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| Religion in Politics | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 8 2007, 02:33 PM (455 Views) | |
| Bry | Nov 8 2007, 02:33 PM Post #1 |
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caяp diєм
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Religion isn't supposed to become a factor within the political world but it always does. For example, we currently have a rather strongly Christian president. I think it's safe to say that his beliefs have heavily influenced his positions on matters such as abortion and same sex marriages. Ultimately, the fact that our leader (in America) is religious affects his views. This causes a degree of unfairness in the disfavor of everyone else who doesn't share his religious beliefs. My question to you is: Do you think that having a religious leader is a good or bad thing, and should we take religion into consideration when choosing candidates for roles such as President? My thoughts later
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| Trav-man | Nov 8 2007, 06:10 PM Post #2 |
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That's Travtastic!
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I believe it is a great thing, but I also think it is irrelevant. Too many people misinterpret the separation of church and state. The First Amendment simply states that Congress will make no law respecting an establishment of religion. The President does not represent Congress, and in fact, he is kept in check by them as well as by the judicial branch of our government. The President was not appointed by Congress, nor does he make laws. He is simply a leader. And personally, I would shake at having a leader with no religion, because I could not find any assurance in myself that this would be a leader with sound morals. Could you imagine the President of the United States, often considered the most powerful man in the world, being a man without morals? (I am not implying that nonreligious individuals lack morals. I simply mean that they have no source from which to derive them except from within themselves.) Religion will always be a factor in the political world because we live in a society where we have the consent of the governed. We are a religious peoples, and we are the same people that vote on measures, select representatives, and bring policy to life. It is bound that our beliefs and virtues will be reflected in the government that we participate in, and there's nothing wrong with that. There will always be people who don't agree, and that's fine. It's just the way that our nation works. And we're pretty well off for it, too.
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| .esoteric | Nov 8 2007, 06:16 PM Post #3 |
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Laffy Taffy Rots Your Teeth
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I think an atheist leader would have more sound morals, because his morals aren't based on a book, and aren't out of fear of an invisible cloud man who will set him on fire if does wrong. Not to mention, his morals don't come from a book that says to kill homo's. |
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| Paleognath | Nov 8 2007, 06:50 PM Post #4 |
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Napoleon '08
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I stopped agreeing with you after the first sentence. No religion does not mean you are incapable of making decisions without morals. Morals are personal values and should at least have some of your own morals with incorporated morals from other people. Its good to have morales but to say that someone's morales are misguided because they are not a Christian or Jew or Muslim has no factual basis). Religion should not affect judgment (BUSH!). Not all people are religious so you cannot say we are a religious people. Also separation of church and state originates from the Church of England from when the Church had a major effect on politics and often would tell the King and his officials what the do for favors in return. The Founding Fathers wanted to avoid a religious body having any sort of control on how politics works and protect citizen's rights of freedom of religious belief. You are right when you say it does not establish a religion but that is not the main reason for separation of church and state. This is not a Christian nation end of statement. Most of the controversial issues that are dealt have religious origins: abortion, gay rights, civil rights (yes they do because lots of the white supremacy comes from a misinterpretation of the Bible), the Iraq war (all conflict in the Middle East nowadays has something to do with the fight between Israel and the Islamic nations), those being some of the highest in importance. |
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| Colin. | Nov 8 2007, 08:37 PM Post #5 |
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she was this androgynist
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To have an opinion due to your religion is perfectly fine and good, it makes us all different. But to reflect it into a government where not everyone has the same religion is wrong. If you push your religious views on government, you force others to follow your religion. Not everyone believes the same, and while something that are legal are in a religion, it has a reason other than that. In my opinion, Congress members and the President should have a reason to why they make a vote, and the Supreme Court should judge whether or not it's constitutional. |
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| Trav-man | Nov 8 2007, 09:17 PM Post #6 |
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That's Travtastic!
