I agree that this is a problem with juries in general.brimstoneSalad wrote:It's not an issue of it being between two members of the party, but the parties themselves. Most of the time political affiliation wouldn't come up in a trial for murder, for example, or even typical cases of libel or slander. There may be some cases of famous politicians being tried where both their fans and detractors have to be eliminated resulting in a more or less non-partisan jury.
If the DNC was in a case against the RNC, yes, highly partisan members of the jury would have to be removed.
Research "strike for cause", which can be done for perceived ideological bent, where relevant to the case or the plaintiff or defense.
And thus is an innate problem with jury selection. It affects everybody. We just do our best to overcome it.
You can argue that our best isn't good enough yet (for example, there's probably a conservative bias to juries based on the process) but churches shouldn't be exempt from the law secular organizations have to abide by. So, probably not worth arguing about here because I think you agree: they should be held to the same standards as anybody else, flaws and all.
Is it frequent, though?Yes, they are pressed as civil suits.
"The Vegan Cheetah" is being sued for it right now.
In secular matters it is very simple... but courts are reluctant to touch anything to do with churches. Case law is... complicated.
Here's a little bit of it if you're interested in reading some crazy church drama:
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/mn-supreme-court/1731171.html
As I mentioned, a church isn't a company.Companies are restricted in advertising by the FTC, they can't make false claims. Same laws.
Additionally, making a statement that all non-believers of a religion will be punished by god isn't a lie, because the people who say it aren't intentionally spreading a falsehood. In fact, it cannot even be proven to be a falsehood, so it cannot be a lie.
Yes they do, but your original claim was not about per capita. You stated that religions don't donate much money to charity, and that many companies massively outdo them.Not per capita, no.
Actually, Protestants are the largest denomination, not Catholics, and I didn't base my example off of denomination size.You cherry picked the largest denomination in the U.S.
As I mentioned, 17% is the conservative estimate. The top estimate is 34%, so there is a chance that the percent of funding to social-services done by Catholic-affiliated groups is higher than the percent of Catholics in America. Additionally, that 17% refers to charity by Catholics in relation to Catholicism, so you wouldn't expect it to be equal to the percent of Catholics, because it doesn't represent all the funding of social services done by Catholics. The 17% refers only to funding by Catholic-affiliated groups, not Catholics in general, making it IMO quite impressive.What percentage of the population does that represent? If it's less than 17% then that's an impressive contribution.
But no, it's 22% of the population, meaning they aren't even pulling their weight.
I didn't mention hospitals, but that means about 16.67% of hospitals are run by Catholic-affiliated groups, which is again quite impressive.Catholics are also an outlier, running one in six hospitals. There are only a couple protestant religions big on opening hospitals.
My point in this is that, unlike companies, the goal of religion isn't to make money. Sure, many people profit off of religion, but that isn't the central goal of the religion for most of its followers. The central goal cannot be profit, as religions do things that make them lose money for the sake of helping people.
The primary goal of a company is profit. The primary goal of a religion is spreading its religion. Companies and religions have different central goals.
This is all irrelevant to the point I was making. We aren't discussing whether or not religious people are more generous than atheists, but rather if religions are considered companies or not.But atheists are much better at directing their charitable donations and not wasting money on proselytism and the overhead of running churches that only benefit the members who are the very ones doing the donating-- to themselves.
Claims of increased religious philanthropy are very dubious:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/11/28/are-religious-people-really-more-generous-than-atheists-a-new-study-puts-that-myth-to-rest/
At least giving is on a positive trend:
http://news.gallup.com/poll/224378/religious-giving-down-charity-holding-steady.aspx
Atheist giving is about the same, but they're making better choices on what to give to. The only significant difference is that they aren't volunteering time at churches... which is pretty meaningless
As I mentioned, I am not trying to debate if religious or atheist (by the way, secular charity isn't the same as atheist charity) charity is better. I am simply pointing out that religions have interests beyond gaining profit, which you have just acknowledged here. This proves that religions aren't companies.Sure, and Catholics are some of the most progressive (again, they're a bit of an outlier among churches).
But charity is still more effective when it's secular. And religious owned charity is causing problems (like denying women right to certain reproductive healthcare).