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A comment on The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church. Parent comment

Re:The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church by tptacek on Saturday February 08, 2020 @05:58PM (#22279197)
I think the words you're using here are --- if not unclear, then at least "not carefully chosen to avoid offending this particular audience", but the point you're making is pretty straightforward, and it's not hard to think of comparable secular parenting decisions that we generally have no trouble criticizing parents over.

But there's also a subtext here, which is that there's a distinction to be made between good-faith, substantive parenting critiques and externally-mandated arbitrary critiques. If there's institutional pressure to ostracize former members of a community, that's problematic. I think you probably have to acknowledge that subtext to really engage on this topic --- which, who could blame anyone for not wanting to really engage on religion on HN?

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Re:The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church by rayiner on Saturday February 08, 2020 @10:37PM (#22280247)
> If there's institutional pressure to ostracize former members of a community, that's problematic.

I’m not sure, in 2020, I agree. I’m sensitive to the issue. The penalty for apostasy in Islam is death. But I don’t begrudge all the Pakistani cab drivers who try to convert me. They believe they’re doing me a favor. (I’m never the one to bring it up obviously. It always arises awkwardly when I mention that I’m from Bangladesh and then they assume I’m Muslim.)

Leaving religion out of it — nobody has a right to be accepted by a community. In a free society people can leave, but can they really demand a particular sort of treatment?

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