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WHAT?! Are you honestly saying people should only be able to vote if it can be considered "constitutional"?! I'm sorry, but everyone is entitled to their vote, and they should be able to vote for whatever the hell they want to, regardless of why. I don't care if its party-line voting, voting based on race/gender, beliefs, morals, political idealogies, or what. Everyone can vote for what they damn well please and no one has to justify it... and NOBODY has the right to force them to do so! I did not say that having no religion means you have no morals. What I'm saying is that religion serves as a pillar in establishing morals, so those that are religious tend to have a strong moral base. Nonreligious individuals cannot draw their morality from a religion, so they have to draw it from their own experiences. Unfortunately, everyone has vastly different experiences and that could lead everyone to have a very different set of morals, and I personally want a leader whose morals are accepted by the majority. We are a religious people. I can say that because the great majority of our nation is religious. It is in our culture, and it will forever be engraved in our history. This country was birthed on Christian principles. You're right about the Founding Fathers, though. They didn't want to have a national church. They did not want any denomination or sect to have authority like the government, and for good reason. But by no means did they ignore God or exclude him from their lives or their decision making process. In the first years of our country, did you know that courthouses often served as meeting places for congregations to hold worship services? The Constitution itself makes reference to God and even the Declaration of Independence goes so far as to say that all men are created equal... endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights... The influence of God on the lives of the framers of the Constitution is evident and undeniable. Surely they did not want a national church to have the power to take control, but they did not minimize the influence of God over our nation as our generation has attempted to do. To say that religion should not be of any significance or influence in our nation is just ridiculous. You can't deny the existence of something that is everywhere. That would be like me saying that homosexuals simply shouldn't be able to vote with favor towards the homosexual agenda, and that they should only have the power to vote if they could constitutionally defend the vote. RIDICULOUS!! |
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| .Raiden | Nov 8 2007, 10:07 PM Post #7 |
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Member
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If you look at most countries, their leaders are probably affected by their religion. Do I personally think it is fair? Probably not, but are we able to prevent it? Not really. The best that can be done is have the other elements of the government balance that out, but in the end, most of the government shares the same beliefs as well.
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| OcelotJay-ZNR | Nov 8 2007, 11:28 PM Post #8 |
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I am kitteh, hear me purr. =(^_^)=
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Just out of curiosity: is this strictly dealing with America and its President or does this extend to the rest of the world? My general opinion is all inclusive but there are certain issues that are very specific to each nation and have to be addressed accordingly. Anyway, religion is a prominent part of life and something we can't simply ignore. Tony Blair was Christian and was a good leader during his first term as Prime Minister. In fact it scarcely impacted him. The only time it did was when he foolishly brought God into public affairs, which in Britain is a stupid thing to do. We may be described as a Christian country but our separation of Church and State is important to us and anyone seen to be muddying the waters is committing career suicide. However, his religion was only problematic once, the rest of his failings were strictly his doing. Whether they were somehow guided by his religion doesn't matter, he was never outspoken about it and he didn't give cause for concern over his beliefs. I have no issue with a political leader having religious beliefs, I don't see it as a valid cause for concern, however I do fully support separation of the Church from the State as we have in Britain. This doesn't mean religion doesn't have its place, we actually have a good number of religious figures in our House of Lords and as I said, Blair was Christian. And the House of Lords, in spite of having religious figures in its midst, has always defended the British public and is greatly respected. The key thing is that we won't stand for any religion getting in the way of politics, not that it's utterly devoid of having a presence. Religion is a part of politics because politics is about society.
And not all theists draw from the same magic well either. There are a variety of factions within Christianity itself, many of which call themselves "the mainstream" while having various differences, some minor, some great. Just because you draw your beliefs from a religion doesn't mean you have a good and incorruptible "pillar of morality". How many people twist religious texts for their own agendas because their fanaticism denies them rational thinking? How many are willing to take the violent side of religion and preach it? I know what you're going to say: that's not everyone. Right, because everyone's different. There are dangerous people across the board. Religion, like any form of belief, isn't good or evil: it simply is. What's good or evil, right or wrong, is the way in which it's used. And where is this whole "life experience" nonsense coming from? Atheism is not religious but it is philosophical and it too has its own central themes and beliefs. Just like Christianity, it's up to the people to determine how they interpret these things, which they accept and which they do not, and how they then use them in their lives. You will find a great many of us are united on a number of things and are not so different from you. Yes, drawing from life is important to us but a good many of us don't believe in scribing morality based on personal experience because history has shown that only leads to chaos and conflict. How many Christians would say the same? Plenty that I know. Our difference is largely that you draw from the belief in a higher power, God specifically, while we don't. Even so, life experience is always important to a person's beliefs, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who wasn't somehow influenced by their own experiences. There are a good many atheist religions that promote peace and equality. A rigid set of morals is not determined by which faction one aligns oneself to, it's determined by the actions of that person. Whatever happened to meritocracy? I want a leader to prove his worth - not by whom he prays to or how often he visits a church or which texts he reads but by how he acts, how he treats people and where his political beliefs would take him. I cannot understand how you can make such a bold claim when history's wars are littered with leaders who were fanatical - about religion, about secularism, about ideals. If there's one thing history proves it's not that faith is reliable or secularism is best but that how you act upon either will ultimately shape the future. Structured religious and secular principals are one thing, personal beliefs are quite another and it concerns me how easily you blur the lines. That said, I will defend your point that nobody should be prohibited from casting a vote because of their religious ideals or possible agendas. To do so you would have to place one way of life above all others and that goes against the nature of democracy while simultaneously advancing an agenda to strip religion of power as a safeguard against religious ideals dominating the government. That's simply an atheist utopia. If there's one thing atheists tend to do that I disagree with it's the way they see their own ideals as being the most reasonable and try to empower them in an effort to prevent religions from doing the very same. This is why a middle ground is necessary. Laws should reflect the needs of the country without pandering to pressure but if you remove the voice of religion you simply allow arrogant atheism to take pole position and while I hold atheist ideals, I fear the day when religion is besieged to the extent that it is treated with the same contempt various minorities have suffered. Indeed, Britain has already undergone such a time when, tired of religious rule, we fought back. The result was a secular Britain free from religious oppression but the price we paid was dear and it took a long time before we recovered and were able to accept religion into society again. Imposing religious ideals is dangerous and we have seen it in the guise of many evils but let's not get so caught up that we don't recognise the threat atheism has and can produce if unchecked. The greatest goods come from when people work together despite their differences, I wish some people would remember that.
