[PASSED] Ban on Ritual Sacrifice

[Naqil]

“And?”

"And you clearly have a problem with combining ritual sacrifice with capital punishment, considering that you said it's your main problem with this proposal. Why do you have a problem with it?"

OOC: My ambassador would like to quote a certain star-spangled superhero right now.

((OOC: Go ahead. My character won't get the reference, though))

[Fauxia]

“And?”

"And you clearly have a problem with combining ritual sacrifice with capital punishment, considering that you said it's your main problem with this proposal. Why do you have a problem with it?"

“Once again, incorrect. Our problem is disguising ritual sacrifice as capital punishment. Examples:

1. Falsifies evidence for murder to execute someone, which is actually used as a ritual sacrifice to a god. That’s bad.

2. Person commits treason and is to be executed. Is sacrificed to a god. Not good, but permissible.

Do you see the difference?”

OOC: My ambassador would like to quote a certain star-spangled superhero right now.

((OOC: Go ahead. My character won't get the reference, though))

OOC: That’s why it’s OOC. Do you, not the ambassador, get it?

[Naqil]

“Once again, incorrect. Our problem is disguising ritual sacrifice as capital punishment. Examples:

1. Falsifies evidence for murder to execute someone, which is actually used as a ritual sacrifice to a god. That’s bad.

2. Person commits treason and is to be executed. Is sacrificed to a god. Not good, but permissible.

Do you see the difference?”

"I don't think you have to worry about that for my nation. Naqil only has two required sacrificial events per year, and there are always more than enough murderers or traitors for it. If at any point there aren't, we have a plan in place to have our neighbors send some of their own to us. The last thing we need is for an overzealous priest to turn a ritual sacrifice into a ritual suicide for lack of other options."

"Does your nation not have capital punishment? Is that the reason for the "not good" in your second scenario?"

((OOC: Go ahead. My character won't get the reference, though))

OOC: That’s why it’s OOC. Do you, not the ambassador, get it?

((OOC: Considering I'm not sure which quote your ambassador wants to use I'll have to say no to that.))

[Wallenburg]

((OOC: Go ahead. My character won't get the reference, though))

OOC: That’s why it’s OOC. Do you, not the ambassador, get it?

You have an OOC ambassador? That's not how this works.

[Sciongrad]

OOC: That’s why it’s OOC. Do you, not the ambassador, get it?

You have an OOC ambassador? That's not how this works.

OOC: Why do this?

[Dragonslinding WA Mission]

Ser Aegon Snow rises to address the Assembly. "Dragonslund will oppose as regulation of religious rituals is a purely national issue and does not and should not fall under the purview of this body."

[Imperial Polk County]

Ser Aegon Snow rises to address the Assembly. "Dragonslund will oppose as regulation of religious rituals is a purely national issue and does not and should not fall under the purview of this body."

"I respectfully disagree. When religious rituals involve murdering people, such acts cannot be condoned by this assembly, regardless of where they occur."

[Imperial Polk County]

“I don’t like this phrase. First of all, to prevent us pro-lifers from making a big deal about this, I might add abortion, here, though I suggest this with a guilty conscience. My main problem is that this seems to say you actually can do these sacrifices, as long as they are categorized as capital punishment. I have no problem with outlawing capital punishment and/or euthanasia in the cases categorized as ritual sacrifice, anyway, if that be the interpretation.”

"Under existing assembly legislation, abortion is deemed a medical procedure; medical procedures are specifically excluded from the definition of ritual sacrifice. If your nation conducts ritualized abortions or any other ritualized medical procedures, including euthanasia and assisted suicide of terminally ill patients, this proposal would not affect such rituals. As far as capital punishment, it too is specifically not covered by this proposal. If your nation performs certain rituals while carrying out such punishment, this proposal would not affect those rituals either."

Drane, reminded that the Fauxian ambassador has a history of supporting proposals that lose at vote, adds: "I hope I haven't been too convincing."

