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Mr. D and Philosophy

Mansfield, Pennsylvania, UNITED STATES


Joined October 7th 2007

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Comment by Mr. D and Philosophy
on A Man being charged for a Blog

November 21st 2008 14:16
Fantastic! That's a brilliant joke in this day and age.

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Comment by Mr. D and Philosophy
on A Brushfire War on Christmas

October 13th 2007 21:29
I have no disagreement with your position on churches. They are private entities and expressly devoted to a religion. Displays in accordance with the given doctrines of faith are, to my mind, well within the boundaries of reasonable expectations. That such displays on the grounds of a church are being forbidden by law is a ridiculous overstepping on the part of the legal system. Religious tolerance, which is theoretically supposed to be one of the United States founding principles, clearly isn't being observed in instances such as these. I didn't mean to give the impression that I considered churches, mosques, temples or any other place of worship as a public building in the sense that a courthouse, city hall, or governmental structure is a public building.
As for how someone could be offended by a Nativity scene, it's something which I don't feel particularly qualified to answer, but I'll give it a try. Offense is strange and complicated process, psychologically speaking, and not necessarily driven by good reasons. Moreover, the particular culture of political correctness, of which I'm no fan, in combination with some other unsavory social trends in this country has created a mentality of entitlement in a vast swath of the populace. People seem to believe that since they don't like something, it doesn't warrant existence. Alone, this mentality is merely ridiculous and immature.
However, and this goes to your question on discrimination, for reasons that defy my comprehension, the legal system has been catering to this mentality for at least the last twenty years. There's an entire generation of people who have come of age in a culture that doesn't believe in disciplining it's children, fostering a sense of personal responsibility, and does believe in having someone sued every time something goes wrong in their lives. An outspoken segment of the population has decided to put Judeo-Christian religion on trial, for both good and bad reasons. I'd like to think that some of the good reasons have led to reasonable revisions in policies, such as removing religiously connotative materials from public buildings that serve a multi-religious population. I also recognize that some of the bad reasons, which go to selfish childishness, have led to discriminatory laws like ones forbidding nativity scenes in front of churches.
The real ugliness of it all is a point that you all have been making, it's not happening across the board. A greater degree of tolerance is being shown to non-Judeo-Christian religions than to Judeo-Christian religions. How that is justified in the minds of judges and lawyers is beyond me. So, that's my attempt to answer your questions in a reasonable amount of space.

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Comment by Mr. D and Philosophy
on A Brushfire War on Christmas

October 13th 2007 18:08
Ah, I see where I might have been unclear. I didn't mean to say that only Christian symbols should be subject to that public buildings ban. Nor did I mean to say that other religions should not be subject to such bans. It's my thinking that it's either got to be universally applied law/rules/regulations or none at all. I agree that it shouldn't be one set of rules for one group and a different set of rules for another. That's discrimination and intolerable to a reasoning mind.

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Comment by Mr. D and Philosophy
on A Brushfire War on Christmas

October 13th 2007 15:28
I think that the war on Christmas is crap as well. However, by crap I mean that I think that the entire anti-Christmas movement is ridiculous. I don't truck much with organized religion, Christian or otherwise, but I can be okay with a holiday that encourages people not to be asinine twerps and to give gifts to people they care about. I mean, seriously, how many chances a year do you get carte blanche to give people things guilt free?
That said, I do think that there is some justification for discouraging religiously connotative images in public institutions: schools, churches, and federal buildings. There's a problematic legal issue there, at least in the US, that's better left alone.
That said, bring on the a-religious decorations. I love garlands.

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Comment by Mr. D and Philosophy
on How To Tell If Your Children Are Planning To Kill You And Bury You In a Shallow Grave: For Dummies.

October 13th 2007 15:06
That post is work of comic genius. End of statement.

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