[dextralt]

The case for freedom of religion has never looked more questionable than it does right now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_terrorism_in_Europe

Trying to wave away this debate by just shouting “RACIST! NAZI!” contributes nothing meaningful to a debate that is sorely missing from society.

Edit: why is this controversial and the post I'm replying to not? We both advocate the exact same thing: to abolish a founding principle of western civilization because sometimes people die. Hell, there's even a quite large disparity between the number of deaths caused by those two principles - my argument has way more merit.

I'd really love to see why these two cases are totally different and incomparable. Three paragraphs of mental gymnastics or less though, please!

[lldbg]

Religion is already banned in places such as France. Did not do them much good. A ban on free speech will be equally as effective.

[Majestic121]

Religion is not banned in France, that's a great misunderstanding of the concept of laicity.

Laicity means that religion is kept away from the State, it has no impact whatsoever on private practice and definitely nothing to do with it being 'banned'

[notriskfree]

Indeed the less the state has to do with religion; the more religious freedom everyone has.

[Renaud]

What do you mean Religion is banned in France? I'm curious about what sort of twisted broad exaggeration and misunderstanding do you have to believe to drop something like that?

[chimpansteve]

To be fair, the NYT's reporting of Macron's limited and perfectly reasonable attempts to combat rampant fundamentalism might give an uninformed reader a reason to believe he was some authoritarian nutjob. But that's yet another symptom of the NYT's habit of lashing out at any perspective other than their very limited one.

[Renaud]

Yeah, it's strange that Americans on the whole are not well versed in what secualrism means.

They think it's some sort state-enforced communist atheism or some anti-religious-freedom agenda, without understanding the pains the country went through in the past 300 years (sometimes to the brink of civil war) to remove religion from the State and ensure religious freedom and equality for all.

For most, religion is a personal matter. It starts becoming an issue when it is used as a political ideology that aims to destabilise the State.

It happened before with Catholicism and there are now some fringe Islamist movements that want the same.

[lldbg]

Perhaps it was a poor choice of words considering HackerNews nitpicking, but in france display of religious symbols (such as wearing a cross) is banned in public places (mostly). I wrote it that way for effect, thinking that people would be familiar with the french laws.

I have no "twisted broad exaggeration and misunderstanding" of belief. I don't think this chain of comments has a good tone, and won't reply further.

[duozerk]

> but in france display of religious symbols (such as wearing a cross) is banned in public places

That is not true; you're free to have religious symbols in public places. What you cannot do is wear them ostensibly if you're acting as an official for a public service. Teacher ? no cross/kippa/etc. while you're teaching. Cop ? same. Mayor in the process of marrying a couple ? same again.

Parent helping teachers during a school outing ? you're perfectly allowed to have such signs visible, you're not an official representative of the French republic. Same goes in public places in general.

[lldbg]

And there's the ban on burqa and niqab. In public places. You conveniently did not mention that.

[Renaud]

It's banned (not just in France) because there is are existing laws against face-covering and religion is not above that.

There is also a perfectly rational thinking behind a reciprocity of rights: if you can see me but I can't see you then we're not equal.

There are also fierce debates around the role of women, ensuring equal opportunities in society, and the fact that ideology (whether religious or not) should not remove citizens from their rights and duties.

Of course, any of this is always open for debatable, and it is debated, at length, politically, socially, philosophically and these issues are always in flux, between those who want more restrictions in the name of greater freedom for all, and those who want less in the name of greater freedom for all.

[duozerk]

You're right, should've mentioned it. And I for one never gave much credit to the face covering excuse - that ban was meant to attack Islam.

[arethuza]

There seems to be a ban on "conspicuous religious symbols in schools" - that's hardly most public places?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_law_on_secularity_and_c...

[chimpansteve]

What a bizarre statement. Religion is not banned in France.

[redis_mlc]

> Religion is already banned in places such as France.

No. France is ultra-secular, and does not ask religion when doing their census.

However, most Western countries want Saudi Arabia to stop sending radical imams, including France and the USA.