[Fauxia]

“I don’t like this phrase. First of all, to prevent us pro-lifers from making a big deal about this, I might add abortion, here, though I suggest this with a guilty conscience. My main problem is that this seems to say you actually can do these sacrifices, as long as they are categorized as capital punishment. I have no problem with outlawing capital punishment and/or euthanasia in the cases categorized as ritual sacrifice, anyway, if that be the interpretation.”

"Under existing assembly legislation, abortion is deemed a medical procedure; medical procedures are specifically excluded from the definition of ritual sacrifice. If your nation conducts ritualized abortions or any other ritualized medical procedures, including euthanasia and assisted suicide of terminally ill patients, this proposal would not affect such rituals. As far as capital punishment, it too is specifically not covered by this proposal. If your nation performs certain rituals while carrying out such punishment, this proposal would not affect those rituals either."

Drane, reminded that the Fauxian ambassador has a history of supporting proposals that lose at vote, adds: "I hope I haven't been too convincing."

OOC: I actually don’t have a history of supporting proposals that lose. I simply take unusual opinions and so I make jokes about ambassadors doing something wrong when I support. In general, I vote against, anyway, so not applicable. It’s more likely it passes when I vote against than it doesn’t when I do. Pretty much the only examples of this are repeals of [proposal not to be named so as not to start a fight, but its digits equal 16, it’s three digits, starts with R and ends in S]

[Bears Armed]

(2) I fail to see how banning the ritualistic elimination of fetuses in the name of the spirit of Woogie Woogie would contradict abortion legislation.

OOC
I didn't refer to the clause about "ritual sacrifice" for religious religions, I referred to the clause about "ritual sacrifice" for preventing overpopulation.
However, having had time now to re-read the relevant resolutions, I concede that nothing in them protects women's rights to seek abortion because of government incentives to reduce overpopulation, so I'll drop this part of the arguement.

[Dragonslinding WA Mission]

Ser Aegon Snow rises to address the Assembly. "Dragonslund will oppose as regulation of religious rituals is a purely national issue and does not and should not fall under the purview of this body."

"I respectfully disagree. When religious rituals involve murdering people, such acts cannot be condoned by this assembly, regardless of where they occur."

"Disagree if you like. Perhaps though if this body has the right to regulate the religious practices of the citizens of member nations, then perhaps we can also pass legislation concerning ritualistic cannibalism. I'm given to understand that there are some nations wherein they believe in ingesting, symbolically, the literal flesh and blood of their god. Indeed for a practitioner of the faith of the Old Gods like myself such a practice is utterly repugnant. As for the Church of the Seven it is considered completely anathema. In short should this proposal pass it opens the door for the WA to completely destroy the religions of member states because I assure you that someone, somewhere will be offended by something no matter how seemingly innocuous."

[Separatist Peoples]

"I respectfully disagree. When religious rituals involve murdering people, such acts cannot be condoned by this assembly, regardless of where they occur."

"Disagree if you like. Perhaps though if this body has the right to regulate the religious practices of the citizens of member nations, then perhaps we can also pass legislation concerning ritualistic cannibalism. I'm given to understand that there are some nations wherein they believe in ingesting, symbolically, the literal flesh and blood of their god. Indeed for a practitioner of the faith of the Old Gods like myself such a practice is utterly repugnant. As for the Church of the Seven it is considered completely anathema. In short should this proposal pass it opens the door for the WA to completely destroy the religions of member states because I assure you that someone, somewhere will be offended by something no matter how seemingly innocuous."

"Why should the WA respect backwards voodoo beliefs, exactly? When has 'but muh religion!' ever been used to justify a positive exception?"

[Dragonslinding WA Mission]

"Why should the WA respect backwards voodoo beliefs, exactly? When has 'but muh religion!' ever been used to justify a positive exception?"

