Exact quote form Lucy:
Adding context to twigs post, Twitter style.
Yes, and to be clear, thatâs pretty close to exactly what the Catholic church teaches. Thereâs usually several mass options available on holy days of obligation and you can choose any of them, and there are exceptions if you legitimately cannot get to mass (you live hundreds of miles from the nearest Catholic church, your churchâs only priest is laid up with Covid, you are laid up with Covid, stuff like that).
But if you choose to stay home and play video games instead of accompanying mom to church on All Saints Day and then you get hit by a bus the next morning having not confessed your sin and done penance, then you would go to hell. Thatâs the theology, and children are taught that and Lucy seems to think thatâs abusive and itâs good that Japan is (presumably) making that illegal.
It might be an accurate application of what the church teaches is a consequence for skipping church, but I donât think they encourage their religious teachers or parents to use that sort of threat to a child, in particular one that is not yet at the age of reason.
Now your example might only be seen as a very minor abuse, but I am sure you can see how a parent could come up with their own application of any religious teaching in a way that they see fit. What if you show a child graphical depictions of hell repeatedly to the point the child suffers nightmares in an effort to convince them to go to church on a holy day of obligation? All sorts of slippery slope what-if things we can come up that are different than your scenario that I think you would agree are abusive, but can still be described as an application of a church teaching.
So then all you are doing is just nitpicking a line between you and Lucy in what you find acceptable at what seems an undefined age for the stated scenario. That certainly suggests a law is not correctly written if it is subject to that level of interpretation, but it also does not prohibit a law from being written effectively.
Speculation. Facts not in evidence.
Iâd prefer not to base government laws this way.
And my examples are definitely on point, since the topic is government laws that may inhibit rites and rituals associated with protecting children. ( snake handling is about venomous snakes btw) now you may deem hose activities as bogus, not really religion, but that too is opinion not fact.
Religion is by its very nature opinion not fact. Faith is defined as a belief that has no basis in facts. Which is fine. No need to look to science for âwhy love?â⌠so believe what ever you feel works for you. Just leave the kids out of it. They do not have the PFC to chose their beliefs on their own.
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i was in heaven
i was in hell
believe in neither
but fear them as well
Now troubles are many
Theyâre as deep as a well
I can swear there ainât no heaven
But I pray there ainât no hell
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Yeah, I donât think itâs meant to be a threat. Under the proposed Japanese law Iâm not sure that matters.
Huh? Iâm not saying âif you do A and not B then I, twig93, declare that you will go to hell.â
I am saying âif you do A and not B then the Roman Catholic theology says that in most cases you will go to hell unless there were circumstances beyond your reasonable controlâ and I supported my statement.
Iâm not speculating on whether I agree or disagree with the religious teaching. Iâm saying that a certain religious teaching in one of the worldâs more popular religions appears to me to be likely to fall afoul of the law.
Iâm Presbyterian. We donât have holy days of obligation. I donât think youâre going to hell if you miss mass on All Saints Day. I donât believe that I have ever been to a Catholic mass on All Saints Day. If I have it was with my step-brothers when we were kids and randomly happened to be on a Saturday or Sunday. I donât even normally go to my own church on All Saints Day unless it happens to fall on a Sunday. We do celebrate it on the first Sunday in November but thereâs no extra special duty to attend that particular Sunday.
We also donât handle snakes (venomous or otherwise) in any of our rituals. Unlike holy days of obligation I really donât know anything about a religious ritual where handling venomous snakes would be required or what safety measures were standard to protect the safety and well being of both the humans and the snake(s) involved. So I donât have an opinion there. That seems more likely to be animal and/or child abuse, but you havenât provided enough details to say for sure. Snakes are pretty darn cool though.
Regardless, itâs not about my own religious beliefs. Itâs about my belief that freedom of religion is very important and we should be very cautious about curtailing it.
IMO the proposed Japanese law is very problematic. I donât think it would cause any problems for my own religion, but I think it is problematic because it unreasonably infringes on another religion that people ought to have a right to freely practice anywhere in the world.
Well, i guess i and done responding to you in this thread if you canât bother moving on from a narrow and arbitrary point to discuss anything worthwhile.
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Learn about Japanese culture today. The law does not apply to you. Recognize that they are still sensitive to the horrors of WWII and what the state religion and emperor worship conceived. Hard to picture a society more adamant about separation of church and state.
And you should also factor in the rather peculiar attitudes of the American legal system. It reflects the aspirations of the Foundinng Fathers enlightment belief that they could create an almost mechanical (scientific?) form of government. Where the laws were virtually independent of human frailty. This is quite weird in todays world.
