https://www.thewrap.com/maher-says-there-are-already-too-many-catholics-on-the-supreme-court/

"Maher continued, noting that the fastest growing religion in America is the lack of any religion at all, Nones, which includes Maher himself. “We are 26 percent of the country — not anyone here, but of the country. Where’s our voice on the Supreme Court?” he asked. “And atheists actually make better judges because we don’t have to work to separate church and state. We’re not torn between rational decision-making and what it says in the old book of Jewish fairy tales.”

Here's the video ..


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5tkJPuhUGM

Can you imagine....
If there were a SCOTUS nominee who was Muslim who believed in their personal life in Sharia law, would all those Senators be fine with that? Would they still say people should not ask questions about their religion? I hope so, but the double standards are glaring in everything they do.

I have mixed feelings about how we would know when a person's religious beliefs are likely to impact decisions affecting us all.

I had a question from the recent hearings. Apparently the current nominee signed petitions of support for political issues AT CHURCH. I don't understand how religions are tax exempt.

If an atheist were a nominee, can you imagine being challenged because you don't believe in fairy tales?

The whole thing is so messed up. Religion poisons politics and we all have to pretend that it isn't.

Dagny wrote in part:

"I had a question from the recent hearings. Apparently the current nominee signed petitions of support for political issues AT CHURCH. I don't understand how religions are tax exempt."

I have been involved with a couple of 501(c)3 code organizations during my lifetime. These are non-profit groups that essentially lobby the government for what the group wants (or thinks it wants). My involvement, of course, is with groups of blind and visually impaired persons seeking ways to make life easier for us (I am totally blind) in society.

Anyway, it was explained to me a long time back that the 501(c)3 groups could, under the law, take any position on any issue they wanted and still remain tax-exempt. What we in these groups couldn't do, was take a position on a political person, especially during an election year. That's when (assuming the IRS found out about it) the tax collection agency would be knocking at the group's door and the lawyers would go in to negotiations.

In practice, what this meant was that we could (and did) take positions on proposed legislation affecting blind and visually impaired individuals. We would even write letters to our representatives, even those we knew who didn't support our position(s), to support our position(s). But our organizations never as a group on the record publicly endorsed or criticized those politicians who did/didn't support what we wanted to happen, especially during election season--we knew that it had the potential to spell the end of our tax-exempt status.

I suspect much of this also applys to churches of all persuasions--their leaders can express all of the political views on issues all they want as long as they don't endorse or oppose specific political candidates.

Thanks for that, blindguy.

dagny Wrote:
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> Can you imagine....
> If there were a SCOTUS nominee who was Muslim who
> believed in their personal life in Sharia law,
> would all those Senators be fine with that? Would
> they still say people should not ask questions
> about their religion? I hope so, but the double
> standards are glaring in everything they do.

I'm sure a lot of people would have a problem with a Muslim nominee but the question to ask would be is the person able and willing to set aside their personal ideology in order to do their job. And accept that the U.S. is not under sharia law but under the Constitution, and judge cases accordingly.


> If an atheist were a nominee, can you imagine
> being challenged because you don't believe in
> fairy tales?
>
> The whole thing is so messed up. Religion poisons
> politics and we all have to pretend that it isn't.

When these old religions were first developed there was no difference. Sharia law was the law of any people under Islam. Ditto for Judaism and so forth. They all have huge collections of jurisprudence (beyond their basic scriptures) for dealing with all kinds of legal issues that might arise. Atheists never developed anything like that, unless you include the old Soviet constitution or some other communist countries.

a religious test for office

This can really get complicated.
With a society so large how is it even possible to deal fairly with everyone?

"I believe in the God of Atheism! The God of Atheism is supremely aloof. He never interferes with our Free Agency. In the final analysis, He behaves as if He didn't exist. He likes it when you pretend He's not there."

--Michia Carlie Einstein, Concerned Den Mother to many Webelos

The court's not a legislative body. It doesn't represent anyone. Members *should* be picked for their judicial knowledge and expertise. All I want to know from a nominee is that they're willing to set aside any personal leanings they might have when dealing with specific cases in front of them.