"The WA should have nothing to do with the religious beliefs of the citizens of member nations. It is entirely a national issue if some nations wish to make it so. Dragonslund for example doesn't care what sept or godswoods one goes to provided he pays his taxes. At issue here is that this isn't an international issue, and making it an international issue opens this body up to overt persecution of religous groups, including mainline religious groups, never mind the fringe ones."

[Separatist Peoples]

"Why should the WA respect backwards voodoo beliefs, exactly? When has 'but muh religion!' ever been used to justify a positive exception?"

"The WA should have nothing to do with the religious beliefs of the citizens of member nations. It is entirely a national issue if some nations wish to make it so. Dragonslund for example doesn't care what sept or godswoods one goes to provided he pays his taxes. At issue here is that this isn't an international issue, and making it an international issue opens this body up to overt persecution of religous groups, including mainline religious groups, never mind the fringe ones."

"You still haven't provided for why exceptions for religion should be made when pursuing a policy goal. You've merely argued against WA restriction of religion on the whole. Those are two different concepts.

"Why should religious beliefs be granted an exception when the WA is trying to accomplish a greater goal? What is the normative value of religion against the rights and well-being of individuals? Waving around the flag of NatSov isn't itself an argument if you can't demonstrate the value of granting those exceptions."

[Dragonslinding WA Mission]

"The WA should have nothing to do with the religious beliefs of the citizens of member nations. It is entirely a national issue if some nations wish to make it so. Dragonslund for example doesn't care what sept or godswoods one goes to provided he pays his taxes. At issue here is that this isn't an international issue, and making it an international issue opens this body up to overt persecution of religous groups, including mainline religious groups, never mind the fringe ones."

"You still haven't provided for why exceptions for religion should be made when pursuing a policy goal. You've merely argued against WA restriction of religion on the whole. Those are two different concepts.

"Why should religious beliefs be granted an exception when the WA is trying to accomplish a greater goal? What is the normative value of religion against the rights and well-being of individuals? Waving around the flag of NatSov isn't itself an argument if you can't demonstrate the value of granting those exceptions."

OOC: On an IC level I'm not sure that Aegon understands the concept of religious freedom, his mindset is relatively speaking medieval. Seriously, the dude is a f-ing knight. But on an OOC level the player behind him views this as potentially opening the door to ideological bans in the course of time. Such creeping authoritarianism starts with fringe elements first.

After all if the WA can ban sacrificing virgins to the volcano god of some backwater that just happens to be in the WA, it could also logically also ban the Catholic Eucharist, as their theology dictates that the wine and "bread" are quite literally and physically transformed into the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.* Due to the nature of that theology, it could, and eventually would, be considered cannibalism (Jesus Christ having been reportedly human, assuming he even actually existed), and if humans [and other sapient creatures] are considered to be sapient, then why would a god or semi-god not also be sapient.

Please note that if I'm wrong on that, I last went to theology class when I was 15 some 25 years ago and I'm not even a christian anymore, let alone a Catholic.

IC:

"I would argue that the case has to be made as to why the WA should be involving itself into the religious beliefs of the citizens of member states. The burden of proof is on the WA to make the case that such and such issue actually is an international issue that must be dealt with by this august body. To claim otherwise is nothing more than waving around an IntFed flag.

"Let us suppose that this travesty of a proposal passes, and it could--this august body has passed far more poorly written and thought out legislation (which probably explains why about one-third to one-half of the 410 current resolutions are repeals), then what is to stop the next person who seems to see the eating of people as a bad thing (and except in dire circumstances I'd agree), then that future proposal would essentially ban the religion known as Christianity."

[Naqil]

After all if the WA can ban sacrificing virgins to the volcano god of some backwater that just happens to be in the WA

((OOC: I'll have you know that the volcanic god of my backwater (Rirten here hails from one) doesn't do sacrifices. As Rirten would put it, "Yalin is a volcano. You can't appease a volcano." ))

"Let us suppose that this travesty of a proposal passes, and it could--this august body has passed far more poorly written and thought out legislation (which probably explains why about one-third to one-half of the 410 current resolutions are repeals), then what is to stop the next person who seems to see the eating of people as a bad thing (and except in dire circumstances I'd agree), then that future proposal would essentially ban the religion known as Christianity."

