light moving. So you're technically not wrong but also the idea that we are all in a simulation is impossible. Truly impossible. It would require more energy than the universe actually has. |
| /u/Mean_Translator4036 Thank you for putting secular. The Chinese reference and then the idiots above continuing to say atheist was frying me. Secularism is not the same as atheism and china is a fucking awful reference for a secular system of government. Holy shit. |
| /u/double_shadow It's just authentic, informed opinions getting upvoted to the top. Surely the CCP wouldn't be maniupulating English language social media... |
| /u/FUPAMagneto That's not what separation of church and state is at all. Or what atheism is, for that matter |
| /u/HuckleberryShot898 It's secular not atheist. Big difference. An atheist government asserts there's no god and actively discourages religion to various degrees. A secular government doesn't comment on matters of religion and has a no contact no interference policy with religious institutions when it comes to decision making. If laws happen to affect religious institutions too then it affects them and if it doesn't it doesn't. The point is religion isn't supposed to be in the government one way or the other |
| /u/Cornstar-2383 You don't like our racist psycho pedophile of a president.? Who would've thought |
| /u/JB707 Yeah I'd take that over having psycho Christian Zionists trying to manufacture fairy tale end times |
| /u/Lasolie Their equivelant are in the deciding branches of their mega corporations and their political leadership branches. They just dont have religious fanatics in leader leadership positions. China is highly repressive and authoritarian for whatever they want at any time they want. |
| /u/BeautifulDifferent17 I am certainly no fan of how certain parts of Christian America has a desire to have their beliefs dictate how the country is run. But I am not sure that China's system of state atheism is clearly better. The history of their Cultural Revolution and the government's heavy handed suppression of people and their beliefs in the name of eradicating the "Four Olds" from Chinese society is an example of periods where this system has lead to horrific results when taken too far. Things certainly aren't as extreme today, but the Tibetans and the Uyghurs are both recent examples where I believe the party has taken actions that can be seen as trying to suppress -- or in Tibet's case with kidnapping the Panchen Lama, potentially usurp/destroy -- beliefs/traditions/orginizations they think might oppose the party. The issue is not necessarily the beliefs themselves that is an issue in either of these cases though, it is the belief that you are justified in using force and suppression to remove/eliminate opposing beliefs. |
| /u/DaElderBrah No they do the correct thing. Everything else is wrong. If the people want to involve religion into politics they can just fuck off. |
| /u/WorldsBestPoster I'd say the situation with the Uyghur is not a function of China's state atheism but rather the unique conditions of western China as a whole. It's been one of the slowest to develop, shares a border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has a sizable Muslim population which is largely nomadic, illiterate, and poorly educated. The cultural cross-pollination was not the most desirable. It resulted in a handful of Uyghur-driven terrorist attacks in western China due to radicalization by Salafist influenced teachings that came over the border. They even tried to "Arabicize" the Uyghur population (mandate beards, head coverings, etc) which sort of moved them further from their Turkic roots. On the other hand, you have the Hui: China's largest Muslim group. Next to no issues, no repression, they send their kids to school, they have their mosques, have businesses, and are fully integrated within society. They maintain their cultural identities and live normal lives. Same could be said of the Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tatars, and Tajiks who live in western China and who tend to be predominantly Muslim. |
| /u/dankblonde What do disabled people have to do with this? |
| /u/Winter-Bed5879 That does seem to be the case, but that could also reasonably be argued as a clear case of the State exerting too much authority. As a westerner, it's difficult to imagine that kind of restraint, but I live in a radically different culture. |
| /u/BootBonks Ooh Reddit is gonna love that |
| /u/Legendary-Titan Moral I don't think teaching kids about religion is bad but forcing it on them is |
| /u/Raise_A_Thoth There's hardly any way to "teach" religion to children without it being quite forced. |
| /u/gin_atomic I'm sure things are different in the US but in the UK at school we have a whole curriculum called "Religious Education" or RE which goes into detail about religions and customs of all different cultures and encourages spiritual debate. At the schools I attended they were not taught to indoctrinate us but just studied in the same way we would study history or art |
