Derek Williams  Ok now I feel like we're getting somewhere with this discussion, which I think is good, just a couple of points

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 "In the same way as a black man cannot change his race to white (or vice versa), a homosexual man cannot choose to change his sexual orientation to heterosexual (or vice versa) in order to buy a wedding cake, or anything else - that's just the way he is; he cannot change the way he was made in order to follow the baker's religion"

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 OK so I understand, some people have feelings that possibly they were born with, whether or not those feelings happened to become a part of the person later in life, or if that person always had those feelings, or whether or not the person has the ability to change those feelings, but still, I think we can both agree that, regardless of what feelings someone has (for whatever reason), they are able to control their actions. The only question is, should they actually be expected to, and what standard does our country have for what actions should be regulated or what actions should not

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 the point about the absurd religious belief was supposed to be the opposite, that no one can just walk into a store and expect the store manager to accomodate them for their religious actions, if those actions include burning down the store owners' building, if they wish to do that, then they can get their own building to burn down, but if they are in the domain of the owner of the building, then they must follow their rules

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from the baker's perspective, their actions are the spiritual equivilent of burning down his building, since he believes that those kinds of actions warrant spiritual burning etc. (I don't think I need to elaborate), and if he would participate in such a senario, then that means that he would have to undergo that spiritual burning as well, which is not a reasonable thing to force someone to do, against their will.

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the only question now is, is the baker being "forced" to serve them? As mentioned later:

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"Phillips entered this industry knowing full well that one day, a gay couple would show up wanting a cake to celebrate their union. If baking a wedding cake for a gay couple or for a mixed race couple infringes upon the baker's religious beliefs, then he should remove wedding cakes from his catalogue, and concentrate on selling such cakes as he CAN supply to everyone, without discrimination.  His business licence requires him to serve everyone equally."

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So now its being said that really, he doesn't HAVE to sell wedding cakes, so therefore he is not being forced.

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But let's analyze this statement, by saying that he doesn't "have" to sell wedding cakes, that is implying that the ability to sell a particular product (i.e., wedding cakes), is a priviledge, not an inherent right. But then we would be limiting the ability of people to sell products, and thereby make money, and thereby feed themselves and their families, only to those "moral" values that the government decides are OK, and not what G-d decides are OK.

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saying someone doesn't "have" to go into a particular business, is the equivilence of saying "this person doesn't HAVE To earn money, this person doesn't HAVE to put food on the table, he doesn't HAVE to supply for his family, he doesn't HAVE to live and breath and eat and sleep, that is a priviledge", someone is more than welcome to have this belief system, but that's not what america is supposed to foudned on, that is what communist societies are: that the act of owning a  business, and making one's OWN money (as opposed to being forced to take welfare) is a priviledge, that people shouldn't be allowed to have, and people should only do business or live or make money or eat or drink exactly what and how the government wants them to, that is what communist russia was all about, forcing everyone to be the same, and restricting their freedom to do business, to support themselves. By saying that he has the "choice" to not go into the wedding cake business, and therefore his right to do so is not being protected, that is in effect the same as the communist russian government saying that no individual has the right to own their own business, to contorl their own money inflow, everyone should instead be expected to only live off the government's money, and only have forced, assigned government jobs (for which people could go to jail for not doing, which is essentially slavery).

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if the government wants to take away anyone's rights to do business, based on the governments own, made up moral system, then that's no better than soviet russia, nazi germany, all these socialist and totalitarian regimes, they want people to only live and make money and have jobs according to what the government wants them to do, which would be fine theoretically, IF the government knew what they were doing which, as I'm sure you and most americans (especially nowadays) agree, they do NOT know what they are doing, they do NOT know what is right and what is wrong, and therefore they do not have a correct right to take away someone's religious freedom (which claims to be from G-D directly, who DOES know what He is doing), but that doesn't work, because you can't have a doubt enforce a definite.

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so now you're probably thinking as a coutnerargument "well how do we know G-d said this specific religion is true, and what about all those muslim religions who believe G-d told them to burn down buildings, should those be listened to as well?" which hinges on the question of what religion is the true one, which is REALLY what this whole issue is about, because its impossible for any system of government to stay "neutral" completely, at a certain point there has to be a line of what is good and true, and what is false and bad, because a truly "neutral" government wouldn't enforce any crime at all, but obviously, that's not a functional system that anyone is suggesting, every governmental system has to have some kind of moral basis for what is right and what is wrong, and this idea that the government doens't know what it is doing is a BIG problem because they are supposed to be the moral basis for our society, and if they don't know what they are doing then they rightfully can't enforce anything, so that is where this issue really boils down to, because if we put all religions under one blanket term, that they ALL have to be followed just becasuse they are a strong and "sincere" belief (which is what the actual verdict said from the supreme court), then that doesn't really make sense, because what about all of those finatical religions that want to destroy our entire country, and burn down all our buildings, shouldn't they have a say too?