"Christianity? Isn't that the religion that we occasionally get missionaries for? If they're cannibalistic then good, you've just given us another reason to deport them. Might be able to finesse it into a murder charge, even if they're bringing in their misbegotten goods from outside the country..."

((OOC: Naqil has a generally low opinion of foreign religions, and doesn't usually bother to read up on the details about them.))

[States of Glory WA Office]

one-half of the 410 current resolutions are repeals

OOC: This means that the other half of all resolutions have been repealed and that there are therefore no active resolutions.

[Dragonslinding WA Mission]

one-half of the 410 current resolutions are repeals

OOC: This means that the other half of all resolutions have been repealed and that there are therefore no active resolutions.

OOC: Ser Aegon is being hyperbolic. But it is rare for me to find a repeal I don't like unless it is an attempt to repeal a blocker.

[Dragonslinding WA Mission]

After all if the WA can ban sacrificing virgins to the volcano god of some backwater that just happens to be in the WA

((OOC: I'll have you know that the volcanic god of my backwater (Rirten here hails from one) doesn't do sacrifices. As Rirten would put it, "Yalin is a volcano. You can't appease a volcano." ))

OOC: I wasn't thinking of Rirten in particular, but was rather using it as an example of a primitive superstition usually attributed to societies that are often called barbaric. IE the local volcano periodically erupts, so throwing various persons into said volcano is believed to appease the local god of the volcano to make it not erupt. Realistically it does nothing but kill the person sacrificed, but from that society's point of view such sacrifices are absolutely vital to the well being of the whole./OOC

"Let us suppose that this travesty of a proposal passes, and it could--this august body has passed far more poorly written and thought out legislation (which probably explains why about one-third to one-half of the 410 current resolutions are repeals), then what is to stop the next person who seems to see the eating of people as a bad thing (and except in dire circumstances I'd agree), then that future proposal would essentially ban the religion known as Christianity."

"Christianity? Isn't that the religion that we occasionally get missionaries for? If they're cannibalistic then good, you've just given us another reason to deport them. Might be able to finesse it into a murder charge, even if they're bringing in their misbegotten goods from outside the country..."

((OOC: Naqil has a generally low opinion of foreign religions, and doesn't usually bother to read up on the details about them.))

"They've not sent Dragonslund any missionaries yet, though, a few years ago, under the old king, some missionaries off the Lord of Light came to our shores to gain converts. His late Majesty decided to test their god, which they claim to be master of fire by having them burnt alive in a public square by dragonfire. Lets just say there were no converts that day, the mob was entertained and the dragons got a tasty snack.

"Unfortunately we can't use that method of execution very often. It seems that eating human meat gives dragons indigestion and makes them far harder for dragon tamers to handle. Which is why we have opted for more humane forms of capital punishment such as beheading, breaking on the wheel and hanging, drawing and quartering and exposure. If fiery deaths are required we find wildfyre to be much more manageable.

"That being said, it is my understanding that their god was convicted of something and executed and that they use wine and bread to symbolically eat his flesh and drink his blood. But the intent of cannibalistic activity is certainly clear."

[Clean Land]

as an effort to control sapient population growth,

We kindly ask you to remove this. The core purpose of any kind of state authority is to do enact prohibitive laws on actions that benefit the individual but greatly harm the community. Your proposal, ambassador Drayne IV, undermines this purpose. Overpopulation of populations of sapient beings is, unfortunately, a real danger. It has been proven numerous times that even individual members of a community of sapient beings do not stop reproducing and that resources are not unlimited. Even more unfortunately, even awareness programs and punitive sanctions are sometimes ineffective.
You should be aware that overpopulation of sapient beings can result in mass conflict over resources, which reduces such resources, especially food, which ultimatively causes atrocious conditions for all individuals of the community, destroys community bonds or even sometimes results in local extinction.
Thus, killing sapient beings or forcing birth control for population control should be avaliable to member states.
The second option is already blocked by multiple World Assembly resolutions.
We will strongly oppose any proposal that does not allow the possibility of lethal population control as a last resort.

