[Vampyr]

mike777, on 2012-February-17, 14:48, said:

It still seems weird if a catholic school gets some federal money for say research, the fed govt gets to pile on thousands if not millions of pages of regulations and mandates including those that go against church teachings such as birth control. ON top of that it can require its insurance company to hand out free birth control at the expense of the insurance company.

That just seems such a huge power for the central govt to have. Again I wonder where are the limits of its power in the name of helping people through mandates.

It would seem weirder if federal money were handed out with no strings attached. Why should a person or a government giving out money have no say over how it is spent?

[blackshoe]

mike777, on 2012-February-17, 14:48, said:

I am saying they are not free, believe me...I pay alot for them even with insurance.

I mean if they are suppose to be free, including no copay or increase in ins payments, ok.

TANSTAAFL

[mike777]

barmar, on 2012-February-17, 16:03, said:

So your objection is to the whole requirement in the Affordable Care Act that employers provide health coverage, not the minimum coverage that the plans must offer?

That's not the issue under discussion in this thread. If Obamacare is repealed, then whether it includes contraception will be moot.

The government already has the power to compel. It compels employers and citizens to pay taxes, it compels employers to contribute to Social Security and unemployment insurance. Compelling them to provide health insurance is consistent with these past acts.

It's likely that sometime in the next year or so the Supreme Court will hear a case where they'll be able to decide on the constitutionality of the ACA's mandates.

Yes and my only point is what are the limits of those mandates. I agree the govt has all kinds of mandates and I agree people love free stuff or stuff paid by others.

For sake of discussion lets assume that in someway or somehow forcing a catholic univ that gets fed dollars for breast cancer research is required is required to offer birth control. Lets assume that this prohibits its free exercise of religion if for no other reason because the bishops say it does. But it also goes against the equal protection clause. At some point again assuming you can force this mandate on anyone, you weigh the rights.

[blackshoe]

I don't know whether there is some absolute morality, although I suspect there might be. James Q. Wilson, author of The Moral Sense, suggested that humans are born with an innate sense of right and wrong. This review, while long, is worth the read, as is the book.

[mike777]

Vampyr, on 2012-February-17, 16:23, said:

It would seem weirder if federal money were handed out with no strings attached. Why should a person or a government giving out money have no say over how it is spent?

I agree, But again you miss the entire question, what are the limits of those strings?


You seem to feel there are no limits, ok, it is public money and the central govt can demand anything in the name of helping people even if it interfers with your religion. If you dont like it dont accept any public money in any form if you are a univ or a hospital.

To put it another way alot of posters really seem to have no qualms with the fed govt doing almost anything if it is in the name of helping people. That is alot of power for a few people to hold in their hands that much political and economic power.


Also if we are going to mandate free birth control we should be equal and mandate free heart medicine...free.

[luke warm]

blackshoe, on 2012-February-17, 17:03, said:

James Q. Wilson, author of The Moral Sense, suggested that humans are born with an innate sense of right and wrong. This review, while long, is worth the read, as is the book.

even if true, does that answer the question or merely push it back a step?

[blackshoe]

Read the book, then you tell me.

[Winstonm]

blackshoe, on 2012-February-17, 09:17, said:

Or turn it around. What is immoral today was immoral in the Dark Ages, irrespective of whether they did it.

The problem is that you're actually talking about two different things: what is moral, and what people recognize is moral.

As for mankind, there is no difference. All we can know is what people recognize as moral.

If there is an absolute morality, there is no way for humans to know it verifiably. That knowledge would be based solely on a belief system - which is no different than "what (a certain group of) people recognize as moral".

The Catholic Church has painted itself into a corner and cannot change course, even if they wanted, without admitting there is no absolute morality, and without absolute morality, there is no absolute moral authority, and therefore, if the Church reverses on contraception/abortion then the god they proclaim as unchanging is disproved by their own actions.

Like I said, talk about painting yourself into a Dark Ages corner...

[Vampyr]

mike777, on 2012-February-17, 17:06, said:

You seem to feel there are no limits, ok, it is public money and the central govt can demand anything in the name of helping people even if it interfers with your religion. If you dont like it dont accept any public money in any form if you are a univ or a hospital.

This is clear

Quote

Also if we are going to mandate free birth control we should be equal and mandate free heart medicine...free.

I am pretty sure you get a lot more bang for your buck with free contraception -- not only for insurance companies, but for the government as well. This is likely the government's agenda. Which they have every right to pursue. Those who disagree with it can vote the bastards out next time. It's called democracy.

[hrothgar]

mike777, on 2012-February-17, 17:06, said:

Also if we are going to mandate free birth control we should be equal and mandate free heart medicine...free.

As I recall, birth control was added to insurance plans after law suits (or threats there of) involving free coverage for Viagra...

[mikeh]

blackshoe, on 2012-February-17, 17:03, said:

I don't know whether there is some absolute morality, although I suspect there might be. James Q. Wilson, author of The Moral Sense, suggested that humans are born with an innate sense of right and wrong. This review, while long, is worth the read, as is the book.

