It makes me wonder who America is competing with, free countries or countries they are fighting. I also wonder what good is a constitution if the words mean nothing. Are all people treated equally under the law? Or can religious beliefs (not facts) be used to alter a constitution to please a god? And do these religious folk really believe in Free Will?
In the US, the religious right won the election by huge numbers and now they will rule by faith, not law. And like other religiously ruled countries, the question of Free Will vs preventing people from going to the hellfire, will be challenged. Should gays be treated equally under the law? How about women? Will the US change from Land of the Free to Home of the scared?
The first rights to be challenged will be on women. Will the US decide that government has the right to use force to get women to comply with religious beliefs? And is that the biggest issue facing the USA today? Seems it is. I have to wonder if, like in Iran, the US believes that controlling sexual behaviour in certain people will please their gods and prevent earthquakes and other natural disasters.
I read this just now on my news feed from facebook.
"At the top of the agenda: legislation that would ban abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy or later, pushing the legal boundaries set by the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. Activists on both sides of the debate are gearing up for a fight that will demonstrate the consequences of Republican gains in the 2014 election.
“Unfortunately there has been gridlock on the abortion issue in Washington,” said Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, a religious conservative group.
"Only 1.3% of abortions occur after 21 weeks, the benchmark used by the federal agency that tracks the procedure. But abortion-rights advocates argue that the women affected are particularly vulnerable, facing personal health risks or carrying severely disabled babies. Ultrasound exams, which can reveal previously undetected abnormalities, are typically done at 20 weeks.
"A 20-week ban “might sound like a good idea, but once people understand the real-life impact on women and their medical care, that’s where folks turn,”
"This bill is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and shows contempt for women’s health and rights, the role doctors play in their patients’ health care decisions, and the Constitution,”
"State legislatures approved 231 abortion-related regulations in the past four years, compared with 189 in the entire decade between 2000 and 2010, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a women’s health-policy organization."
I've had many debates with religious folk who put all the blame on single mothers who need gov asst. to take care of their kids. They are called names, like 'welfare queens, losers, lazy, sluts'. These same religious folk don't want to help these mothers or their kids because they aren't worth anything. They shouldn't have been born...but now they want to force births. It's almost like they want/need to produce people to disdain...to show their god how pious they are.
Never once do these religious folk, in any of these religious countries, put any responsibility on the men folk. It's never his fault that she had sex with him. He's entitled to have sex with weak women, so that makes it her fault. His sperm isn't his responsibility, it's hers. No laws about how many families he can create, doesn't matter if he can afford all the kids he makes, that's what gov is for. He's doing his godly duty, his seed is to be respected. But not the mother or the children.
These religious issues causes poverty. It creates nothing good.
You can't be free under religious law. You can't even use the religious belief of Free Will if you don't allow Free Will in the first place. It is the sole duty of religious folk to prevent everyone (but themselves) from going to the hellfire. To use religion as a weapon on others, but never on themselves.
The biggest hypocrisy that I find; most believe that their god knows what their humans will do before they do it. If that's true, aren't religious folk interfering with their god's will?
I say you are.
Why not put your efforts into education, sciences, building and repairing...and helping others? Is charity more important than force? Is love more important than disdain? Are humans more important than religious beliefs?
And mostly, does your god really want you to make others miserable?