Quoting from LDS texts????

“We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government …” (Doctrine and Covenants 134:9).

The usual techniques of atheists is to accomplish other religious dis-establishment by appealing to the secular civil nature of a non-religious form of government.

I have news for most sane people. A valueless, religous free goverment will never exist. Jefferson never said that goverment would be free from religious ideas or religious values. Those who think that “secular” means valueless, non-religous people exist are a walking oxymoron. Living, breathing, thinking people will by the way they vote espouse their values and ideology.

Atheists are not after simply the dis-establishment of the values they don’t like, they are after the victory in the market place of ideas and the values they prefer. Don’t be blinded by an attempt to hide behind the separation of Church and State concept which finally happened in Sweden a few years ago.

Activist Judges don’t want simply a non-funded state recognized church. They want to hide behind secular values to dis-establish every religion that has values they don’t like.

The people who do have the right and authority, need to impeach judges who act in ways that oppose state consititutions. Other wise there is no checks or balances upon them.

Oh, cheap shot, Karl. And it ducks the point, which is—you made a claim about Socialism, I counterclaimed that Sweden doesn’t fit your example, and you came back with their lack of religious observance.

The United States is one of the most religious countries in to so-called Developed World, and yet we have one of the highest crime rates, one of the highest rates of spousal abuse, more homeless people per capita than anywhere in Europe….Sweden (sticking to the original example) does not suffer nearly as much from these problems, so it would be natural to assume given the context of this argument that religion, at the very least, is not a ameliorative factor, at least not in our case. So to keep it simplisitc, since Sweden has such a low rate of religious observance, and ours is high, there must be something about it that backfires. If I were the insensitive atheist you seem to imply, I’d take that as settled.

But that’s really beside the point. I know and you should know that many factors feed into those differences, so why not look at those factors to see why there is such a disparity rather than suggest, as you do, that the only valid measure of a “successful society” is whether or not people go to church?

We see it here as well. When times are tough and people are afraid, religious observance goes up. In a society where people are cared for at all levels, a low church attendance appears to be a by-product of the sense of security which results. Now, one might claim that such a sense of security is an illusion, but on the other hand it comes from very real things—health care, good schools, access to reliable services, etc.

Why can’t we do that? Oh, yeah. We might have to use some Socialist ideas to accomplish it. Couldn’t risk that, people might stop going to church.

Now if I have construed your point simplisitcally or wrongly, I apologize, but you have to realize that that is exactly how it comes across.

In similar fashion, a lifestyle that is not labeled religious (secularism) can be just as much matter of faith and a matter of personal persuasion.

http://synergistic.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/an-alarming-and-challenging-reality-check-about-the-church-in-sweden/

http://synergistic.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/an-alarming-and-challenging-reality-check-about-the-church-in-sweden/

“The trend is clear. Personally I do not believe that these figures would change much if we were able to measure the non-formal church structures. They might change our figures a bit but will not make a noticeable impact on them.”

As I see it, the Islamic faith in Sweden which will be receiving a portion of Sweden’s tax supported religions socialist equality equation will be growing while the Swedish Christian Church will continue to shrink.

When ever a government agency gets its hands on the purse strings of an institution like the Christian Church, the institution must become subservient to the mission of the government not the historical, doctrinal of faith basis of the original mission statements of the institution.

They are either merging or closing more churches in this secular culture that is held up as a beacon for modern progressivism. The two things progressing are a moral relativistic secular society and a fundamental Islamic response which will soon have more membership than the Christian Churches which doesn’t really mean a hill of beans anyway.

The country which tries to treat the faiths equal will not know what to do when the politics gets to the point where a coalition between Christian Democrats and Islamic Democrats tries to legislate control of social policy.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/feb/07022607.html

The Church of Sweden has 2 % of the people’s interest, I wonder why?”

If that’s your standard, then I suppose Sweden is an abject failure. I was referring to standard of living, interest in high levels of civic engagement, education, all that secular stuff that Socialism is supposed to damage by making people stupid. The Swedes are not stupid, nor do they have a failing country. Maybe—and here’s a thought—maybe they’re mostly private about their religion and practice it individually, at home.

Or maybe not. But it sounds fine to me.

Swedish people don’t follow religions because they aren’t interested following religions.

Here’s a bit of background from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Sweden

The constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice. The Government at all levels seeks to protect this right in full and does not tolerate its abuse, either by governmental or private actors. The rights and freedoms enumerated in the constitution include the rights to practice one’s religion and protection of religious freedom. The laws concerning religious freedoms are generally observed and enforced at all government levels and by the courts in a non-discriminatory fashion. Legal protections cover discrimination or persecution by private actors.

“I think the people in Sweden would be surprised by that. Just for one example.”

The Church of Sweden has 2 % of the people’s interest, I wonder why?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Sweden

When any church has its doctrines legislated by the secular governement it is no longer a church committed to its primary mission.

When secular courts and judges start telling preachers how to preach and teach, the people will ignore church doctrine in deference to pop culture and humanistic endeavors.

No, I am not a Mormon, but I have an aversion to bad data.

As a female with no interest in procreation or even adopting, I find Karl’s focus on maintaining population growth, as an end that justifies the discriminatory means, abhorrent. Even if gay marriages would reduce the rate of growth of the population (which I doubt), the premise that declining birthrates would be bad is just plain false - and would lead to some ethically abhorrent conclusions about the policy decisions our country should make if it were true!

The first thing to note is that worldwide, the human population is still growing fast. There is a lot of need and a lot of hunger in the third world, and their population just keeps growing. The idea that “we” need to keep our growth rates up, then, begs the question - who is “we”? Not the human race, surely: we the human race need to get our growth rates DOWN. No, “we” is at least non-Muslim by Karl’s own admission, and probably, considering the anti-immigrant sentiment he’s shown, consists of Christians or cultural Christians of predominantly European descent. I could be wrong. It’s possible that Karl is a non-racist proponent of the “We need to keep our population up so we aren’t overwhelmed by people from other countries/cultures” school of thought. I’m sure one must exist somewhere.

I thank Mark for having briefly touched upon my next objection earlier in the thread. As the aforementioned (straight) woman with no interest in reproduction, I take for granted the right to, in the future, marry the man I love, as well as the right to not have children despite being married. (To avoid the abortion conversation, let’s say I get my tubes tied.) Your argument completely ignores this possibility in its stubborn adherence to the idea that letting gay people get married will somehow reduce the birth rate, in that it tacitly assumes that straight married couples will have children. I don’t know if you’ve overlooked it through an overgeneralization of the human instinct for child-rearing, or through condemnation of the decision that I and many others make all over the developed world, wherever the right is granted us to do so.

If you have no problem with this - a straight but childless marriage - why do you have any problem with gay marriage? And if you do have a problem with this - can I assume you’d be willing to take on the burden of primary caregiver while your wife went to work, if she was offered a higher-paying job than you were? If not, well. I mean, child-rearing is what God intended her for, right?