Quote from: peter0425 on Today at 02:14:53 AM

If you do not know, Philippines is heavily Catholic. 85 million individuals are Catholics in The Philippines and that makes up 78.8% of the country. A lot of the laws and beliefs in the country are influenced by the Catholic church. Even matters like divorce and LGBT rights are decided with the influence of the religion.

Now that gambling is booming in the country, it is expected that the Catholic church will intervene. The Philippine Church has described this as "a deepening crisis in the country" and is sounding the alarm about a social and cultural scourge that is destroying the lives of young people and entire families.

Obviously, we should respect the religion and the beliefs upheld but what about those who are not Catholic and would wish to continue to gamble? Does religion have the right to be included in conversations regarding gambling if their beliefs cloud their judgement?

One thing I know is that religion will never determine what I do and what I do not do, most especially if it concerns my personal happiness and all, gambling is not a bad thing per say, but how we approach it is what matters alot.
Personally, no matter how dominant or dominating a particular religion is in a country, I don't think on their own that have the constitutional right to ban gambling in such a country since this could simply mean imposing their own law upon members of other religions forcefully.

The only agency which such right is the government, if the government decides to ban gambling, then that's it, in a country where there are multiple religions, each religion can impose laws only on those who are members of that religion, and on this adhering is based on personal choices and so on. But when the government of a country creates a law, every body from every religion is expected to adhere and obey that law.