[Separatist Peoples]

[

OOC: On an IC level I'm not sure that Aegon understands the concept of religious freedom, his mindset is relatively speaking medieval. Seriously, the dude is a f-ing knight.

OOC: Fair, but Bell is a f-ing asshole, so he probably get a fair amount of schadenfreude twitting somebody culturally incapable of seeing an alternative.

But on an OOC level the player behind him views this as potentially opening the door to ideological bans in the course of time. Such creeping authoritarianism starts with fringe elements first.

OOC: You say authoritarianism, I say rational restrictions on socially harmful behavior, but that's neither here nor there.

After all if the WA can ban sacrificing virgins to the volcano god of some backwater that just happens to be in the WA, it could also logically also ban the Catholic Eucharist, as their theology dictates that the wine and "bread" are quite literally and physically transformed into the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.* Due to the nature of that theology, it could, and eventually would, be considered cannibalism (Jesus Christ having been reportedly human, assuming he even actually existed), and if humans [and other sapient creatures] are considered to be sapient, then why would a god or semi-god not also be sapient

OOC: You just made me salivate.

IC:

"I would argue that the case has to be made as to why the WA should be involving itself into the religious beliefs of the citizens of member states. The burden of proof is on the WA to make the case that such and such issue actually is an international issue that must be dealt with by this august body. To claim otherwise is nothing more than waving around an IntFed flag.

"Ambassador, ask around. I am no International Federalist. I don't see why the burden of proof is necessarily on the World Assembly to prove that this is an international issue. By virtue of the World Assembly's jurisdiction, I would argue that the burden of proof is on the members to prove otherwise and prevent legislation. Which bodes poorly for you."

"Let us suppose that this travesty of a proposal passes, and it could--this august body has passed far more poorly written and thought out legislation (which probably explains why about one-third to one-half of the 410 current resolutions are repeals), then what is to stop the next person who seems to see the eating of people as a bad thing (and except in dire circumstances I'd agree), then that future proposal would essentially ban the religion known as Christianity."

"As a veteran author, let me point out that there are no major technical errors here. This isn't poorly written. Nor do I see how it incentivizes worse legislation. And knowing what I know about Christianity, I still don't see a good reason not to ban it. You keep acting as though there is some great benefit to creating a religious exception for acts that, were they committed absent religious intent, there would be no question of support. Why, then, is that religious exception valid? What benefit does respecting religion have when there are obvious societal harms to prevent?"

[Imperial Polk County]

as an effort to control sapient population growth,

We kindly ask you to remove this. The core purpose of any kind of state authority is to do enact prohibitive laws on actions that benefit the individual but greatly harm the community. Your proposal, ambassador Drayne IV, undermines this purpose. Overpopulation of populations of sapient beings is, unfortunately, a real danger. It has been proven numerous times that even individual members of a community of sapient beings do not stop reproducing and that resources are not unlimited. Even more unfortunately, even awareness programs and punitive sanctions are sometimes ineffective.
You should be aware that overpopulation of sapient beings can result in mass conflict over resources, which reduces such resources, especially food, which ultimatively causes atrocious conditions for all individuals of the community, destroys community bonds or even sometimes results in local extinction.
Thus, killing sapient beings or forcing birth control for population control should be avaliable to member states.
The second option is already blocked by multiple World Assembly resolutions.
We will strongly oppose any proposal that does not allow the possibility of lethal population control as a last resort.