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but this is where we get into the necessity for what is actually TRUE and what is inherently FALSE, and regardless of what the consitution or any previous law work says, the actual TRUTH is the ONLY thing that we should be focusing on, because just because its written in some government law book, doesn't mean its TRUE or GOOD, because the government does not know what it is doing.

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so now that we have established that (hopefully), we just need to determine the actual truth, which is the hard part, because if the government can't do it, how can we? Well mainly because the government is too worried about doing what's popular so they can get reelected, so many government officials don't want to have a strong opinion about anything, they just want to follow the majority, but majority isn't always right, but us, as just anonymous people on the internet, have no alterier motive to do or say what's popular or what's not, so let's try to figure out what the ACTUAL truth is, on our own.

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Well I think it stands to reason that in order to determine the correct option, it is first necessary to create a list of all possible options (at least in their general categories), then calculate the advantages and disadvantages of each option, and finally determine which option has the most advantages, and least disadvantages, and which one can be shown to be consistance over all of the others, and therefore which options we should actually follow and live by (let me know if you have a better way).

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so since the topic is religion, let's discuss the available options for what religion (if any), that exist now, is the true one, let's see our options, either:

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*no religion that exists now, or that has ever existed, is the true one, and there is no creator [chas veshalom], everything just fell together on its own (one way or another, however one wants to describe the big bang followed by abiogenesis and evolution etc.), and here we are, existing as a result of the cosmos simply making us, without any intelligent being or without any free will to make us, or

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*there is some kind of intelligent being that willingly created the universe somehow, but perhaps this force doesn't fully interact with the world, either creation was just a "mistake" [chas veshalom], or it was intentional, but created without any real purpose, or at least not with any purpose that concerns us, it was just either some kind of experiment, or mistake, or

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*there originally was a purpose to the universe, a purpose that does concern us humans (meaning something we would need to be made known about), but that purpose was perhaps lost long ago, and at this point in time, we don't know what that purpose is, or

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*there was a divine purpose for the creation of everything originally, that purpose does concern us, and that purpose is still applicable, and known, to us today.

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before we go further, if at this point you disagree with the four possible general options, then let me know so we can discuss any additional possible options.

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OK so assuming those are the four GENERAL main options for reality (which may be broken up into several sub options) (and again, let me know if you disagree and have more general options), then let's go through each of them one by one, and attempt to determine how we should run our society, based on those options.

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the first one, that everything happened originally without any sort of divine purpose whatsoever, and, through various scientific autonomous methods, just put itself together, then let's see how our society should be run, based on that premise.

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Well if everything just happened to come together, then doesn't that mean that there is no inherent sanctity in anything?

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Everyone always talks about rights and how oppression is bad, slavery is bad, and all these other things are bad and "evil", because how can a human being be subguated to such conditions?

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But that's only assuming that a human (or any form of life) has some kind of intrinsic value, and it's because of that intrinsic value that they should be respected, but if everything just came together without any divine origins, then what is the reason that anything that exists should have any intrinsic value?  

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"Intrinsic" means it's built into it, it's an essential part of it that can never change, but if everything just made itself one way or another, then how can it be said to have anything "built" into it that can never change?

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So based on that, the only reason why we woud have a centralized goverment with "morals" would be simply in order to control a massive group of people, since if everything is running itself, why should we care about the value of human life?

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It's just whoever's most powerful wins, so by that logic the only reason the government would have for making up "morals" and "values" is in order to brainwash its citizens to following what IT says, in order to gain power (because its impossible to control millions of people through sheer force, the best way (as it has been done in nazi germany and soviet russia and every totalitarian regime) is to convince the people that what they are doing is "just" and "good", in order that they should follow it themselves). This is usually done not by a one time speech of "everything our government does is good", but usually by creating an entire context of history which leads up to our governmetn being the best out of all of the others throughout time, to attempt to make people believe on their own that the government is "just" and "good" and "advanced", which is pretty much what is done through government schooling (just like how in communst russia young children were forced to go to school to learn about how "good" communism is), and the lies are continued through government-sponsered media and "news" networks which try to convicne people of the "morals" of the government, and that they alone are good and just and should be listened to, but obviously, if that is all done under the assumption that everything simply made itself, then the ONLY reason why the government would say it is "just" and "good" is to convince its citizens to follow it of their own free will, in order to have more power, but that doesn't mean there is any INTRINSIC sancitity to these morals they make up, they are just MADE UP by human feelings, which, according to this mentality, are just reactions of blood and other scientific chemicals, and those feelings would have no inherent sancitity either, so then according to this way of thinking, what INTRINSIC reason would there be to have ANY of these anti oppresion, and anti discrimination laws anyway, if not for the SOLE reason of making the government more powerful?

