Is Mise,

God made a few perfect people.

The rest of them are right-handed.

Life without left-handed people wouldn't be right.

And lefties are in the their right minds.

Foxy,
When Pell refused communion to homosexuals in St Mary’s they were engaged in a protest and he quite rightly refused to play their game.
You left that little bit out.

Dear Paul,

You have every right to criticise the Church Of the Holy Orgy and so would I (though on theological grounds rather than social).

But physically interfering and preventing their practices is a different matter.

May I make the bold assumption that a group of such nature never willingly forged any so-called "social contract" with Western/Christian-based society or their State as representative? If they did then it completely changes the picture, but here I assume that they did not.

Had one of your own people been "sacrificed" then surely you should intervene in self-defense. Had the sacrificed child or his/her other parent asked for your shelter, then too you should intervene, same if God told you to save that baby, either directly or through a true prophet. But given none of these happened, you are at risk of disrupting a religion and you must not do so.

One common and inconclusive theological debate regards Abraham and his willingness to sacrifice his most beloved son, Isaac. You may take a stand, you may try to convince him otherwise, but you may not forcibly stop Abraham who, by God's instructions, left his country, family and society to walk to the place where God showed him.

Are you aware that Jews still perform a mitigated form of child-sacrifice? Even today, a Jewish father is obliged to gift his 30-day old firstborn son to a priest. In practice, the father immediately buys back his son for the equivalent of 104 grams of silver (around $115).

Your example of child-sacrifice is indeed extreme.
We better look at more benign practices and better so, at abstention from certain actions.

Suppose for example, there was a tribe where naming people was religiously proscribed. People there lived happily and peacefully without names: I can actually see the spiritual merit of that. Assuming they just lived on the land and never asked you for any favours (such as welfare to go into the bank-accounts which they obviously cannot have), won't you agree that it would then be very wrong to persecute/prosecute these people for having no valid birth-certificates?

Dear Banjo,

1.«The prescription for freedom of action is as large as possible – provided it is not immoral, does not encroach on the freedom of others, and causes no harm.»

Nice in theory, but who is to decide what is or isn't moral?
Or what does the freedom of others include (say their "freedom" to rid the world of cows, including other people's cows)?
Or what indeed is harmful (in fact, the debates are raging about male and female circumcision and about the suffering of animals under kosher/halal methods of slaughter)?

2.«…beliefs can come and go...»

My original point was simply that, no matter how many times you (or others) change your mind (which I understand that you did at some stage in your life), you are still you, your identity never changed as a result, only your mind. Hence, since our mind is liable to change, it would be a mistake to try to define ourselves according to the beliefs in our mind.

3.«I too see God as a cinema screen, Yuyutsu – regrettably, nothing more than a cinema screen – on which people project their personal faith, hope, and trust.»

"Nothing more"? is that a small matter?

In this analogy, there is nothing real but the screen: the screen is permanent and real whereas the projected characters and their whole drama are just a fleeting display of lights.

The spectators, so identified with the movie, temporarily forget their physical bodies that sit on hard chairs in the auditorium and think of themselves as these fleeting creatures of light: the characters' faith and hopes and trusts becomes their faith and hopes and trusts, so does the characters' fears and pains temporarily become the spectators' fear and pains.

Wisdom means, to always see the screen, no matter what drama is being displayed on it.
Wisdom means, to see God in everything, no matter the circumstances of one's life and body.

call to prayer racket at 5am instead of 7am.
ttbn,
If the people there are so stupid to tolerate that then I suggest the Mosque makes the call even earlier say, 3 am ?