"Let me get this straight. Rather than improve your infrastructure, import resources, or ask for help from your neighbors, you would rather ritualistically exterminate a portion of your population? No, I'm not removing that clause, but thank you for your feedback."

[Clean Land]

We kindly ask you to remove this. The core purpose of any kind of state authority is to do enact prohibitive laws on actions that benefit the individual but greatly harm the community. Your proposal, ambassador Drayne IV, undermines this purpose. Overpopulation of populations of sapient beings is, unfortunately, a real danger. It has been proven numerous times that even individual members of a community of sapient beings do not stop reproducing and that resources are not unlimited. Even more unfortunately, even awareness programs and punitive sanctions are sometimes ineffective.
You should be aware that overpopulation of sapient beings can result in mass conflict over resources, which reduces such resources, especially food, which ultimatively causes atrocious conditions for all individuals of the community, destroys community bonds or even sometimes results in local extinction.
Thus, killing sapient beings or forcing birth control for population control should be avaliable to member states.
The second option is already blocked by multiple World Assembly resolutions.
We will strongly oppose any proposal that does not allow the possibility of lethal population control as a last resort.

"Let me get this straight. Rather than improve your infrastructure, import resources, or ask for help from your neighbors, you would rather ritualistically exterminate a portion of your population? No, I'm not removing that clause, but thank you for your feedback."

You did not get it, we am afraid.
Improving the infrastructure and to import resources are surely helpful short time measures. However, the resources are not unlimited, nowhere. If every nation would try to import food-do we need to elaborate further?
At some point, the population has to stop expanding. And a nation should surely seek less invasive methods to reduce population growth. We also specifically mentioned "last resort", which indicates that we would not use killings as a form of population control(killings for another reason are another topic) if there would be an alternative.
Perhaps you cannot imagine such a situation happening. Trust us, it is entirely possible.
We already dislike this proposal for other reasons(banning ritual sacrifice to force order) but unlike the above problem, that is not a problem that might cause us to have our hands tied when a catastrophe is imminent.

[Dragonslinding WA Mission]

[

OOC: On an IC level I'm not sure that Aegon understands the concept of religious freedom, his mindset is relatively speaking medieval. Seriously, the dude is a f-ing knight.

OOC: Fair, but Bell is a f-ing asshole, so he probably get a fair amount of schadenfreude twitting somebody culturally incapable of seeing an alternative.

OOC: Fair enough. Aegon tries to not be an asshole, he takes himself far too seriously probably.

But on an OOC level the player behind him views this as potentially opening the door to ideological bans in the course of time. Such creeping authoritarianism starts with fringe elements first.

OOC: You say authoritarianism, I say rational restrictions on socially harmful behavior, but that's neither here nor there.

OOC: I personally have a hard Classical Liberal bend, and by that I mean J. S. Mill style liberal and not what passes for liberal in North America these days--which isn't liberal at all. This of course leads one, in the course of time to a form of minarchism, that is to say government (which in an In Game sense the WA really is since its resolutions can be imposed on member nations; like US federal law can be imposed on the constituent states) that governs least is best.

In principle I would agree that killing sapient beings is not desirable. But if the goal is to prevent the killing of sapient beings then perhaps the WA would be better served attempting to outright ban murder in general, and for all practical purposes war. For example it could require that that member states who choose to war with each other must do so by lining up their armies to hit each other with herrings.

But I do not see how ritualistic sacrifices are an international matter at all. In those nations where the majority or major religions require ritual sacrifice of sapient beings the killing of those sapient beings would not be considered murder. Indeed it is even possible that being chosen to be a sacrifice is considered to be a great honor. Conversely, in those nations which are either secular, or where the majority or major religions do not require ritual sacrifice, then the ritual sacrifices would be considered murder and thus covered under their national laws for murder. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that most nations in the WA have at least some laws against murder.

