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It's so obvious that it's unnecessary. You shouldn't discriminate people based on religion. Not all muslims are terrorists. There are many muslims who have contributed greatly to the united states and the world in general. You happy now? What are you looking to hear here? This isn't exactly a nuanced argument that needs to be picked apart. It's just "these people are muslims, therefore we should ban all people who (say they) are muslims" - that's wrong because you can just say you're not a muslim, and because correlation does not imply causation. It will affect exclusively innocent people, because terrorists are smart enough to lie on a simple yes/no question. Do I need to keep going?


>"You shouldn't discriminate people based on religion"

Of course, I agree. But a discussion of it really isn't that simple. For one, people are already being discriminated on based on religion in the US on a massive scale, and it's codified in the law via tax-breaks for religious institutions. It's just not so clear when you're on the right side of the fence (i.e. a non-athiest). Not saying you should discriminate on religion, but to use the word "obvious" would be hypocritical as we aren't calling out the current leaders for religious discrimination. How about we use Trump's wrong viewpoints to spawn some discussion about making some changes to existing discriminatory policies?

>"It will affect exclusively innocent people, because terrorists are smart enough to lie on a simple yes/no question. Do I need to keep going?"

But your comments/observations as above are exactly what the thread needed when I came to it, to spawn some discussion. Was just pointing out that the thread at that point was really all about "attack Trump".


I'm actually a believer that religions should get no special tax status whatsoever, so at least my beliefs are consistent I suppose. Still, I think this is playing a bit of the semantics game, as a very indirect discrimination like that is not on the same level as barring people from entry to a country based on fairly loosed belief based criteria (i.e. anyone who identifies as a muslim)


> You shouldn't discriminate people based on religion.

Actually you should because religion is a choice. It is not a necessity or inevitable. Every religious person has deliberately chosen to be such.

While I agree that banning entry is too harsh and religion is not strongly correlated with aggression, the idea that hijabs are protected and your employer must accommodate you, but coming to work cosplaying as an wookie is violation of the dress code and you can be fired is deeply dishonest.

Religion gets too free pass in that society - we should treat it as any other irrational belief.

Edit: the Sovereignty of US means that they are able to refuse entrance to non citizens for no reason whatsoever.


"we should treat it as any other irrational belief"

How do you distinguish between a rational and irrational belief?

I am strongly influenced by Kurt Vonnegut' "granfalloon" - "a group of people who affect a shared identity or purpose, but whose mutual association is actually meaningless". Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granfalloon :

> The most commonly purported granfalloons are associations and societies based on a shared but ultimately fabricated premise. As examples, Vonnegut cites: "the Communist Party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company—and any nation, anytime, anywhere." A more general and oft-cited quote defines a granfalloon as "a proud and meaningless association of human beings." Another granfalloon example illustrated in the book were Hoosiers, of which the narrator (and Vonnegut himself) was a member.

What makes you certain that believing in "the US" is any more rational than believing in various gods?

To be certain, there is a consensus reality which says the US exists, and if you fail to go along with the consensus you may be subject to negative consequences. Just like if you fail to express certain religious beliefs, you may subject to negative consequences, even in secular countries.


"the idea that hijabs are protected and your employer must accommodate you"

This is not a correct understanding of the US law. An employer is not required to accommodate someone's religious beliefs if it would create an 'undue hardship'. See http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/publications/qa_religious_garb_groo... .

For examples of 'undue hardship', see http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/religion.html. One is "It will typically pose an undue hardship for an employer to accommodate an applicant or employee’s asserted religious belief against providing or using a social security number.", citing:

> Sutton v. Providence St. Joseph Med. Ctr., 192 F.3d 826 (9th Cir. 1999) (hospital not liable for refusing to hire applicant who declined to provide social security number on religious grounds; because federal tax law required the hospital to obtain all employees’ social security numbers, accommodation of applicant’s religious belief would pose undue hardship); Hover v. Florida Power & Light Co., 1995 WL 91531 (S.D. Fla. Feb. 6, 1995) (employee’s proposed accommodation that employer “make up” a social security number rather than obtain employee’s actual social security number posed an undue hardship), aff’d, 101 F.3d 708 (11th Cir. 1996) (Table) (unpublished).

Another example (example 34) would be if a nurse did not want to participate in abortions, for religious reasons, and the hospital did not have another position which she could transfer to, then the hospital could terminate her employment.

Or, for an example of how religious garb specifically can be prohibited, in Larocca v. Gold a lawyer who was also a priest was prohibited from "wear[ing] his Roman Catholic collar when appearing before a jury as a defense lawyer in a criminal trial" http://www.leagle.com/decision/1981806662F2d144_1792/LaROCCA... .


Religion is a highly personal thing, and for me, saying that you shouldn't discriminate people based on it is far different than saying anything relating to religion gets a free pass. There's a valid discussion to be had in the question of "when does a person end and a behaviour start?" - but alas that discussion is misplaced here because trump did not even attempt to hide his message in softer words.




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