In an earlier post, someone made the statement that all Xtianity is not monolithic.

To which I can only answer: bullshit.

All of Xtianity's agenda, which is blatantly exposed in the court case that led to this thread, is salvation (a rather nebulous concept, IMHO). Denomination be damned, Xtianity sees itself as having a divine mandate to promulgate itself in order to gain as many adherents as possible.

Now, work with me on this. If you're going to claim that: 1. you have legal rights and standing based on those rights that stem from your belief in an entity that has absolutely no observable, overt, physical manifestation, and 2. you demand that other folks accept the validity of your belief structure simply because it is a matter of longstanding tradition,

3. Then I would respectfully submit that you have to accept the church of bonky the clown (just made that up) -- or the ravings of a clearly psychotic individual -- as deserving of the same rights as yourself.

The problem with Xtianity is that it wants points 1 and 2 and doesn't want to grant point 3 to others.

The widespread existence of Xtianity is a testament to its own internally-consistent memes that preach promulgation at any cost rather than any sort of altruism or actual peace or love. That's what the Xtian group that won the ruling has won -- ultimately, it's the right to promulgate itself through a captive audience.

Consequently, I don't see this ruling as at all correct. In like fashion, I wouldn't see ANY numinous-focused group as having legitimate standing in this sort of a case. If fewer people subsumed solving problems now for pie in the sky later, we'd all be better off. Religions, IMHO, provide nothing more than a rather limited range of solutions to the complex problems of existence. They do provide some good ethics; the ten commandments, at least those that don't demand that [Gg]od be worshiped, are a fairly useful code. But so are the teachings of the Buddha (when not nattering about nirvana), Shinto, and other religions. But on the whole, they provide ways for folks to avoid looking squarely at problems and having to think their way through to a good solution.

end of rant. Thanks