Deep insecurity?!?

*snicker*

*giggle*

*chuckle*

It does make you wonder if she knows any Americans, eh?

Britons avoiding the Church of England is not a change. They have always avoided the CofE.

Sensible people.

I've always been amused at how so-called non-conformists all engage in the same behavior, wear the same clothes, affect the same mannerisms, join the same narrow set of organizations, get their information from the same narrow set of sources, mouth the same unoriginal platitutes and slogans and are otherwise indistiguishable in a mass. Yet one of their major tenents is that everyone else is a conformist.

Okay.

If people aren't entitled to their own faith, whose are they entitled to?

Their civilization's

Jeff, it is a matter of "you can choose any color for your car, as long as it is black".

OJ:
That is easy enough to say.

Which variant--Amish or Assembly of God?

Robert:
True, but for one thing. Defining black.

Jeff:

That choice is insignificant--they're too similar for it to matter.

Not so insignificant that they're not unwilling to kill each other over the difference.

You always picture the conflict as between Christians and unbelievers, Orrin, but history says there have seldom been any unbelievers. The conflict has been among Christians.

As Keith Wrightson points out, when the Puritans took over the Established Church and tried to make it preachy instead of rituatlistic, the common people -- carriers of civilization if anybody is -- disliked giving up the comforts of ritual. So they gave up going to church instead.

My grandfather had to stop the open warfare of the Southern Baptists on the Roman Catholics in Georgia (he brokered a treaty between the Grand Dragon and the Bishop of Savannah). So if there's no significant difference, what were they fighting about?

And what about the Jews? Don't they get a spot in American civilization?

Wait a minute. Why do we have to be dragged into everything? Can't you people even have sectarian wars without getting us involved?

Harry:

Those Amish wars were blood-soaked.

You're trying to be cute, but they really were. That's why the pulled up stakes and headed for the wilds of North America.

And what precisely is the problem with that? A state can contain a variety of similar but different societies, so long as all share the same basic morality.

Fine. Answer my question about the statue.

David:
If only that could be true.

Unfortunately, it isn't. Which highlights the violence inherent in overweening religious enterprise.

What statue?

The shrine to Mary in my Portuguese neighbor's front yard.

If I convert to Christianity, am I obliged to smash it and burn down her house or not? That's been good doctrine off and on for centuries. If it's not good now, why was it good then?

If good now, why are all the backsliders shirking their Christian duty?

Just trying to pin you down. You have the TRUTH, but it's pretty slippery.

Harry:

There's no moral obligation to strip the altars, particularly if they aren't in your church.

Doctrinal obligation.

Anyhow, if you're willing to kill over it, it's a fundamental belief and Christians were. Chris attempted to make the distinction (unaware, I bet, of how the Church settled the debate with Acton), but that's all moonshine.

If you'll kill for it, that's what you value.

Doctrines aren't morality--they're infintely malleable.

Doctrines are the moral judgements that your religious pre-decessors got wrong. Morality are the absolute objective truths that you hold and will kill and die for, and that your descendants will refer to as doctrine.

Morality is from God

Doctrine is from the all too human church

You still haven't explained how the sincere seeker distinguishes among the two.

You have no choice of morality, but the doctrinal differences shouldn't concern you overmuch.