[PUG] French Parliamentary Committee Supports Burka Ban

Pretty much. The irony is that secularity itself actually derives from religious principles.

 

I admit I'm bit a shocked by this.

I would figure something this foolish would come out of the US.

I wonder what recourse those in France will have?

 

How is it not oppressive to tell a woman what she can and cannot wear if it doesn't cause harm to others? There is a massive grey area about how seeing a full face viel would impact others, I am sure it does have a negative impact. But this action is fairly contradictory to the reasoning given.


This is clearly a strong stance against the advancement of Islamic/cultural fundamentalism as they state. I believe there are people that truly don't see Islam as a violent or oppressive religion. They live in a different society that coexists with others. That is all subjective and open to interpretation, but I believe there are women who honestly desire to wear the burka, that they see it as a right, and that right is being taken away for a reason that does not apply to them.

I am still kind of processing the entire debate of Islam and whether it instills violence in its followers or if some violent followers instill violence in it.

 

Christ's command of render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and render unto God what is God's.

Many people dont realise that seperation of church and state was conceived to defend the integrity of the church from the state. For whatever reason we seem to think it's the other way around.

 

Europe has almost killed Christianity in it's borders, now it's moving on to Islam.
Just another day in the world we live.

 

Not exactly. The rise of Islam is actually causing something of a modest resurgence of Christianity in Europe. Concerning France in particular, the irony is it's the most secular country in Europe, yet at the same time no where else is traditionalist Catholicism more popular either.

 

Ay, maybe the statement was to harsh, but none the less the cathedrals are empty.

 

Well that's because those cathedrals(assuming they're Catholic) offer shitty services. Traditional Catholic masses throughout France and Europe are usually generally well attended.

Philip Jenkins has written some nice commentaries on this:
Europe's Christian Comeback

Here's his basic summary of the situation:

 

I'm slightly weary of this as Florida Christian College has sent several missionaries over to Europe, they've reported back to us that the Churches are either dwindleing, overly liberal, impassionate or non-exsistant. Though this may not be the case in France, the areas of the U.k. where our missionaries worked had almost on real churches.

Now i''m not entirley sure if this includes the Catholic Church or not, but atleast from the stand point of the Church of Christ it seems numb.

 

Well it helps to note that religiousity does vary from area to area in Europe. Generally speaking, Northern Europe and France tends to be the more secularist. Eastern and Southern Europe tend to be more religious generally - this is especially true with Poland, which is considered the most Catholic country in the world and one of the biggest exporters of missionaries in the world.

Im not familiar with Church of Christ teachings; but there's also the factor of discerning what is considered "religious" does differ not only culturally speaking but even theologically speaking. Catholic understanding of "religion" is different from say an Evangelical one for example.

 

BTW Barnabas, are you familiar at all with Post-Secular studies? This is related to this in a large way too.

 

Well we can discuss this in another thread.

 

Good idea.

 

Seperation of church and states does not mean the divorce of state and religion. That's literally impossible.

Cause church and state hold each other in check, thus ensuring both the autonomy and integrity of both.

History tends to show that it's the state that usually tries to exploit religion.

 

Why is separation of State, from an organised worship of imagination based entities impossible?

 

This is only going to cause more problems, regardless of their intentions. This is the restricton of harmless religous pratice. If history tells us anything, that leads to problems (and possibly war).