Hacker News Reader

Comment by Cyph0n | Hacker News Reader

How can you say that when individuals are not allowed to show religious symbols or wear religious clothing in any government-affiliated setting?

I don’t see how state-enforced irreligiousness (secularism/laicite) doesn’t completely contradict with individual freedoms.

View on HN

Cela s'appelle la laïcité.

If you have problems with that there are so many 3rd world countries that care about medieval stuff more than development. I think laïcité is one of the coolest words/concept, France should only really enforce it further.

Whatever floats your boat. But claiming that France is the pinnacle of maintaining individual freedoms contradicts with a nanny state that polices religious expression. You can’t have it both ways.

It's water that floats anyone's boats. It's the physics+linguistics. The problems start when people try to substitute the meaning of things.

Keeping religion out of the state is a good thing, the previous statu quo in France before that used to be that the Christians were policing everybody.

We can see now in the US how not having this concept is creating a lot of social issues with Cristian fundamentalists running the state.

There's a significant difference between separating the state's concerns from religious dogma, and restricting an individual's ability to dress in accordance with their belief system. I have wondered if jeans would be banned in France if one made a religion with only wearing jeans in public as its dogma.

And before I get any questions about it, I say this as a lifelong atheist.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com