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Bill: Illegalization of Cults Act
Details
Submitted by[?]: Williams Family
Status[?]: defeated
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: June 3300
Description[?]:
| Allows recognized religions to exist - without supporting any at the national level - but disallows cults (particularly those that might do harm by brainwashing members). OOC: Think of the Jonestown massacre in Guyana and other examples of what can happen when quasi-religious cults are allowed to form and exist without limitation. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Government policy concerning religions.
Old value:: There is no government policy concerning a state religion.
Current: There is an official state religion, but membership is completely voluntary.
Proposed: There is no official state religion, but the government only allows recognized religions. 'Cults' are persecuted.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 19:51:22, May 06, 2012 CET | From |  Beluz Democratic Karavist Party | To | Debating the Illegalization of Cults Act |
| Message | A cult is any religious organization without political power. This is an unfair bill because you are forcing the government to select a list of religions that we allow to be recognized, then we simply persecute the minorities. |
| Date | 19:52:29, May 06, 2012 CET | From | Beluz Democratic Karavist Party | To | Debating the Illegalization of Cults Act |
| Message | Government should not intervene in religion in any way. We should remain totally secular. Religion is not our responsibility. You're persecuting people for having a minority culture? The word "culture" comes from "cult" which just means common practice. |
| Date | 19:54:35, May 06, 2012 CET | From | Williams Family | To | Debating the Illegalization of Cults Act |
| Message | A cult is a religious organization that the government deems to be harmful - this will allow the government to seek out and eliminate cults that cause political problems or harm their members in some other way. It's not like it demands an inquiry into every religious organization that forms. It will simply give the government license to deal with those that act as dissidents or cause harm to their members. Mass suicides caused by brainwashed individuals are okay with you? |
| Date | 19:57:56, May 06, 2012 CET | From | Williams Family | To | Debating the Illegalization of Cults Act |
| Message | It becomes the government's responsibilty to intervene in religion when that "religious" organization might cause harm to citizens or possibly act as political dissidents. |
| Date | 20:00:45, May 06, 2012 CET | From | Beluz Democratic Karavist Party | To | Debating the Illegalization of Cults Act |
| Message | No; we have to laugh. You clearly misunderstand your proposal for something else. Isn't harming others already illegal? This is an oppression of anything that doesn't fall into the religious majority. That's not what a cult is. Any religion can be considered to be "brainwashing" people. A religion is just a cult with political power. Likewise, a cult is a religion with no political power. You're allowing preferred religions some form of privelege over others, by giving "recognition" to them when government should stay out of religion overall. Let people do and believe what they want to as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. You said this "will simply give the government license to deal with those that act as dissidents or cause harm to their members" but that is crap. If anyone or group causes harm to individuals, that is already illegal. You're thinking of something different; you're not thinking of what that law actually means. You're making assumptions based on media stigma, which by the way, is the real brainwashing taking place, by the bigger cults (the ones with political power). |
| Date | 20:05:15, May 06, 2012 CET | From | Beluz Democratic Karavist Party | To | Debating the Illegalization of Cults Act |
| Message | OOC: Everything has a cult. Every religion has a cult. The whole idea of a cult being a group, which specifically engages in taboo activities, was developed in the 1930s, long after English was being spoken and the word "cult" had its own meaning. "Culture" comes from the word "cult" "The Christian Cult" refers to anything that is unique to Christianity (as a culture) A "cult of personality" refers to a case where an influential figure becomes an idol. All celebrities have a cult of personality, and many politicans have had that. Monarchies survive on cults of personality (not referring to Beluzia). Barack Obama has a cult of personality. |
| Date | 01:56:20, May 07, 2012 CET | From | House of Amistad | To | Debating the Illegalization of Cults Act |
| Message | Vote no: Quote House DeKarav "Any religion can be considered to be "brainwashing" people. A religion is just a cult with political power. Likewise, a cult is a religion with no political power. You're allowing preferred religions some form of privelege over others, by giving "recognition" to them when government should stay out of religion overall." Harm to any citizen by any organization religious, political, philosophical, social etc is an illegal act ... is there a bill prosposed to advocate the oversight of all groups whose actions as a whole or by individuals in power within that organization cause harm systematically. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | |||||
| yes |
Total Seats: 21 | |||||
| no |
Total Seats: 78 | |||||
| abstain | Total Seats: 0 |
| Random fact: "OOC", "IC" and "IG" are commonly-used acronyms in Particracy. "OOC" refers to comments, discussions and actions which are out-of-character, meaning they are done player-to-player rather than party-to-party. "IC" refers to in-character interactions (ie. party-to-party). Similarly, "IG" means in-game, although this term may also simply refer to what happens in the actual game interface, as opposed to on the forum or elsewhere. "RP" just means "role-play". |
| Random quote: "Envy is the cause of political division." - Democritus |