| /u/Ok-Budget3225 I imagine the end result is that most people would just become agnostic after they've learned about all the major religions. |
| /u/gin_atomic I think you're probably right! I was an atheist from a young age but RE was one of my favourite subjects as a child, underneath science, just because I loved hearing all of the stories, parables, learning about different deities and rites of worship. It was fascinating but it didn't encourage me to be religious myself. |
| /u/Nimue_- I have the same experience. I believe storytelling is one of the most human things there is and to me greek myth, the epic of gilgamesh and bible stories and fairytales are all just stories humanity has told throughout the ages |
| /u/Rich-Story-1748 There's actually alot of information and studies done on this exact phenomena. Humans believing in a higher being stems from the unknown needing to be explained for safety. A bush rustling alot but no animal in there, rain, storm, why a plant found in the wild has grown worse than another one, stones suddenly coming down the hill to crush your tribe out of nowhere. It literally could not be explained. This is also why every single god essentially had a specific ''thing'' or element. Its only recently a monotheistic God were ever first mentioned ( judaism) Before judaism in the region you had a polytheistic religion where Yahweh that later became the ONE god was the god of the skies. We believe ( without 100% certainty) that the second humans developed this sense 100.000-/- they started believing in a higher being/beings. It is what it is but I highly doubt religion would be sticking around if teaching unbiased religious history was a thing for the entire world. |
| /u/Pockydo I'm American and funny enough my interest in History/myth/religion is a huge reason why I'm an atheist today Grew up Catholic and then Protestant as a teen. But it never took because they were always too similar to on the "wrong" religions |
| /u/BDSMChef_RP Grew up Roman Catholic till I was 11, Mom married Mormon Step Dad (Huge fight with the families on both sides over that) and he was a CRAZY ass mormon too once we moved away from moms side of the family. Divorced him at 16 and I wandered into Pagan faiths, particularly Norse. Which to be clear I started that in 2001 long before The Vikings show started shuffling the casuals in. I'm also not one of the "WOOO VALHALLA! BEER AND BITCHES!" guys. My priest (Gothi) is a pretty reasonable and sensible dude who does believe in science and we're pretty certain the lore is just an old culture trying to describe natural disasters the best way they could. |
| /u/claimTheVictory You're also told that believing is better than questioning. That never sat right with me. |
| /u/keelhaulrose I went to a church where the teenagers of the group spent Sundays learning about different religions, including field trips to different houses of worship and talks with leaders of those trips. I'm not sure if I would call myself agnostic. I just realized that the near universal thread that went through all these religions was that you're supposed to be a person who helps others and is kind towards other people. I don't go to church, but I do believe there is a higher power of some sort, and that the path forward is to follow the golden rule. |
| /u/rsrxciii That's how I view it. You don't need religion to tell you to not treat your fellow man poorly. Treat others how you want to be treated and all that. |
| /u/Pristine_Barber976 Yeah that's called making an educated choice. |
| /u/Byizo I went from Christian to agnostic to atheist through my late 20s. When you view religious teachings through an objective lens most start to look similar. I tend to think it's a combination of fear of our finite mortality and a desire to control large groups of people (populations are more willing to withstand an empty belly in exchange for faith in or fear of a higher power). |
| /u/SpooktorB Strong belief in your flavor of kool-aid is usually due to ignorance of other flavors of kool-aid existing. |
| /u/codelyoko_x I grew up in Southern Africa and we also have RE over there, whenever our teacher would teach about other religions, he would always emphasize that Christianity is the true one, I didn't think much of it at the time until I became atheist, it's kinda fucked up tbh |
| /u/Aidenj23 In the US we pledge alligance to "One nation under God" every day. There's not as much nuance as it sounds like you have. |
| /u/Raise_A_Thoth Well we needed that one to fend off those godless commies. |
| /u/stephoswalk They added the "Under God" part later because of the Red Scare. Here is Porky Pig reciting the original in 1939. |
| /u/Gojira085 In the US it depends on the state and district. Our class in my school that did this was called World Cultures and was in 10th grade. |