Anyone with a serious interest in the matter will know that there are studies that demonstrate a relatively uniform set of moral responses across cultural and ethnic divides.

But surely the notion of 'absolute morality' has nothing to do with what seems to be hard-wired into the brains of a particular species of mammals on a small world in the spiral arm of an unexceptional galaxy in a universe containing countless billions of galaxies?

Of course, we might embark upon circular reasoning based on an unproven premise: god created man and therefore the moral sense hard-wired into his brain was designed by god to coincide with the absolute morality it established when it created the universe.

Such a circular argument no doubt satisfies the intellectually stunted, and appears to underly all arguments for the existence of god....all such arguments inevitably boiling down to an expression of 'faith'...ie the willing abandonment of critical thinking.

However, to those who are not reasoning backwards from the conclusion they reached without reasoning, there appears to be no compelling reason to suppose that our moral sense is designed in by a god.

To the contrary, even as early in our scientific exploration as these days (compare how long the scientific method has been at work compared to the age of the earliest known religions), we can see how random genetic variation mediated by the processes of natural selection might give rise to brains hard-wired to predispose their owners towards certain behaviours, which behaviours, over evolutionary timescales, afford reproductive advantages to those possessing such attributes.

In other words, we have evidence and reason based explanations for the development of commonly held moral senses that have zero to do with any supernatural explanation.

[awm]

As far as "government overreach" it seems pretty clear that the government has the authority to levy taxes (i.e. 16th amendment). This has been broadly interpreted to permit the government to offer tax breaks for certain activities deemed to be good for the country. There is a very wide range of these tax breaks, and there are sometimes debates about particular ones, but I don't think the authority of the government to offer discounted taxes for various things is much challenged.

One of the tax breaks is for businesses that offer health insurance to their employees. However, any such tax break requires that the government define what qualifies as health insurance for tax purposes. The government has decided that contraceptive coverage must be included. Seems clear to me there is no overreach here.

Similarly, the "mandate" part of the affordable care act could be easily justified under tax law (raise everyone's taxes by the amount of the "no insurance penalty" and then offer a tax break in the same amount to anyone purchasing a qualifying health insurance plan). The administration has chosen not to do this mostly for political optics (to prevent Republicans from calling the mandate a "tax hike" even though it really is a tax hike, if only on those people who refuse to purchase insurance they could afford and then try to "free load" off the health care system).

[mike777]

awm, on 2012-February-17, 19:39, said:

As far as "government overreach" it seems pretty clear that the government has the authority to levy taxes (i.e. 16th amendment). This has been broadly interpreted to permit the government to offer tax breaks for certain activities deemed to be good for the country. There is a very wide range of these tax breaks, and there are sometimes debates about particular ones, but I don't think the authority of the government to offer discounted taxes for various things is much challenged.

One of the tax breaks is for businesses that offer health insurance to their employees. However, any such tax break requires that the government define what qualifies as health insurance for tax purposes. The government has decided that contraceptive coverage must be included. Seems clear to me there is no overreach here.

Similarly, the "mandate" part of the affordable care act could be easily justified under tax law (raise everyone's taxes by the amount of the "no insurance penalty" and then offer a tax break in the same amount to anyone purchasing a qualifying health insurance plan). The administration has chosen not to do this mostly for political optics (to prevent Republicans from calling the mandate a "tax hike" even though it really is a tax hike, if only on those people who refuse to purchase insurance they could afford and then try to "free load" off the health care system).

People seem to leave out the main point which is the free part where the insurance company can be forced to pay for it not just offer it for a fee that is paid by the employee in one form, directly or indirectly, lower pay.

In any event it seems that the polls agree with the majority of the posters here that voters are not very concerned with economic and political power concentrating in the same few hands in Washington DC.

This will soon get back to the issue of whether the central govt is a crappy venture capitalist, allocating capital.

[Winstonm]

Quote

People seem to leave out the main point which is the free part where the insurance company can be forced to pay for it not just offer it for a fee that is paid by the employee in one form, directly or indirectly, lower pay

Contraception coverage stems from gender discrimination as found by the EEOC commission. There is zero religious conflict to the law as the law requires employers, not churches, to comply.

I am unsure if this law is the first that mandates free contraception for women workers, though. It certainly is not the first to mandate employers furnish women's contraception with their insurance coverage.

The Catholic Church (and others) hires non-Catholics, yet they are claiming they have a right to both access federal funds and force their religious views onto employees whose own views differ.

Once you cross the line and become a religious-affiliated-but-secular organization, you no longer have the protection of the religion.

[mike777]

Winstonm, on 2012-February-17, 22:14, said:

Contraception coverage stems from gender discrimination as found by the EEOC commission. There is zero religious conflict to the law as the law requires employers, not churches, to comply.

I am unsure if this law is the first that mandates free contraception for women workers, though. It certainly is not the first to mandate employers furnish women's contraception with their insurance coverage.

