A Mississippi man accused of destroying a statue of a pagan idol at Iowa’s state Capitol is now being charged with a hate crime.
A Mississippi man accused of destroying a statue of a pagan idol at Iowa’s state Capitol is now being charged with a hate crime.
As a Satanist myself, I honestly think that would/should be their lawyers case.
We are atheists and the argument that we’re not really a religion is something conservative courts might believe.
I haven’t looked into any filings for religious exemption/status, etc so I’m not sure how we’ve made our case in the past. I think we should be prepared to advocate that our mutual belief in the seven tenets is our religion.
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That’s really interesting that religions and world-views are given equal credence. Excuse my ignorance, but are they covered under the same word? Or what would the translations be?
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Thank you for the detailed and insightful response. That’s such a fair and egalitarian stance. I wonder why other countries haven’t adopted similar? Or if it’s that the church in Germany doesn’t hold as much political power as other places.
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This is so so interesting! Especially the concept of religions and world views needing to be compatible with humanism, and that the Protestant Church is able to provide ethical insight that’s not pure religiosity but properly reasoned and considered. My biggest question mark of this morning was what would happen if someone tried to found a religion based on hatred, or organize a group sharing the same hateful world view, by tossing around “facts” (the statistics that are often cherry picked, removed from context, and thrown around to justify racism for example). I imagined that Germany would be particularly sensitive to that possibility but wasn’t sure how it might be handled- you cleared it up beautifully.
Are you in a line of work or study surrounding this history and principles? Or is the average German citizen this knowledgable on the subject?
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