| /u/gin_atomic Gosh that sounds quite late! We definitely started RE shortly after kindergarten/reception year at my school. Honestly I think it's so interesting learning about the curriculum in other countries as well and seeing how different subjects are prioritised. |
| /u/Brilliant-Recover594 I had RE, but I was in a catholic school and they primarily taught New Testament with a few classes in Judaism and that was pretty much it. They also didn't have much good to say about Islam either lmao |
| /u/Nero_2001 We had something similar in Germany but despite the teacher telling us about other believes it was still favoring Christianity. |
| /u/ProposalWest3152 This is exactly how agnostics are made. Theres a point when you start wondering what is the whole point of religion if theres so many that you can literally pick and choose and most of them think they are the "one true" faith. |
| /u/corcyra And don't forget all the past religions, going back thousands of years. They were doubtless the only true religion too, in their time. |
| /u/GreatComedianthe3rd There is actually, parents can practice their faith openly around their children and answer questions children will inevitably ask honestly and openly to the best of their abilities. This is a good way kids often will still copy their parents and want to be involved. |
| /u/Aidenj23 That would require the parents to frame their practices as "this is what I believe" rather than "this is what is true" which I'm not convinced a substantial portion of religious parents are capable of remembering to do. Plus even if they did that a child is going to accept what their parents believe as fact since it's their parents. I'm not sure there is a way to introduce young children to religion that won't result in some form of bias influencing the child unless it is taught by a complete stranger who teaches many religions and never claims what they believe. And that seems like a lot of effort compared to a world religion class in high school. |
| /u/dinkpantiez It is entirely impossible to disconnect religion from this. If you are a religious person, then you believe the things you have faith in to be undeniably true. You can't teach a kid an unbiased view of religion when you are speaking from a religious stance. |
| /u/PzykoHobo Did you not learn about world religions as a kid? I went to public school in the south and we learned the basic premises of the major religions (Abrahamic, Buddhism, and Hinduism), including history, a bit of the beliefs and standard practices/ holidays. The facts of religion can absolutely be taught to children without forcing belief on them. |
| /u/de_la_Dude Ironically, taking this class in a catholic high school was the turning point for me to becoming atheist. It wasn't like I immediately opened my eyes but the class raised questions about my faith no one could adequately answer. Its funny how critical thinking is demonized in this country isn't it? |
| /u/Greta-Elephant5041 What? Tell that to the Norwegian elementary school system lol. To be fair, in my day the class was called Christianity, then Christianity, Religion and WorldViews (like for example humanism). Now it is Religion, WorldViews and Ethics. It is literally a class that teaches you about different world views, without preaching or attempting to convert. Though it used to be just that, for Christianity. Then we exited the middle ages ;) Went from "this is true/these are the stories from the Bible and what you should think about them" to "this is what some people believe and the history of such beliefs". |
| /u/lesterholtgroupie You can teach morality without religion |
| /u/Pitiful-Student-1852 I don't see how kids can even grasp the concept yet, they aren't mentally developed for that, religion is very complicated it's better off to wait until middle school or something most kids who are elementary school age (which is when I was being forced to go) just wanna play with toys and video games and do normal kid things and probably don't care or have the attention span for it. |
| /u/Possible-Estimate748 Many religions indoctrinate children which makes them feel like they have to believe in it or they're doing something wrong. |
| /u/Raise_A_Thoth It's literally just what indoctrination is. There are religious doctrines and children are taught ro follow them and believe in the faith without questioning it. There is no religion with kids without indoctrination. And without that indoctrination, virtually all of the world's major religions would dramatically fall in membership and followership, because it is very rare for non-religious adults to suddenly convert to a religion. |
| /u/Round-Walrus3175 There is no philosophy or culture without indoctrination. Nobody goes through life without someone telling them what is right or wrong. It's just a matter of who, not if, they decide to believe. |
| /u/Gojira085 Agreed. School even in a democracy is a form of indoctrination |