I don't have a problem w/a Muslim justice as long as the person recognizes that the U.S. does not operate under sharia law but under the Constitution.

Agreed.

What worries me about Coney Barrett are three things:

1) She and her little church group have done their best to eliminate evidence of direct connection rather than acknowledging it and addressing any issues it entails;

2) She keeps filing incomplete lists of her public speeches and meetings on relevant subjects. She's already revised her resume once and must now do so again. She's concealing things that every prospective justice must reveal, which is a cause for concern;

3) She is right that she should avoid issues that will likely arise before the court, but that does not mean she can avoid her past statements and presentations on such issues. It is entirely within the senate's purview to ask about the views she has expressed on abortion, gay rights, etc., and how she would address those issues if they appeared on the docket to ensure her personal feelings do not influence decisions. Yet she refuses to discuss such matters.

I worry about the court. In days past Kavanaugh's partisan rage, including veiled threats against the Dems, would have disqualified him for lack of judicial temperament; and Coney Barrett's incomplete disclosures and refusal to discuss past public statements would have cast doubt over her integrity. Now that the filibuster is gone and the Dems have been de facto sidelined, the process has lost its credibility.

The GOP has been using brute force to achieve its ends. My only hope is that that does not become the norm.

I think Amy Barrett is a fabulous person and scholar. Perfect choice for the high court!

She may be. But she should go through the normal process.

Lock her up !!!

>>Members *should* be picked for their judicial knowledge and expertise.

Members can be well qualified and still reflect our country. For instance I think having the SCOTUS be half female is a reasonable goal.

RBG said she wouldn't be satisfied till there were nine women on the supreme court. So merging her and your ideas, the Dems should. . .

No, I won't go there.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
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> RBG said she wouldn't be satisfied till there were
> nine women on the supreme court.

*Female-identifying persons

Practical problem:

Given that we are talking about the USA, and given the contemporary political culture we Americans all exist in at this time period in our history, is a "none" a SCOTUS possibility given the necessity of Senate approval?

I would argue that there are "nones" on the supreme court already. I don't, for instance, think RBG was a believer. She was culturally Jewish but not religiously so. I have my suspicions about a few others as well.

So what matters is a credible claim to a faith tradition. It's like the founders of the republic. Some of them were atheists, others deists, but none of them chose to declare their status from the rooftops.

The question with Coney Barrett is the opposite: will the country tolerate a person so ardent in her faith that it has in the past influenced her decisions on several very important issues. Perhaps the average American prefers a skeptical believer or a quiet non-believer, again like the people who founded the country.

But what about agnostics? Or other atheists who believe that Maher is a self-serving, misogynistic POS?

How many Supreme Court Justices pay mah jongg?

matt Wrote:
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> But what about agnostics? Or other atheists who
> believe that Maher is a self-serving, misogynistic
> POS?
Agnostics make up more of the "Nones"
Than Atheists, who are only 4% of the U.S. population.
"Spiritual But Not Neligious" make up 37% of "Nones".

https://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise-religion/

This leads back to the old question, what do they (athiests) have to substitute for that old book of Jewish fairy tales? Should we trust an ancient book or some new tyrant?

There's always one waiting for an opportunity, never let a catastrophe go to waste...

macaRomney Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This leads back to the old question, what do they
> (athiests) have to substitute for that old book of
> Jewish fairy tales? Should we trust an ancient
> book or some new tyrant?

It's remarkable how many of you use "an ancient book" to justify your surrender to a new tyrant.

macaRomney Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This leads back to the old question, what do they
> (athiests) have to substitute for that old book of
> Jewish fairy tales? Should we trust an ancient
> book or some new tyrant?
>
> There's always one waiting for an opportunity,
> never let a catastrophe go to waste...
Logic, conscience, social consciousness, real democracy.
Not what we have now, laws based upon patriarchal white supremacist, sexist fairy tales where women are only portrayed as either "Virgins", "Prostitutes" rape victims or possessions.