Top Trump administration officials will address a mass prayer meeting in the heart of Washington Sunday – an event organisers bill as reclaiming the country’s religious foundations, but critics say is a quasi-official rally for Christian nationalism.
The problem is the churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques. Buildings that exist to be dedicated spaces for people to gather to share their religion with each other and that provide a position of authority for religious leaders. If a group of say Christians wants to meet at somebody’s house to talk about the bible that’s fine, but talking about your religion in public shouldn’t be acceptable. What people do in private is their business, so it’s not a ban in that sense, but by shutting down the churches you starve them of the vast majority of their power. Ironically doing so would align much closer with Jesus teachings than anything the modern churches engage in.
Those buildings are private. They are not public structures. Some of them are not xstian so the teachings of jc don’t matter to them and the majority of other xstians just pick and choose what they like anyway. My point is banning is one not so easy especially since you are basically saying if you social group meets a vague criteria we will go after you and two generally does not work at stopping the thing you want to stop. There is all sorts of things we could do that very much falls short of that. No special tax status, not allowing it in public places like public schools and city halls and libraries and such.
You’re missing the point of removing the dedicated structure. They are public spaces even if they’re private property because they’re open to the public. I could right now look up a local church and go visit it. By removing the public spaces it becomes much harder for the religious leadership to shape and control narratives.
A significant reason why religion in the US has become so problematic is that the religious structures are easy to find and easy for large groups to regularly attend at and therefore make very convenient locations to distribute propaganda from. By removing the central structure you force things into a distributed system that’s much harder to weaponize. You also eliminate nearly all of the power of the religious leaders as without the regular services their authority is diminished to almost nothing.
As for the criteria being vague, no it really isn’t. You just define it as religious and there is already ample legal precedent on exactly that topic. There have been laws, regulations, and rules about religion in the US pretty much since the founding of the country, mostly in an attempt to prevent exactly what’s been happening lately which is Christianity being written into US law.
It doesn’t have to be perfect, people will definitely find loopholes, it just needs to make it hard enough that most people won’t bother. Religion is already dying out, it just needs a little push. Remove the tax exempt status, remove the dedicated religious structures, and the rest will take care of itself. When people have to make an effort to attend religious gatherings, most won’t bother.
Yeah im sorry but I just can’t condone laws that say you can’t do something if your reason is X but if its Y its fine. Its not a public space its a private space open to the public. That is a vastly different thing. Its not federally funded (directly). Again I am totally fine with taking away the tax breaks and have they run as any other charity and following the same rules. honestly im not sure we should even have tax breaks for charity. Tax should be progressive for businesses the same as individuals (welll we actually need that to be more progressive to) with making larger amounts putting them into blocks that have a higher rate. Again though I really don’t think its so easy to say something is a religion. Yoga has all sorts of religious roots and philosphy spawned from it. Illegal? What about shriners? Or everyones favorite masons? Are religions that are not open to the public ok then? Its just not something I would like to see in a society. If people want to be religious I think they should be able to do anything someone can do in a non religious way. ie clubs and such.
Religions not open to the public would be fine, although it’s not about the religion it’s the buildings. Masons are an interesting one. The lodges would maybe be illegal, but I don’t think those are open to the public. I don’t know enough about how they operate to say. I’m also not familiar enough with shriners to say one way or another on that one. I think I remember seeing some kind of building labeled as belonging to the shriners, which that might have to go depending on whether it’s public or not.
Yoga is very obviously not a religion, but even if it was there generally aren’t buildings dedicated to practicing yoga that are open to the public. You generally need to pay and book time at yoga companies that do it commercially.
Basically places that charge an entry fee or where you need to pay for a membership to get inside would be legal. Places that you can enter for free as a member of the general public and that exist primarily or exclusively for the purpose of religion would be illegal.
Also there’s a difference between public property and public spaces. There are plenty of public spaces that are on private property, most stores are examples of such. Spaces that any random person off the street is able to freely enter and exit are public spaces which most churches and other religious buildings are as well, as they’re generally open to the public.
Yeah I just disagree here and would not want it. Part of it is hey its great your making calls from the hip but the fact is its all debateable. Most buddhist temples could easily reshingle as yoga or tai chi studios and just lean heavily on the philosophy. I mean if you meet someone really into either. To the point they teach. Its almost impossible to not take on the philosophy around it and talk about it in classes. Honestly even in most martial arts you have a lot of this. Not to mention im not going to hamstring their ability to do good works. soup kitchens and such. im not going to have them shutdown because they are run by a church and have a prayer before a meal. The whole thing is kinda creepy to me. I invite some friends over and now I might run fowl of some public space law even though its my property. Yeah I mean you could give me all sorts of examples but I just disagree its such and easy clear cut thing to do and even it if it was I don’t think I agree its a good thing to do. If such a thing where being pushed in societ despite being athiest now I would stand with the church group to protect their right to have their houses of worship. Again tax wise I can see getting rid of special privlege, not allowing it in public property sure, but some sort of state erradication is to orwellian for me.