After all if the WA can ban sacrificing virgins to the volcano god of some backwater that just happens to be in the WA, it could also logically also ban the Catholic Eucharist, as their theology dictates that the wine and "bread" are quite literally and physically transformed into the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.* Due to the nature of that theology, it could, and eventually would, be considered cannibalism (Jesus Christ having been reportedly human, assuming he even actually existed), and if humans [and other sapient creatures] are considered to be sapient, then why would a god or semi-god not also be sapient

OOC: You just made me salivate.

OOC: I'm not going to pretend that I have a great love for organized religion (and even less for disorganized superstition--which is what most of the so-called 'spirituality' is), having said that, organized religions are a reality and of the three Abrahamic religions Christianity is the least offensive to my sensibilities. I know some would think Judaism would be, but I have a major problem with the mandatory male genital mutilation and the prohibition on pork--which is perhaps my favorite meat.

IC:

"I would argue that the case has to be made as to why the WA should be involving itself into the religious beliefs of the citizens of member states. The burden of proof is on the WA to make the case that such and such issue actually is an international issue that must be dealt with by this august body. To claim otherwise is nothing more than waving around an IntFed flag.

"Ambassador, ask around. I am no International Federalist. I don't see why the burden of proof is necessarily on the World Assembly to prove that this is an international issue. By virtue of the World Assembly's jurisdiction, I would argue that the burden of proof is on the members to prove otherwise and prevent legislation. Which bodes poorly for you."[/quote]

IC:

"I would contend sir, that one often cannot prove a negative. I'm given to understand that in countries where the administration of justice is left to lawyers and other assorted verminous scum; instead of the hands of the nobility where it belongs, there is a principle that the accused is presumed innocent and that the Crown/state must prove that the accused is guilty. Fortunately, Dragonslund is not so primitive and allows for trial by combat since the gods, both old and new, will side with the innocent. And also often there is little evidence for which the state to prove its case.

"For those incapable of combat they may appoint a proxy or may choose trial by ordeal.

"Let us suppose that this travesty of a proposal passes, and it could--this august body has passed far more poorly written and thought out legislation (which probably explains why about one-third to one-half of the 410 current resolutions are repeals), then what is to stop the next person who seems to see the eating of people as a bad thing (and except in dire circumstances I'd agree), then that future proposal would essentially ban the religion known as Christianity."

"As a veteran author, let me point out that there are no major technical errors here. This isn't poorly written. Nor do I see how it incentivizes worse legislation. And knowing what I know about Christianity, I still don't see a good reason not to ban it. You keep acting as though there is some great benefit to creating a religious exception for acts that, were they committed absent religious intent, there would be no question of support. Why, then, is that religious exception valid? What benefit does respecting religion have when there are obvious societal harms to prevent?"

"You misunderstand me Ambassador, the proposal is not poorly written at all--and that is a major problem since the idea behind the excellent technical execution is so bad. As for not seeing how this could lead to further legislation that could and would lead to outright prohibitions of various religions I must ask if you are blind.

"I cannot speak much about the merits of Christianity itself. I am not a Christian. That being said, for religion in general, I would say that it is quite useful in enforcing socially the general morality of the society through internalization of that morality. It would seem to me that the eventual outcome of abolition of large, socially enforced moral laws would result in hundreds, perhaps thousands of tiny Crown enforced laws. The justice of the Crown is often not as forgiving of small transgressions as the wider society.

"Furthermore, religions themselves are ideologies. If the WA by its own rules cannot outright ban communism, or fascism, or democracy (which is perhaps the worst ideology out there--it always degenerates into mob-ocracy) then it stands to reason that it cannot outright ban religions. But if certain specific practices of those religions can be banned, and those practices are considered to be so intrinsic to the overall practice of that religion, that would be a de facto ideological ban on that religion. It would matter little if it is the religion of the volcano god of XYZ-istan or Christianity (which is a major religion in many member nations) or any other religion."

[Fauxia]

That was a long post