Many, many countries have Constitutiions.and those documents do address ârightsâ. But the American legal system is unusually restrictive in how those rights are secured. Other societies recognize the need to allow human judgement - compassion?- in applying those principles. Americans do not. We expect the the law to be a virtually mechanical process ( 3 strikes, minimum sentences, etc.) this is quite rare. We expect to run the country on those rules written long ago. We actually take pride in knowing we have had the same, slowly evolving Constitution for 200+ years. Again, quite unusual. Other societies hav long histories of Constitutional government, but they have re written them time and again. Americans have not. I believe it is unwarranted to extrapolate the slippery slope analogy to societies where the interpretation of how to apply the laws is no where near as restrictive as the US. I agree 100% that such a law could not work in the US. We have no capacity to let common sense and compassion to dictate the administration of justice. Itâs a weakness, not a virtue. Itâs the root cause of many problems. Reflect on how hard we struggle to apply a 250 year old right to bear arms within the framework of modern technology. Or how crazy it is to arrive at the conclusion that corporations have the right to free speech. Yet here we are. Calcified to an instruction set ill equipped to handle the modern world.
No, my friend, the problem is not the law, the problem is how it gets applied. I believe your suspicions of how it would work in practice in the US are justified. But it is not an American law. Put it in context, and it is way less alarming.
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So it sounds like you are saying that you do not believe the law would prevent Catholics from teaching about holy days of obligation. If it doesnât then great. I did include the following disclaimer in my first post in the thread (second post overall):
And then:
Then we got into a discussion where posters claimed it is abusive to teach children that certain things are sinful AND that telling children that they are risking going to hell if they skip church on a particular day is abusive ⌠posts that were praising, if not this particular law, certainly ideas that are very anti-religious-freedom. Iâm not making up these ideas⌠Iâm responding to posters who are promoting them.
Seems to me like theyâre saying it shouldnât be allowed.
I didnât respond to this, but it sounds to me like JOEBLOW or Lucy or now_samantha would be coming down on the side of RCs not being allowed to teach about holy days of obligation.
Now they might not be jurists in Japan, but my guess is that they might not be the only 3 people in the universe with similar thoughts.
You are presenting a very black and white view, and the world isnât black and white. You can explain to a child that the church teaches these things, or you can tell a child, âyou need to go to church today or you will burn in hell for eternityâ.
In fact, even if your understanding of the Catholic belief regarding holy days of obligation is exactly right, the odds that your child will die between today and their next chance to confess is infinitesimal. Threatening them with hell is oppressive overkill. Itâs also abusive, IMHO.
Anyway, itâs not just Catholics who needs to attend those Catholic masses. The religion is catholic, after all, and they believe that it applies to all human beings. So i guess we are all going to burn in hell. Except my understanding is that the Catholic Church no longer teaches that. So my guess is that thereâs some wiggle room around recalcitrant Catholic children and attending church on a holy day of obligation, too.
No doubt. Yet this is not a threat since a conviction would require unanimous voteâŚ
Unless we end up at the SCOTUS, which is a problem whatever the issue is.
Out of curiosity, suppose the TSA required facial recognition scans. If a devout Muslim woman refused to remove her head scarf, is it OK to forbid her travel? I know itâs not abusive, but where does government law supersede religious practice? If the case Fatima vs Homeland Security went to federal court, what decision would you like to see?
Sure. Is telling them âtoday is a holy day of obligation and itâs a mortal sin if we donât go to church todayâ oppressive overkill when the child understands that unconfessed mortal sin means hell? Would you praise making that illegal?
I donât think the description of the law used the word âthreatenâ⌠you added that. The article specifically used the word âtellingâ, not âthreateningâ.
Though I would posit thereâs not much difference between telling a child âyouâre going to hell if A and Bâ vs threatening a child with hell if A and B. The words could be pretty much identical and the difference to most people would be in the tone⌠I doubt most laws would draw such a subtle distinction.
Iâm not sure which part of my post youâre referring to with this, or what unanimous vote youâre talking about.
I will add that the thread includes both a discussion of the specific law in Japan (proposed law, I think), but also (and perhaps more interestingly) a discussion on where we feel the limit of freedom of religion should be in a more general sense.
I think we have very different experiences with Catholicism. I am not Catholic, but my ex-girlfriend was from a very prominent Catholic family (e.g., John Paul II stayed at her grandmotherâs house on a tour of South America), and she believed in most Catholic doctrines. We talked openly about our religious differences, and she felt comfortable telling me that some of my beliefs are considered heretical by the Catholic church. Despite our differences in beliefs, I think that there are a lot of good things about Catholicism.
Number of times I heard her mention hell or damnation: 0.
The branches of Christianity I am familiar with have such vast sets of beliefs that anyone practicing them has to pick a subset to emphasize. It is more than possible to focus on how to live a moral and just life without emphasizing hell and damnation.
Thatâs hardly an authoritative source for Catholic theology. She wasnât even claiming to be training you in theology⌠just having conversations with you about certain aspects of her faith⌠likely trying to highlight the positive aspects of it.
This path is available to everyone, regardless of religion.
The obligation to attend Mass doesnât apply to non-Catholics. Other things like âthou shalt not murderâ do.