| /u/GalaXion24 The most hegemonic ideology in our world to the point people don't even recognise it as ideology is nationalism. People only call it that when it's extreme forms of it, but people are indoctrinated from birth by both institutions and by parents indoctrinated by said institutions, into thinking of "nations" as these real tangible things that matter and they are made to incorporate this into their identity young and it's tied to the state in terms of the nation-state in order to foster loyalty. None of this is "real," it's all completely artificial and made up. |
| /u/endlessnamelesskat Correct. I think it's funny how when people treat their worldview as the correct default one and get mad when someone with a different idea about metaphysics dos the same thing but from their perspective, then suddenly it's not education, it's indoctrination. |
| /u/seventeenninetytoo I honestly don't know what people expect. A law that requires that parents get babysitters every time they go to church and never talk to their kids about what they believe? It's ridiculous. Kids are sponges and they primarily learn from their parents. It's just how humans work... |
| /u/sapphoseros Every religion doesn't demand children believe in the faith without questioning it. |
| /u/fieldgrass As a kid who was raised in Reform Judaism I always shake my head a bit when the Reddit atheists who come from obvious evangelical trauma talk about all religions like this. We were indoctrinated to believe certain things sure, but "you cannot ask questions" def is not part of the teaching. My Rabbi was openly agnostic. |
| /u/burninglighte And there are so many more religions than just abrahamic ones, which is something they tend to forget |
| /u/Ostrichslinger without questioning it That is not a feature of religions, they are features of cults. I have yet to find a church that doesn't allow people to come and go as they please, or answer the questions they have. Nor is it written in their scriptures otherwise. |
| /u/Original-Antelope-66 It's irrelevant. The things you would have to do to prevent parents from raising their children within their faith are much more immoral than this. |
| /u/Clickclacktheblueguy No matter how you view it morally, it collapses immediately under any amount of critical thought. Any parent would teach their children about how the world works, and a parent would consider their religious beliefs to be a part of that. The amount of interference with families this would require to enforce also brings to mind countless horror stories of CPS overreach. Even if it was moral, it would require immoral actions to make it work. EDIT: Wow, that was a lot of engagement. I wanna revisit this comment since I've gotten some feedback and also have more time to articulate my ideas than I did earlier during my rapidly dwindling lunch break: First I want to acknowledge that the original post did not mention any legal or government action. I and many others definitely made a mental jump there. When you're talking about what people should do, it's easy to fill in the blank that that's what should be mandated. As for actually addressing whether this is moral, I think the position of "children should be raised without a set religion" is kind of a problematic one. To make that choice for your own family is one thing and not immoral, but to advocate it for other people kind of hits a snag. A seriously religious person wouldn't entertain the idea of not sharing their religion with their kids. They would see it as depriving their child of something good and necessary, which would be immoral. Even if their beliefs are factually wrong, for all intents and purposes they would be making the conscious decision to do something harmful to their child. This is another reason why I jumped to the topic of government enforcement; legal mandates are the only realistic way to even start creating a world matching Jinkx's view. This violation of personal freedoms would of course be immoral as well. It's not that Jinkx's position is immoral, it's that anyone acting on it in any meaningful way would be immoral. |
| /u/DoctorWaluigiTime Yeah the CPS angle is oft-overlooked in a lot of "we should make it illegal to do xyz thing" regarding children. The classic debate is "we should make you have to take a government test to have children", which, outside the massive set of problems that imports, also has the "well what do you do if someone violates that rule" problem you correctly brought up. |
| /u/Diligent_Resolve6184 Also creating such a system allows for the government to effectively control the population by defining the parameters of what does and doesn't constitute a violation. For example if a government wanted more Christians and less Muslims, they'd overlook stuff like Christmas presents or Easter Egg hunting as general cultural or holiday events, and over scrutinise things like prohibiting pork in the household or performing daily prayers in front of children, thus making it so that while everyone is still under the "same" law, the law targets certain groups harsher than others. If you wanted to say you're OK with this as its still restricting religion, even if it's some over the others, the government could still twist this so that it fits other groups. For instance, Black community churches statistically have more choirs, so targeting choir music in particular isn't an overtly racist law, but it is targeted at a specific community. Or if you ban wearing the hijab in front of children, this affects Muslim women more than men. These examples may be a bit extreme but they were just to illustrate the point. |
