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"religion should not be allowed to permit harming of the helpless."

Seems to me that this line of reasoning could be used as an excuse to criminalize a number of religious practices and ideas.

That's the whole point. Religion has been redefined as an endlessly malleable and evolving ethno-cultural appendage with no connection to objective truth. Objective truth has been assigned to "secular morality" (which is based on what . . . ? "Science?" . . . Personal hang-ups?) which now sits in judgment on all religions, religious claims, and religious authorities. This notion of a common non-sectarian standard apart from G-d is the opening that let the camel's nose into the tent, and it's not the creation of modern liberals but of people like Locke and Jefferson. In other words, the source of today's anti-religious mania is part of the ideology of America itself.

The current acceleration of the process is fraught with irony. Internationally, the western world (the moslem world is unaffected) has adopted this non-sectarian secular morality largely in the name of atoning for Jewish suffering. The people whose mission is to teach the world about G-d wound up teaching the world about Voltaire (an anti-Semite himself, btw). Does mormonism teach the proxy baptism of deceased people? Well, we can't allow people to "use" religion in this way, so the referee of secular morality steps in and forbids it. Does Fundamentalist Protestantism require its members to try their best to convert every single person they meet to their version of chrstianity? Well, our current multi-cultural society won't allow people to "use" religion to make other people feel bad, so the supreme arbiter of non-existent "secular morality" steps in again. And so the Jews become associated with secularism and G-d becomes associated with the host gentile nation--the exact opposite of how things are supposed to be.

Domestically, the launching pad of the current situation was the Ku-Kluckers and segregationists claiming that the Bible taught white supremacy (just where has never been mentioned). So, since "religion" teaches Black inferiority (a point conceded rather than contested by anti-religious liberals), "secular morality" became the great Supreme Arbiter of domestic American justice. Since G-d teaches white supremacy (again, no verses are ever quoted), then G-d is a big redneck meanie and either "science" or emotional hang-ups rush in to condemn Him. Now the same referee is ready to step in any time G-d is "mean" by putting down gay people or commanding the circumcision of male children.

The supreme irony in this is that two historically fundamentalist communities, Orthodox Jews and Black Protestants, have been used as the excuses for secularization. The religious practices/behavior of each group, no matter how Theonomic, are declared quaint specimens of cultural "otherness" that must be protected in the name of diversity rather than recognized as the simple expressions of religiosity which they are. And so Jews allow G-d to tell them how to tie their shoes and Blacks worship like backwoods right wing hillbilly snake-handlers while liberals look on admiringly and conservatives boo and hiss these "villains."

Is it beginning to make sense now?

Jews have always lived precariously in exile and a certain amount of caution has always been necessary when dealing with the host nation's rulers. However, the glee and lack of any deep thought with which even Orthodox Jews bought into the "supreme secular morality" meme (especially considering its diametrical opposition to universal Noachide morality) as a protection from chrstian anti-Semites has been absolutely heartbreaking. How many people actually believe now that Yehoshua` Bin Nun built a "museum of tolerance" in Jericho?

It was inevitable that this "secular morality" would eventually come to bite the source of everything opposed to it: Judaism. So now religion may not be "used" to "mutilate" eight day old babies who according to secular humanism aren't even people anyway. And how are Jewish organizations responding? By the same tired old cries of "otherness," "pluralism," "multiculturalism," "tolerance," "bigotry," and invocations of "secular morality" (in the form of the UN Universal Declaration of Rights).

Everyone except the Jews is speaking in the Name of G-d. Everyone except the Jews is practicing mystical nationalism. They're all imitating Biblical Israel and the imitations are all false and will all fail.

Everyone wants to be Israel except for Israel. Isn't it about time this changed?