Religous Politics

Do you think Religion should be put more into politics?

 

Absolutely, 120%, undoubtedly NO.

There is a VERY good reason why we have separation of church and state. Imagine if every time you broke the smallest law, you not only gain punishment in this life, but you get a threat of divine retribution as well. Every time you spoke out about your government, you commit heresy and blasphemy, even if you tell the truth. Every time the government does something, it is holy, right, and divinely mandated. Read the Dune series, particularly the original books. They have a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Introduce religion into the government, even in a small way, and very soon corruption, graft, lies, and propaganda take root. After that, if nothing is done, it gets worse, and eventually you have a god-emperor. I don't want to live like that.

We can already see the effects of religion in government, the graft, corruption, etc. There is a religious bias even today. consider, not once in the United States' history has an Atheist been president, or, as far as I know, anywhere in high office (Cabinet, congress, etc). Religion will inevitably come up as an issue in every presidential debate. etc, etc. We have enough religion, thanks. We have enough shepherd-worshiping sheep in office. I personally am thinking of not voting until someone has the balls to run for president as an atheist.

 

No, nuh uh, never. I believe that there's enough politics focusing around religious issues, giving religion in and of itself power in these would only make things worse. The Salem Witchcraft Trials come to mind.

 

No, if anything I think it should be utterly removed from politics save to say that people can be of any religion or lack there of in a country, and so long as it is not harming anyone else, it is fine to do. Freedom of religion and/or lack of religion is important to me. However, the more certain religious groups try to skew governments to doing things to single out that religion and make it more important than others, it becomes aggravating. It is quite disappointing to me to see that people actually will vote for someone due to their religion and churches rally to support a candidate based on their religion and they feel the person will back their moral grounds. I think it's also quite annoying when the news has to also bring in religion as in 'who are the Jews, Evangelicals, Catholics etc going to vote for?', which just shows people in their respective religious centers are trying to slant and control their members' votes. People should be able to vote for who they want based on more things than just religious preference, and even if someone does choose to vote for a candidate because the person is of the same religion, the religious establishments should have nothing to do with it.

Also, I don't want religion messing with school anymore than they do. There is no reason for kids to graduate from a public high school still thinking that dinosaurs and cavemen walked around at the same time and the earth is 6 to 10k years old. There's also no reason why Christians can demand in public schools, which are government funded, that we should -ever- have a 10 Commandments posted in school, but not a Buddhist 8 Fold Path, etc. Or why in High School, kids cannot have an option for a World Religious Class that explores all major religions while teaching of Creationism etc, but these same people will demand kids to walk out of a Biology or Earth Science class because it is against their religion, or they scream they want Creationism taught, which has no place in a science class.

Lastly, I think that it's fine if people were all of -one- religion, but everyone is not. We have Wiccan, Buddhism, Hinduism, Evangelical Protestant, Catholic, Methodist, Satanism, Muslim, Agnostic, Deism, (T)Daoism, Atheism, Scientology, Christian (non-denominational), etc. There are a ton of things people believe in or don't. It seems very harsh to have one dominating religion in government and it pushes us to go back to the days when religion and leadership were hand in hand and people were punished in various ways for not believing in the dominant status quo. It evolves into hatred and non-acceptance, no matter what people try to spout off. Sooner or later some people will be ostracized even more than they already are. In the U.S. some people insist that 'God in Government' has always existed and it is far more important than people's rights to have free religious expression. People have died, committed suicide, serial killers have used religion to propel their agendas, hate groups use and believe in religion and we even have Christian terrorists, whether people like to just say only Muslims can do that, in our own country. We have to listen every year at Christmas time to put the 'Christ' back in Christmas and how dare you call a Christmas Tree a Yule Tree... Political people and the news constantly bring up these issues trying to skew people and also give out misinformation. I do not want to see another Dark Ages or Nazi deal happen where leading people who are of a dominating religion assume their beliefs are superior and so others will be wiped out. The Founding Fathers for the country I am from did not intend for one religion to be dominant even though some were Christian while others were Deist, Agnostic or even early Atheists. Of course, they did not have Hinduists, Muslims or Buddhists etc amongst their members, but the point was all the same. They found ways of getting along despite their views of religion being different. I think it's rather critical to remember that and keep religious influence out of politics.