| /u/No-Routine-9963 This is what I'm thinking. To enforce this would be a nightmare. I also brought up the idea of diet in my post. While not all diets are tied to moral beliefs, some very much are. Some are connected to religion, even. Does the state force parents to stick to a certain diet, since some belief systems encourage certain diets, and we can't have the kids "indoctrinated"? Which diet? Why choose that diet? There are various diets that can be equally nutritionally sound, who gets to pick? I'm in favor of parents not trying to brainwash or force their kids, but I do object to the state stepping in and trying to force this. It sets a precedent as well, to meddle with other things, like diet. |
| /u/feetking69420 These are also a people who see their religion as life and death, I cant see how enforcing this wouldn't be hugely destabilizing |
| /u/Saltyfree73 Essentially calling for a totalitarian state to wipe out familial ties and cultures. |
| /u/madhoppers Sounds in line with what Reddit atheists want |
| /u/Hyeon-Ion This post summoned r/atheism users lol |
| /u/oldcretan I find it wildly disturbing that too many people do not see the ties between community, familial ties, and cultures within religion. As what monsoon would suggest is that we cut children out of Satyr dinners, the Breaking of fasting for Ramadan, Christmas, Diwali, and millions of other religious celebrations. Also why the fuck is a non parent giving an opinion on how I a parent should raise my children? |
| /u/jezi22 Was he some kind of a philosopher? Wise man or sage? At least the one I followed died for me. On a serious note, I agree with your point about the influence of religion between community and culture. Modern society disregards how religion influenced modern civilization as well. |
| /u/TheMireAngel This, the vast majority of these comments are "My american christian parents told me i couldnt sneak out and smoke pot at 15, they literaly ruined my life" Weve seen time and time again what happens when a govt gets to regulate religion, they slaughter Millions. The nazis, The Soviets, The Maoists etc all slaughtered millions of people over an estimate 100 million humans for their religions. The youngest child political prisoner in modern human history is literaly a Tibetan child who was to be the next religious leader of Tibet, disapeared and murdered by the CCP to regulate religion https://preview.redd.it/7dsjl8tgj5nh1.png?width=373&for mat=png&auto=webp&s=ebc0b6880dad4d5dc9ab4f4edcfdf18fe12b 0540 |
| /u/Forte845 You're maybe neglecting the part where Orthodox Christians in Russia were accusing Jews of being a secret cabal of satanists doing blood rituals with Russian children and inspired mobs to kill over 100k Jews in pogroms, and the only faction protecting these Jews being raped and murdered in the streets by God fearing Christians was the Red Army of the Bolsheviks. White forces in Russia literally called them "Judeo Bolsheviks" for accepting and protecting Jews from persecution. |
| /u/TheOneWhoGlorps Woah, don't go trying to point out genocides orchestrated by Christians, they'll just deny it or go back to saying "what about communist China?!" |
| /u/MancCultureBear The argument could be that this isn't state enforced but a cultural and social norm. |
| /u/Asooma_ Next logical question is how do you get there |
| /u/viybe B-but sky daddy bad! I worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster! |
| /u/The_MAZZTer Yup, in the US it would violate freedom of speech and freedom of religion to have the state step in and tell parents they can't teach their children what they believe is right. |
| /u/ComprehensiveProfit5 I mean saying children will have no world view before "magical age" is illusory. These people will jump at the opportunity to teach children their world view and what they think is good and bad. In fact, some might even call it giving kids an education. |
| /u/EightEx I wouldn't be against it in concept but you are right in that its unenforceable and quite silly. Even if you never went to church, if you are religious your children will pick up on it. The most realistic version of this is we just take religion out of public life in that we aren't forcing it on people. No ten commandments at schools and non-religious entities and such. My personal opinion is to let people have their mythology as long as it isn't harming others. But also teach critical thinking and such in schools so kids can reason if its for them or not. |