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let me know if there is any premise you disagree with from the previous paragraph.

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so basically, if we were to follow the first option, then there's no inherent reason why we should have ANY laws at all, especially "moral" ones, if not just because the government wants more power, but that's not an inherent reason why we should listen to them

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so let's go on to the next two options, which stated that perhaps there is some kind of sanctity and inherent value in human life, and perhaps there is a divine reason we were created, and perhaps there is inherent, intrinsic value in human life, to the point it shouldn't be mistreated, but the next two options assume that for one reason or another, we don't KNOW what exactly that intrinsic sanctity consists of, we don't know WHAT exactly is intrinsictly true, even if SOMETHING is true, so that wouldn't exactly help us, because if we were to run a society on the basis that SOME unknown factors are true and inherently valuable, and others are not, then how are we supposed to enforce any rules or laws, if we don't know what it is we are supposed to be enforcing?

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let me know if there is anything about that point that you disagree with.

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so now we have arrived at the fourth option (and again, let me know if there's something from the previous points that is not agreed with, or if there is some other general option that has not yet been mentioned), that there originally WAS a divine purpose for the creation of the universe (and humans), that purpose still applies today, and we were told about what exactly that purpose is, now it's only a question of determining WHAT belief system that exists on Earth here today, is the correct one that must have been directly TOLD to us by this creator (and again, let me know if there is any otehr alternative that we haven't gone throgh yet).

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so now we just have to go through the different belief systems that claim to be the divine instruction for what humans are supposed to do, and attempt to determine which one is the most complete, least contradictory, and has the most historical backing (let me know if there's any other method to determine which one is true, or if there is anything else here that is disagreed with).

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so there have been thousands of religions and groups and cults throughout history, many of which claim contradictory things for what we are suppsoed to do, there has been the hindus, the bootists, the greeks, the romans, the egyptians, the myans, but let's look at those that still exist today, because I think it's reasonable to say that if we are going by the fourth option, that the world was created with a specific divine purpose and we were told what that purpose is, and that purpsoe still applies today, then we should logically still know about it somehow, and there should still be at least some group that is continuing that purpose (and again, let me know if you disagree with that premise in the first place), but if so let's focus on the various options for which CURRENT religion, or at least category of religions, is true now.

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so nowadays there exists hindoos, scientologists, muslims, jews, the baker's religion, other various oriental religions from china, japan etc., and a bunch of other unknown sub-religions (similar to the basis of the athesit-made "flying spaghetti monster" religion), which are mainly modern-day cults that believe in any number of different things

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so, as mentioned, we are going by the criteria of which one(s) is the complete, uncontradictory, and has the most historical backing (let me know if you disagree, and if there are other criteria we should be looking for)

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so in order for it to be complete, it has to account for the beginning (middle and end) of the world, and how that beginning affects what we should currently be doing now. I think we can agree that if a particular religion or group claims we were told by some divine entity to do something, but fails to explain where that divine entity came about, and how the entire world came about, then it's not a complete picture (let me know if you disagree), so let's see which of the current options for religions account for where EVERYTHING came from, in order that it be most complete

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so to the best of my knowledge sientology believes, for the most part, the first option we mentioned, that there is no divine purpose for the creation of the world, only they add some extra stuff about aliens coming to our planet and doing things that requrie us to worship them, in their view, so I think we can both agree that that is not a complete picture, and for sure that it doesn't have any historical backing (if this is the purpose for what humans have been supposed to do since their creation, then why would it only be "revealed" to the founder of scientology in the past couple hundred years?), I think we can both agree that scientology is not complete, and therefore is contradictory, and doesn't have any historical backing.

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next on the list is the hindu and oriental religions. Many of them believe any variety of things, but to the best of my knowledge (and correct me if I'm wrong), they fail to account for where exactly the universe came from originally, and how our current purpose for what we are supposed to be doing, now, can be traced back to that beginning, to the best of my knowledge many of them have all of these dieties and "divine" figures they worship but, again to the best of my knowledge, they don't account for the original beginning for where all of those dieties came from, where this universe came from, and how that origin is consistant with the purpose we are supposed to be doing now (and again, let me know if you disagree, or if there is something incorrect about my general knowledge of these religions).

