Imposing Beliefs - Does your God command this?

Could you define what you mean by imposing one's beliefs on another? Specificity would be helpful.

No, Imposing or forcing a religious belief on another is the antithesis of what religion should stand for, and defeats the objective of free will - how can we love God if we resent him?

and the scriptural quote:

He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. - Mark 16:15-16

Note it does not say "but whoever does not believe should be forced to accept the Lord."

However on a non religious level it is perhaps necessary to impose beliefs - laws - on how one should behave etc.

Apodictic said:

Example:

Let's say you believe gay people should not be allowed to have a union, so you impose a law that states they are not allowed to form a union with each other (In other words a Marriage, although I do not want to turn this into a semantics example.

There are other examples. Women covering up. There are several others. Hopefully this explains what I am referring to.

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But that would not be imposing religious beliefs, that would be using religious beliefs to restrict the secular rights of an individual(s).

As Christians it is our moral duty to change and evangelize society, but it must be a willing transition - otherwise you get an infringement of the human right of free will.

We can force our beliefs upon people in the form of restrictions and laws, but we cannot force them to believe that it is right. My belief would be that Jesus rose from the dead, enacting a law to force people to believe this would be imposing beliefs.

But trying to prevent homosexuality as a legal act is using our beliefs to force them to adopt what we believe morally right, we're not imposing we're compelling.

However this could just be down to a difference in the way we interpret and utilise the word impose and belief - I differentiate the word Belief from View. A belief is of religious origin, a view is socio-culturally specific and inherent to a single person.

Apodictic said:

Fair enough. Well whatever you consider what I said in my examples, do you have Scriptural support for your POV? A command to impose all our religious morals on others forcibly. Or some?

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*rummages through annotated study bible*

I'm out of time I've found a few in Romans, I'll try to get some more when I'm back home again:

For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. ~ ROM 13:3

Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. ~ ROM 13:5

Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. ~ ROM 13:7

Nope, imposing beliefs isn't something Heathens tend to do.

In the Baha'i Faith there is independent investigation of truth allowed so we expect that a person needs to freely investigate things for themselves and arrive at their own conclusions.. To impose our beliefs on others..say non-Baha'is is not permitted.

The following is from the Baha'i Writings:

The first teaching of Baha'u'llah is the duty incumbent upon all to investigate reality. What does it mean to investigate reality? It means that man must forget all hearsay and examine truth himself, for he does not know whether statements he hears are in accordance with reality or not. Wherever he finds truth or reality, he must hold to it, forsaking, discarding all else; for outside of reality there is naught but superstition and imagination.

We are also forbidden to use "...undue pressure to bear upon someone to change his Faith. It is also usually understood to imply the making of threats or the offering of material benefits as an inducement to conversion." So all this is forbidden in our Faith.

- Art

How does one vote in a democracy without letting his beliefs influence his vote?

Should we just close our eyes and check the boxes at random?

Quaero said:

.......that would be using religious beliefs to restrict the secular rights of an individual(s).

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Restricting the rights of others based upon one’s own religious beliefs is not imposing “religious beliefs” on others?

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dlamberth said:

Restricting the rights of others based upon one’s own religious beliefs is not imposing “religious beliefs” on others?

.

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Hehe I was playing with words, strictly speaking its not imposing beliefs, its imposing morality which you derived from beliefs..... sorry I'll stop writing now

Satanism is about individual free wills and therefore, as a theistic satanist, I do not impose my religious beliefs on others.

It really depends on what you mean by impose. If you are talking about people persecuting others for not being a member of their religion, then no. That's not right.

If you are referring to people having to obey the "Laws of the Land", then yes. That's fine. If I started a muslim community and I declared no murder and a foreigner came to my village I would have to impose my law upon him whether he believed murder was right/wrong/neither. The same applies with other morally applicable laws. Things that when performed affects others unwillingly in a negative manner should be prevented through imposition.

Secundulus said:

How does one vote in a democracy without letting his beliefs influence his vote?

Should we just close our eyes and check the boxes at random?

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Liberal democracies tend to work a fit different in that no matter how unpopular, minorities have rights. Therefore, restricting the rights of homosexuals to marry because of religious convictions would constitute as a imposition. The reverse would be the same if in an odd twist, there was only one theist in a liberal democratic country, and everyone wanted to take that theist's right to worship away.

Apodictic said:

Example:

Let's say you believe gay people should not be allowed to have a union, so you impose a law that states they are not allowed to form a union with each other (In other words a Marriage, although I do not want to turn this into a semantics example.

There are other examples. Women covering up. There are several others. Hopefully this explains what I am referring to.

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Hmm, an interesting question. I have to say that I like humblemuslim's response. Like him, I answer your question presuming that imposing doesn't mean persecution, as it goes against Christian principles. I'm more looking at your question from a grand view - as it applies to society and not so much to people personally as I feel that people have been given freewill so that they can live their lives they want, within the constraints of the law, of course.

I think that you have to see that people try to impose their views upon society to serve their own motives and purposes, in your gay marriage example, for instance. I think that perhaps the real question is not should we impose our beliefs, but what beliefs should be imposed for the good of society? An example could perhaps be the work of William Wilberforce and the other advocates of abolition in England and throughout its empire. He was driven by his faith to advocate changes to make a better world.

I feel that whatever the state of our society where we reside that we should try to apply our own religious beliefs and values to make a better world; Paul, for example, lived in a time where slavery and other practices in marriage, for example, were common place and accepted, yet he introduced Christian principles into such things (e.g. Col. 4:1, Eph. 5:21-35).

IF the Bible is God's inspired "handbook" for healthy living, then it would make sense for Christians who believe that to advocate for positive changes and argue against those which they feel could hurt society or affect it negatively. IF it's not, then they're just like any other atheist or humanist advocating their personal opinion at any rate to achieve more or less the same goal.

That's my 2c anyway, for what it's worth.

While believing, as part of our faith, that all the great religions are united in the fundamental principles that they espouse, the Bahá'í writings advocate the moral obligation of everyone to search for truth independently. Religions and beliefs must never be forced on people. Instead, the Bahá'í writings indicate that each individual should utilize his own powers of intellect, reason and spirit to search for truth.

(Baha'i International Community, 1988 Feb 17, Eliminating Religious Intolerance)

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There are passages direct from the Writings as well, but this is a shorter summary, and I think pretty clear.

Oh, and I don't know what definitions of force have been used thus far, but we are forbidden to proselytize or be fanatic as well, which means the more subtle versions of "force" are right out as well.