| /u/Ok_Independence_6706 This is the correct answer |
| /u/kobanyakispest Every religious parent want their children to go to heaven. |
| /u/amazegamer64 If only the people on this subreddit engaged in any amount of critical thought |
| /u/Teboski78 Most religions would drop massively in numbers if they weren't allowed to indoctrinate children. |
| /u/Herman_McP00tis I see this as an absolute win. |
| /u/Bombastic_tekken It's a win and a loss. If the Catholic Church disappeared, 10's if not 100's of millions of people would be in a real bad way. The Catholic Church operates the largest aid network in the world. They do A LOT, and we never hear much about it (in the US at least.) |
| /u/aluriilol I would think that the good will of humanity would not die out if Catholicism died out |
| /u/Bombastic_tekken The largest provider of aid worldwide is the Catholic Church. I don't think the goodwill of humanity would die either, but the Catholic Church is the only group providing aid at this scale. It's not like they have a copyright on it either, anybody else could step up and do it. |
| /u/ErwinsLeftEyebrow Very true, but also a lot of children would be saved from a lot of abuse in, generally but not exclusively, christian churches; not just sexual abuse, which is rampant in those environments, bit physical too. Just an example, I went to a Catholic kindergarten as a child, and the priest was a good man, but the nuns that taught us were horrible people, to the point of beating us simply for not napping when they ordered us to. |
| /u/Shnerdlenips Ah, but it's not like philanthropy would die along with the religion. The whole point is that people aren't necessarily inclined to do more good if they are religious. On top of that, I have always been a bit disgusted by the ulterior motive of conversion when it comes to supplying such aid. "We'll help you, but you must go to church and here's a bible". It's predatory behaviour, despite the undeniable 'good' which is also done. |
| /u/Crafty_Boy70 Catholic here. While I cannot speak for all religions, aid from the Catholic Church can be received by anyone regardless of religious status or lack thereof. There is no expectation to convert and any such cases where parishes or organizations under the church do have such expectations should be reported to the parish diocese. |
| /u/mylevelwaschanged If teaching your kids your values is "indoctrination" then literally everyone is indoctrinated, and if that's the case then the word is entirely useless and no longer has meaning. |
| /u/Xenozip3371Alpha If you teach them not to ask questions about beliefs, that is 100% indoctrination. |
| /u/LususNaturaeTV values≠religion. you can teach your kid the values of your religion without actually preaching the religion to them. |
| /u/rleon19 As long as it isn't forced on parents then that is fine. If parents aren't allowed to pass on their values to their children are they even raising them at that point? They are just nannies with more culpability. |
| /u/DoubleoSavant I agree, but religious freedom means people can raise their kids however they want. If you don't want someone imposing their religion on your kids, you have to let them impose whatever on their own kids. This is the kind of thing you should shift culturally instead of through laws. |
| /u/crunpyMcGlumpy This is a good point. We should as a society stop propping them up though. Remove tax exemptions, public grants, donor deductions, etc. |
| /u/Aggressive-Bee2221 That also makes religions a taxable population, which means they're allowed to give political advice. You really want a church telling people how to vote? |
| /u/cpt-teebs I don't necessarily agree with that guy, but churches already do that |
| /u/Asooma_ It's not wild to think that people who attend the same church are likely to have similar beliefs on who to vote for there's a difference between that homogeneity and actively politically campaigning |
| /u/CaptainOwlBeard I could send you dozens of videos of preachers, pastors, and priests telling their congregation to pray about this or that election and which candidates they think are righteous. How is that any different from actively campaigning? What about churches spending millions in super pacs to support "issues" that are closely tied to their preferred candidate. |
| /u/DeionizedSoup To be fair, the megachurches have been influencing votes indirectly for a long time thru their sermons. The real distinction is they can't put out advertisements or media propping up the narratives. There's gotta be thresholds for taxation, too (eg, the tiny church on the corner that makes 200 a month in profit shouldn't be taxed, but maybe the megachurch that oft gets mistaken for a mall and sells coffee on its campus should be)- but these kind of distinctions can be annoying to codify into law. Which really SHOULDNT be a deterrent for people to do the right thing, but it is. |
| /u/TransientReddit Right, so it's allowed in the US but immoral. Got it. |