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Should preachers be banned from public places?
lordo350
Posts: 3,636 Forum Member
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You know the type. The roughly dressed, bearded individuals who stand in the middle of the street and scream passages from the Bible out at everyone. I passed one the other day calling gay writers such as Oscar Wild "immoral," and shouting insulting things to kids nearby. Seriously... these guys are a pest and tbh not quite right in the head. Should they be told to move on? Or are they already and was the preacher I saw breaking rules anyway.
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Should respect free speech. Doesn't mean you have to agree with the speaker though.
The case the OP cites might be doing that actually.
I'm sure we all think they are a nuisance but if you ban them you are effectively banning free speech. So long as they are not obstructing people or causing public offence then they should be free to say what they want and we are all free to completely ignore them and continue on our merry way to damnation in the flaming fires of hell...
I was dragged along to many open air gospel sermons by my parents and it was terrible and embarrasing.
It would have saved me from that ordeal and also sent a clear message out to the church that the country won't tolerate hell and damnation sermons and intolerance.
Laws cannot be enacted to save people from being embarresed, that is just a silly proposal. I was dragged to football as a kid, I found it cold and embarrasing, should we ban football?
It is bad enough that we have laws against causing offense now you want ones to stop people being embarrassed. What next laws against boring people?
I had a similar experience of suffering from excrutiating embarrassment in school and hating sports. Of course you shouldn't deliberately make children suffer in this why but people will keep doing it because they can't be bothered to contemplate change.
But a being made to feel humiliated on a public street whilst your church spouts dangerous, unproven and offensive bigoted nonsense is a completely different kettle of fish.
At least you can argue that sport is good for you and a neccessary evil.
There is no real comparison between the two ordeals though.
This is fascinating; an atheist arguing for freedom of religious expression while a Christian argues to suppress a different Christian point of view they do not happen to agree with.
I think all religious views are unproven and that many of them can be dangerous, short of deliberately provoking hate however I would not want to ban some one saying something just because i think it is nonsense.
Once you start banning one group it won't be long before people start finding reasons for banning any group they disagree with.
We definitely seem to heading down that road.
I am not a christian I am an agnostic who strongly opposes the religious indoctrination of children.
I just think that their are acceptable forms of religion which do not involve indoctrination and that atheists are promoting nihilism.
I wasn't just citing embarrasment and like I said it is unneccessary and demeaning embarrasment which involves harrassing the public with hell and damnation and anti gay slogans.
Think of what the Phelpses young offspring have to endure like having bottles thrown at them etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrFVjg79_iM
You are an agnostic who has a Church? OK then.
That tells me all I need to know about the liberal values of the OP.
The OP and others should really think carefully before they rush in to ban something they dislike.