BE:
-Are  you  suggesting  here  that  the  American  constitution has
-nothing  to  say  here?
>No.
>
>In  the  courts such an action against a well established religion
>will fail simply because the judge/jury would view it as  a  free
>choice.  Not that difficult to do if that judge/jury are primarily
>theists.
>
>Perhaps  if he had an atheist judge/jury the court would then rule
>in favor of him based on some other clause in the constitution.
BE:
-Well, to make this argument  at  least  credible,  you'd  have  to
-suggest  one.
>I  am  not  an  American,  I  do  not make a habit of reading your
>constitution, If you insist you will have to wait a  loooong  time
>for me to read it in it's entirety.
Well,  I'm  not  an  American  either.   I  write my messages from
Toronto, Canada.  Whence do you write yours?
BE:
-If  you're  saying that the courts just make it up
-as they  go,  you're  implying  the  Constitution  doesn't  really
-matter, contrary to your "No" response above.
>I am saying that the decision would be made based on the religious
>beliefs of the judge/jury.  You seem a wee bit naive and perhaps a
>bit too trustworthy of your sacred constitution.  Is this so?
No, it is merely that study of American constitutional law reveals
that  one  of the most stable areas of high court jurisprudence in
the United States, at least since the Second World War,  has  been
the  area of the interpretation of the religion clauses of the 1st
Amendment of the US Constitution.
This   is  not  an  appeal  to  the  sacredness  of  the  American
Constitution.  Rather, it is merely a summary  of  many  empirical
facts about high court jurisprudence.
BE:
-In  a  case  like  Rigor's  the jury would be involved only at the
-trial level, and he would almost certainly have to open  his  case
-in  a  state  court, since a federal district court would probably
-rule that it did not have original jurisdiction to handle  a  suit
-about   torts.    Remember  Rigor's  suit  seeks  damages  against
-churches for circulating  the  idea  of  perfection.   This  is  a
-tort case.
>Quote  the  pertinent  text from Rigor's original post and show me
>that this is what he meant.  From what I gathered, he  wanted  the
>church to take responsibility for screwing with people's minds and
>his subsequent break-up with his girlfriend.
Well, here's his message:
Rigor:
>It's me again.
>
>I wonder if anything  has  caused  more  psychological  damage  to
>humans  than  pseudo  concepts  such  as  "perfect", "omnipotent",
>"omniscient", and other poorly defined ideas which  are  stretched
>to  the  point of being ridiculous.  My ex girlfriend seemed to be
>damaged by such ideas, and I wasn't a  good  enough  therapist  to
>help  her  dispose  of  these  notions,  which  contributed to our
>breakup.
>
>I'm thinking of filing a  class  action  lawsuit  against  western
>religions  for  all  the bullcrap they've been putting in peoples'
>brains.  Do you guys think I have a chance of winning?
>
>Mr. Rigor
His motivating paragraph clearly  identifies  his  legal  interest
as  "damage".   In  his  next paragraph he announces that he wants
to file a "class action lawsuit".
These phrases rule out filing  a  criminal  case.   There  are  no
such  things  as  criminal  "class  action  lawsuits".  Not in the
United States, not in Canada, not in England, not anywhere.
His  case  is  therefore  a  civil  case.
Now, is this case to do with  breach  of  contract?   He  did  not
specify that the damages suffered by him and his girlfriend at the
hands  of  a  church  were  the  result  of any church's breach of
contract.  He did  not  argue  that  there  was  any  contract  or
agreement between him and this church.
Continued ...
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