SPH1;2259110:
I think that one should have the right to bash religions, that’s one of the primary foundations of our First Amendment Right to free speech.
QUOTE]
We are certainly free to disagree with other religions, and strongly profess our own beliefs, but the First Amendment doesn’t
protect the proverbial “crying ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre,” and doesn’t protect libel, slander, or hate speech. I think much of what comes from the Hagee’s, SDA’s, and similar rises (sinks?) to the level of libel and hate speech, and should be more aggressively countered.
As a CA attorney, I really don’t need a law lecture.
I’m not a fan of so-called “hate speech” laws, a great erosion of the First Amendment. We’ve already seen it being put to use in Canada and some European countries to stiffle the Church speaking out against things such as homosexuality. What’s next? What else will become “hate speech?” Saying that other religions are wrong?
Calling the Pope the antichrist and the Holy Catholic Church the Whore of Babylon is indeed ugly. As Cardinal Newman suggests, Protestants turned to this tactic because they could not defeat the Church on reasoned debate alone. IMO, no other religion uses propaganda (an appeal to the sub-rational level) as does Protestantism. But IMO we should counter with reasoned and powerful argument, not the law.
Role of False Witness - From Newman Reader
“I repeat, not everything which is said to our disadvantage is without foundation in fact; but it is not {129} the true that tells against us in the controversy, but the false. The Tradition requires bold painting; its prominent outline, its glaring colouring, needs to be a falsehood. So was it at the time of the Reformation; the multitude would never have been converted by exact reasoning and by facts which could be proved; so its upholders were clever enough to call the
Pope Antichrist, and they let the startling accusation sink into men’s minds. Nothing else would have succeeded; and they pursue the same tactics now. No inferior charge, I say, would have gained for them the battle; else, why should they have had recourse to it? Few persons tell atrocious falsehoods for the sake of telling them. If truth had been sufficient to put down Catholicism, the Reformers would not have had recourse to fiction. Errors indeed creep in by chance, whatever be the point of inquiry or dispute;
but I am not accusing Protestants merely of incidental or of attendant error, but I mean that falsehood is the very staple of the views which they have been taught to entertain of us.**”
John Henry Cardinal Newman
Quick can someone tell me how long Constantine’s Pontificate lasted?