The Catholic Church (and others) hires non-Catholics, yet they are claiming they have a right to both access federal funds and force their religious views onto employees whose own views differ.

Once you cross the line and become a religious-affiliated-but-secular organization, you no longer have the protection of the religion.

Agree that is one side of the argument and a powerful one.

The other side is that the univ and hospital are part of the church/free exercise of religion and not a secular one. The head of Notre Dame University is a priest.

At the very heart of Notre Dame’s mission is its profound faith heritage and aspiration to be at the center of Catholic intellectual life—to be a bellwether institution in the pursuit of truth and knowledge, while remaining guided and elevated by the moral imperatives of the Catholic faith.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;


I agree they dont have a right to federal funds but they can ask for it or if offered them without asking, accept them. Rights is a funny word. If the govt wants to stop the money flow ok stop it, I mean I hope and pray the Catholic Church is not demanding taxpayer money as a right.

----


sidenote at many catholic inst. such as Notre Dame Univ they hire many noncatholics. Where the line between how much freedom they have to go against Catholic dogma and still keep their jobs is hotly debated in Catholic circles.

I would just say they do not have unlimited freedom of choice and keep their job.

[Vampyr]

mike777, on 2012-February-17, 22:30, said:

sidenote at many catholic inst. such as Notre Dame Univ they hire many noncatholics. Where the line between is on how much freedom they have to go against Catholic dogma and still keep their jobs is hotly debated in Catholic circles.

I would just say they do not have unlimited freedom of choice and keep their job.

Or maybe better to lose the job and never have to find another one after the hefty lawsuit payout.

[hrothgar]

mike777, on 2012-February-17, 22:30, said:

Agree that is one side of the argument and a powerful one.

The other side is that the univ and hospital are part of the church/free exercise of religion and not a secular one. The head of Notre Dame University is a priest.

At the very heart of Notre Dame’s mission is its profound faith heritage and aspiration to be at the center of Catholic intellectual life—to be a bellwether institution in the pursuit of truth and knowledge, while remaining guided and elevated by the moral imperatives of the Catholic faith.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

Once again, the restrictions only kick in when an institution volunteers to take federal funds

[kenberg]

Life used to be simpler. No one needed to sue anyone or create national crises.

I was confirmed in the Presbyterian church in 1952 at age 13. Within a couple of years I had rejected these beliefs, partly on rational grounds but at least partly, perhaps largely, on my assessment of life and on the personal qualities of those in positions of religious leadership. Example: After my father's stroke he didn't get into church so often so my minister took it upon himself to explain that now that I had been confirmed it was my responsibility to get my father in to church so he wouldn't roast in hell.

So I had to handle this new relationship to religion. At least where I grew up I would say that challenging the religious beliefs of me fellow adolescent males would not have been a wise move, and largely I avoided this. When I applied for part time jobs I answered Presbyterian when asked about my religion. I figured those who asked such a question were not entitled to an honest answer. In adulthood I took a different view. If someone didn't want to hire me because of my religious views I figured I would not be happy working there.

How, if at all, does this apply? In two competing ways.

On one side, if someone doesn't like the health benefits provided by the Catholic Church, I am not sure why this is different from not liking the pay that is provided. Work for an employer that provides pay and benefits that are satisfactory.

On the other side, I really get tired of religious people explaining that their views on practically anything have to be given special deference because after all, it's not just their views but God's views and who am I to argue with God? The Constitution gives them the right to pray as they choose, I have no desire to interfere. Give onto Caesar and all that. But the rest of us have to figure out how to run the country.

On this general question of the existence of God, all I can say is that it was a difficult and somewhat frightening experience thinking all this through, but that is many years in the past and I will not be changing my mind.

[Winstonm]

When we think we know the morally correct decision for every human being, we force the poorest and weakest among us to search out solutions like this.

[Winstonm]

I have added an emphasis not in blackshoe's original post.

blackshoe, on 2012-February-15, 15:34, said:

If you have a right, but aren't allowed to exercise it, then someone else is exceeding his rights. Might does not make right.

Curiously enough, though, this is how orthodox Christianity formed, through the application of "might".

Orthodox simply means "right way" or "right thinking". The earliest days of Christianity, in the first and second centuries, saw many competing groups all claiming to be followers of Jesus but with conflicting ideas - ebionites, Marconites, gnostics, and so on. Bart Ehrman, author of Jesus Interrupted and Misquoting Jesus, coined the term proto-orthodox to describe the group that eventually won the contest for converts and power and became the "orthodox".

Christianity did not develope an "orthodox" viewpoint until Constantine ordered Eusebius to assimilate texts to reflect the "Christian" theology, in the 4th century, and made by decree this single viewpoint the only valid Christian doctrine. Competing viewpoints that lost the battle for converts and for Constantine's ear were considered "heretical", or "wrong belief", and most of their writings were either lost or destroyed and their followers compelled to adopt the orthodoxy.

It seems odd that a religion whose claim is one of an absolute morality so that might does not make right was born by the exercise of might, which declared what was "right".