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| Mister. | Nov 9 2007, 04:37 AM Post #9 |
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go giants!
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Although it only states an establishment of religion through law is prohibited, you're not addressing the ultimate reason why that amendment was written: to keep religion from influencing our government's decisions. The President may not make any laws, but he/she has an extraordinary influence on the citizens, and if religion gets into political issues too much, it becomes a problem. People are not obligated to believe in any one religion, and if the President allowed religion to influence his/her decisions on something that would effect the country, that would invalidate those decisions in the eyes of many, which would lead to confusion and possibly chaos, depending on what the decisions were (banning gay marriage, for example).
Is such a source as the Bible necessary to have a respectable set of morals? I'm not much of a believer when it comes to religion, yet I have a clear set of morals, of right and wrong. Does the fact that I have no religion to refer to invalidate or devalue my beliefs? I believe that today, in the 21st century, building a strong moral code based solely on what you have observed and lived through in this society, is quite possibly the most understanding and best-fit set of morals a leader could have in our day and age. I don't believe religion should play any part in the governing of our nation, nor does it need to. Religion is purely individual, and should not have any effect on the lives of others that have freely chosen not to abide by certain practices. |
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| Colin. | Nov 9 2007, 11:54 AM Post #10 |
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she was this androgynist
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Yep, that's what I'm saying. In a world where we elect people to represent ourselves, we should know why they're voting the way they did. If they're basing their laws on religion, it's interfering with the lives of those who have another religion, or not religion at all. Sure, people can vote however they want. The government, on the other hand, cannot. Where religion and state are separated, and the first amendment gives me rights to free religion, why am I being suppressed by others only because of their religion? If they have other reasons, and are simply gravitated towards their opinion because of religion, that's fine. But you must have a reason. I've yet to see a reason behind banning homosexual marriage or abortion that's not "god wouldn't want it", other reasons can be quickly backed up. The reason why it's being debated is religion. People don't want it to happen, because "God doesn't want it to happen", or other religious purposes. I'm not denying the existence of religion, who is doing that? Uh, and yeah, homosexuals should be voting for the same rights as everyone else. Why not? They're human, aren't they? You're implying that one should not vote for ones self, because it is biased? Alright, sorry women and African Americans, it turns out your votes don't count, go back to having less rights than white males.Yeah, it really doesn't work that way. If we were voting on religion, ie if the Bible should be banned, I'm all for it. But that's the thing: you're not fighting for your rights as religious people. You're fighting to push your religious views on others. Who cares if others are doing 'sinful' things that make their lives so much better? You do? You seriously want to control all other people's lives just because you have some crazy idea it's what God wants? Well I say no, you can't do that. What does it matter to you? If you're that bothered by other people, move to some remote island, because people are going to become more and more radical, and more and more equal. And yeah, I believe the President should need a reason to veto something. Why? Because I don't like a person who is forcing others to follow their religion. Almost like, one might say, a king? And we all know how well that ended. |
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2:58 PM Jul 11
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Uh, and yeah, homosexuals should be voting for the same rights as everyone else. Why not? They're human, aren't they? You're implying that one should not vote for ones self, because it is biased? Alright, sorry women and African Americans, it turns out your votes don't count, go back to having less rights than white males.
2:58 PM Jul 11