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next on the list are the other various modern-day lesser known cults that exist in the world. Obviously many of them have different specific beliefs, but I think we can agree for sure that none of them have a real historical backing (if any one of them is the true purpsoe for what humans are supposed to be doing, then why weren't they doing it earlier? and if they were doing it earlier, then what historical evidence can be brought to support that claim?), and to the best of my knowledge none of them give a complete idea for what the specific, original intention was for the universe to be created, or how it even happened in the first place, many of them fall into the first category mentioned, that it just kind of made itself, and that we should just worship whatever forces may have emerged somehow on their own, or not worship anything in particular but live a certain lifestyle, but that wouldn't account for what the actual intended purpose for anything is, so I think we can rule out this group of religions (and again, let me know if there is anything to be said in their defense or any other point you disagree with so far).

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so, unless I'm missing something, the next on the list are the big 3: muslims, jews, and the baker's religion (I don't write its name out because I don't believe in it, and the name has various implications, but we both know what it is). First off, both the baker's religion and the muslims originally stem from the Torah. According to one, Yushka (the guy born on december 24th), was originally part of the rabbinic jews, and later rebelled, and claimed that what the rabbis were doing wasn't the "true" intention of the Torah, and the muslims believe their prophet was told in a cave by the angel Gavrield that the current methods for following the Torah have been corrupted [chas vehshalom] by the rabbis, and that he now has the true version of what it should be (again, this is all to the best of my knowledge, let me know if there is something else important here that I'm missing), but in general both of these agree that the Torah is the original purpose and intent for creation, they only disagree as to if it has been corrupted or not, and they each have their own claims for which version of it is the true one, but in general they both believe that, at least originally, the Torah is the true purpose, and all of these groups still exist today, so that satisfies at least the condition of having a historical backing somewhat (and still existing, and being practiced, today), the only question is which out of these three is the most complete and exists without contradictions, which can be discussed in a moment, but before we get there let's jsut clarify how its different than the hindu religions just worshipping some deities that came later, without accounting for where thsoe deities came from, because a lot of people would have a similar claim, like "where did G-d mentioned in the Torah came from"?

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well I can't speak for the baker's religoin in this specifically, because I don't agree with it, but many of them agree with the general idea of the Torah, that according to the Torah G-d inherently IS the primary existence, has always existed, will always exist, without any kind of change, and that everything that does exist in the world (including spiritual beings etc.) only exist from that one, original, primary existence, so, at this point I can't necessarily speak of all of the baker's religion, but according to the Torah, this makes sense only if this original existence known to many as "G-d" has no form or no body whatsoever, because every body implies some kind of limitation and definition, and if this "force" was limited to some kind of body (old guy with white beard?) then we would immedietely have the question of where that body came from, everything that has form has to BE formed anyways, so if it were attributed or limited to a body then it wouldn't be much different from many of the hindu religions that worship various deities without explaining where they came from (although it would still be different in the sense of explaining where the WORLD came from, yet still leaving the question of where "G-d" came form, unresolved, so even so there is still some distinction), but according to the actual Torah itself, "G-d" has no body, no form whatsoever, it simply is defined as the primary existence which has the ability to cause everything to exist (and has the ability to create the concept of intelligence in general etc., but it itself is not limited to being an "intelligent being", according to the Torah the entire concept of intelligence is also no more than a creation, just like any other), so it is complete in the sense that it accounts for where EVERYTHING came from originally, namely, rom this primary existence, and this primary existence itself is not a tangible object that necessitates an origin (like EVERY other creation, includig every other "deity" with a form that other religions believe in), it simply IS the essential existence of everything that, well, exists, so it is not in the same category as other things which require an explanation for where it came from

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so so far we have established that the Torah has the most historical backing out of all of the other options, and it is complete in the sense that it accoutns for the original origins for everything, the question is just if its non-contradictory, which would hindge on which of these 3 religions is the true one (because if they all believe in the torah, and they all believe contradictory things, then that wouldn't be a conclusive solution), so we also at this point must determine which of the 3 is the true (again complete, non-contradictory, with the most historical backing) explanation of the Torah itself, which would thereby determine what is actually TRUE, and thereby, what should be followed as a society (and again, let me know if there's anything about this you disagree with).

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so, as mentioned, both the muslims and the baker's religion originally believe in the Torah, they just disagree as to if it was later corrupted, and which is the true explanation for it.