 

The fact that the American population would not even consider voting for a candidate if they were atheist shows just how much religion is already entrenched in American politics. I suppose it is also the same in British politics, although it is not as obvious.

In my mind the sooner religion gets the fuck out of politics, the better.

 

I don't believe this to be the truth. Voters are ignorant on majority, that's a given, but this fact can be manipulated in both ways, can it not?

Also I'd like to present my idea that the solution here is not getting religion completely out of politics, it's getting people to stop being so demanding on the grounds of it and start being reasonable about things involving it. We'll see if that'll happen, though >>

 

No, I think it has already affected the court system enough and it would be totally unessesary. Even though I don't know if a canidate would get the same results if he were an atheist.

Just wondering, what does that stand for?

 

Any time I have seen American politics the only way candidates can make headway is if they state their religious beliefs.

It seems to be that in America the only way to be accepted is if you belief in at least one god. Any less and you are shunned >_>

 

Really? Any time I've seen American politics no headway is made at all. It just looks **** all like it.

And that's entirely not true. This is a case of what is heard of through media vs. what is not if I'm seeing this correctly. I mean, you're bound to see news reports on "LARGE GROUP OF CHRISTIANS REJECT ATHEISTS IN JOB INTERVIEWS ON RELIGIOUS BELIEFS" to some extent, but the news is far less likely to report on "MY CLOSEST FRIENDS IN MY SCHOOL INCLUDES A LUTHERAN, AN EPISCOPALIAN, THREE ATHEISTS, FOUR AGNOSTICS, A WICCAN, A PAGAN, A SATANIST, AND SOMEONE WHO CREATED THEIR OWN RELIGION AND WE ALL GET ALONG JUST FINE".

Emphasis on that last one, that's surprisingly relevant to me personally.

 

There has, to the best of my research abilities, never been an atheist in any of the major positions of the main branches of government in the history of the united states. Every. single. one of them has been some form of Christian. Now, whether that is true for more local governments, I don't know. I don't know where to find those statistics.

 

Well, for a large amount of time this country down to it's core was very obviously discriminative. It's unfortunate, but that probably explains the earlier years of the American government. As for the more recent years, I don't know how many Atheists have run for offices but I will admit that most of them probably did get the religion card played on them and that's very unfortunate. It all really boils down to the fact that this system selects our country's leaders on a basis of charisma more so than actual intelligence, which is really pathetic in my personal opinion.

 

No. It should be completely and utterly removed from politics, for reasons that have been stated here enough times already.

 

This is impossible. It would be nice if it were but it isn't. In order to maintain at least some semblance or vague conception that the people hold power, religion must be kept in politics because it exists and is a factor in so many places in society. As it is in society, so it shall be in politics. HOWEVER this doesn't mean people can be complete idiots about it.

Oh I remember I wrote an English paper on this kind of stuff a while back, I wish I had it. It would be useful.

 

Not true. The founding fathers were non-Christian deists.

As for the topic at hand, **** NO. Religion should not mix with politics. Ever. *coughIrancough*

 

100% NOT
There are so many conflicts with religion and not every body belives in "GOD"
so it would be forcing what one group of people think on to another.

Im not all that religios my self and dont care for orginized religion because there is so much crap you have to follow and there is always talk of being punished by "GOD" its just wouldnt work.

There would be more fighiting and chaos and more censorship than there already is THERE WOULD BE NO HALO or KH video games there wouldnt be much to watch on TV

 

Yes religion belongs in politics just like Jews belong with Nazis.

 

See, now you're just making it sound like religion is downright evil.

 

That's a bit of an extreme statement, don't you think?

 

Religion is a personal choice and should be a personal practice. I lament the fact that it got mixed up with politics in the first place. The belief in a higher power and with it the laws that he apparently dictates should never be enforced on people.

If religion is practiced as a personal thing like it should, then there's no use for it in the political landscape either.
Are you against abortion and euthanasia? Fine, then don't abort your fetuses. Don't pull the plug on your grandpa. But why would you deny this option to others?

 

My opposition to those things isn't so much religious as it is basically moral.