Colloquialisms abound, and they are not to be taken literally or we'd have actors with broken femurs everywhere in the English-speaking world. Understandably, colloquialisms can be very problematic for those learning a new language. Is that the situation in your case?

> "Osiris bless Egypt",

What is there to "feel?" Is there some reason we shouldn't let our basic human tolerance apply here as well?

> God-given, huh.

Typically, when used by governments, it's meant to mean rights that aren't endowed upon you by the state and thus aren't within the purview of the state to police or remove.

George Carlin has a great classic bit on "God-given" rights.

Except when I say it's God-given and the state disagrees, then I don't get the right. When states do it, they do it so that they don't become the object of frustration when they don't grant the right. Anyone believing it (god given, or natural, or universal human) is willingly letting the state dupe them into this arrangement at their expense and the benefit of the government.

Not really following. Are you saying you have a problem with the idiom "God-given"?

If @ggambetta believes that there are people with influence in society who take the idiom literally then it would be reasonable for @ggambetta to be concerned and to have a problem with the idiom.

Perhaps the judge could have used a more precise legal formula to avoid just this kind of concern.

> If @ggambetta believes that there are people with influence in society who take the idiom literally then it would be reasonable for @ggambetta to be concerned and to have a problem with the idiom.

Can't the same be said for people who believe the world is flat? After all they believe it, so their concern about the round world conspiracy has to be reasonable, right?

I think there might be a tiny gap in your reasoning.

The flat earthers don't use their beliefs as a means to force their world view on the rest of us, plenty of god botherers do.

I do have a problem. It's like the sexist language or the N word. Their just words so nothing to be offended by, right? But they just perpetuate and normalise the concepts. In this case non-sensical religious things.

There's a pretty big gulf between this and the N word.

praise the Lord

I mean, the judge also said it was a "Charter-enshrined" right, but that's less punchy, so didn't make the headline.

I agree with the separation of Church & State.

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Especially please don't take HN threads into religious flamewar—it's easily avoidable and particularly poisonous.

Fair enough. I apologize.