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so the problem with the baker's religion specifically is that the guy, yushka (the guy who was born on the 24th of december), claimed that the rabbis "corrupted" the meaning of the torah, and that they should instead follow the "original" meaning of it, meaning just to rely on the simple meaning of the verses, without any rabinically added explanations (to the best of my knowledge many different sectors of it claim different specifics as to what about it is true or not, but in general, to the best of my knowledge, they all agree that yushka was opposed to the rabbinic explanations of the torah, and some "other" method is the true one)

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so the problem with that, is that there IS no simple meaning of the verses themselves, if anyone has ever tried to read the plain words of a Torah (or bible), they will find MYRIADS of internal contradictions from one sentence to the next, from one parahraph to the next, from one sentence to the next, sometimes there are many contradictions of the meanig of the same word (meaning it seems to have opposite connotations in different contexts). For example in one place it says the Jews will be "foreigners in a land not theirs" for 400 years, but at the end of exodus it says the total time was "420" years, thhat is just one example of many, but it can be shown how even some verses, when taken at face value, are completely, inherently self contradictory, sometimes with multiple contradictions, even within one particular sentence.

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so each section of the december 24thians attempt to resolve each of these contradictions in their own ways, but the problem with that is that they claim that the rabbinical explanations weren't valid, but then they proceed to make up their own interpretations out of thin air, without even claiming that these interpretations were originally passed down, and they all say completely contradictory things regarding their explanations, but the main point is that their explanations and resolutions of the contradictions are just made up by humans later, so the lack of contradictions (the second condition mentioned earlier) doesn't have any historical backing (the third condition mentioned earlier), and therefore, is not complete (the first condition mentioend earlier).

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so the question is how is the rabbinic explanations, that the Jews follow, any different. The answer to that is that these "rabbinic explanations" did not come later (and do not claim to have come later, as the other ones from the other side do), it says explicitly in the Torah to "not stray from the matter that they will tell you, right or left" and "everything that they tell you, you shall do" (fifth book), as well as many of the laws and explanations being passed down from Moshe directly, the TOrah was never meant to be taken at face value, because if so, then it wouldn't be saying anything conclusive (since there are so many contradictions, and if one were to answer those contradictions based off one's own understanding, that would take away the actual legal meaning of what it is), the Torah was given togehter with its explanation, in its entirety, as well as the explicit commandment to listen to the later decrees of the rabbis, the other side doesn't even attempt to claim the same thing applies to them, because they know that they wouldn't be able to substrantiate the claim that their explanations have always existed, since they haven't but the reason the talmud is able to make that claim is because it is able to trace back the line of these explanations, person to person exactly, all the way back to Moshe, which no other group is even attempting to do, because it's impossible to make up an entire history of people if they haven't been witnessed and experienced by other people...

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anyways, the point being that so far, the baker's religion is not in fact complete, since the plain meanings of the verses is contradictory, and the resolutions of those contradictions don't have any historical backing, the only option that DOES have that historical backing is the actual Torah with the rabbinical explanations, because those explanations can be traced back to having been passed down, person to person, back to Moshe (meaning there is actually a list of the exact people the explanations were passed down to, starting from Yehoshua (Moshe's disciple), to the prophets and eladers after him, eventually king David, Ezra, etc. etc., all the way to the era of the Talmud), and no other group or religion has ever claimed to have the explanations for the Torah having been passed down with a specific list of people, because such a claim is impossible to sustain if it weren't true.

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anyways that pretty much leaves the muslims, which claim that it was also corrupted somehow by the rabbis, and was "corrected" by their prophet being told in a cave by the angel Gavriel the true explanations for it, but the same general principles would apply here also, that if they are rejecting that entire line of the explanations that have been passed down, they are now left with all of the thousands of contradictions betwen words of every verse (and between verses in different books), to deal with on their own, and if they do so, then those resolutions woulnd't have a historical backing.

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so we have arrived at the Torah, with all of its rabbinic explanations, as the ultimate truth for how our society should be run, and according to the Torah, two men getting married is not allowed, and should not be supported by any human society (there's a concept known as the "7 commandments" for all of humanity (NOT the "10 commandments" as the "other side" calls it), which includes various sub laws of who can get married (mainly no one of the same gender, no parents to children, or no humans to animals), but does not include anything about interracial couples, so that would be not be substantiated, and the 7th commandment is to uphold courts of justice to enforce the other 6 commadnments, which means these actions should not be tolerated by any society, and for sure not a private business.

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let me know if there is anything here you disagree with