Jiro comments on Rationality Quotes Thread October 2015 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: elharo 03 October 2015 01:23PM

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Comment author: entirelyuseless 30 November 2015 08:05:18PM *  2 points [-]

I agree with you on all the facts here, but I still don't think talking about this as Christians enforcing a Christian rule on non-Christians is a good way to think about it.

At least parts of Italy have a law against stores being open on Easter Sunday, although they are allowed to be open on other Sundays. You could say that they are enforcing a rule which simply has Christian motivations on non-Christians, and you would be right in a certain way, but I think wrong in a more important way. The real reason for the law is to make sure that employees can be at home celebrating Easter instead of working that day. The vast majority of those employees are Catholics, and even most of the non-Catholics have Catholic relatives, and would probably appreciate the day off as well.

And really this kind of discussion has very little to do with religion in general: you might as well say that laws against public nudity are enforcing special rules on people who believe it is ok to go around naked. The reason why some places have such laws is not a religious reason; it is because many people find it offensive. Of course it is true that societies where most people belong to a religion are going to have some laws that in some way are based on that religion. That does not tend to show that religious societies are especially tyrannical.

Comment author: Jiro 30 November 2015 10:03:52PM *  0 points [-]

The reason why some places have such laws is not a religious reason; it is because many people find it offensive.

Rules against public nudity exist in lots of societies, even societies with different dominant religions. Only societies dominated by Christianity have rules against stores being open on Easter Sunday. This suggests that nudity laws are not religion-based and Easter Sunday laws are.