Most, if not all, of the replies to the OP question said something about the matter of religon in politics. This echo’s complaints I’ve heard here in the states as well.
I’m not trying to be glib or rude, but as a person of sincere faith, I am not sure what this means. I mean, throwing aside all of the hypocrisy, and assuming that Bush, the right wing evangelical, et al are sincere (I know it may be difficult, but try to use your imagination), what is expected?
Let me give an example to explain. Suppose that President Bush believes sincerely that God teaches that “life” begins at conception. Now, if that is his fervent sincere belief, how is he supposed to react to the abortion issue?
Or maybe a better example, if he (or another leader) believes that God intended marriage to only be between a man and a woman, how should he address that issue?
Again, I know it may be difficult, but assuming these folks are sincere, they have a strong desire to prevent wrongs from being done. In the first case they want to prevent “murder,” and in the second, they want to prevent an “offense to God.”
I’ve just not heard any examples of what they should do instead.
Leave it to the will of the people to elect representatives based on their platforms, who can then effectively legislate, rather than try and rally the faithful come election time who think that same sex marriage or abortion will somehow destroy the country and/or their religion.
Frankly, I expect my elected officials to have some sort of moral compass to guide their actions, rather than simply pandering to the will of the mob – which, in my area, seems to be “cut my taxes and I don’t care how you do it.” If their religious beliefs shape that moral compass, why is that any worse than fairy tales and fables they learned as children?
Where I draw the line is when they suppress their true agendas while running for office, only to try and sneak them in after they’re elected. But that isn’t limited to a person of faith.
They can be as religious as they like, just don’t make such statements as “Atheist should not be considered citizens.” Or writing bills that make school kids feel obliged to pray in school. (They can already pray all they like, just don’t make it a public performance thing. )
here the voters expect candidates to keep their religious views to themselves, and don’t want to hear them paraded as justification for the politician’s programme.
So now how should Bush “effectively legislate” on the abortion issue?
It might be easier to discuss a hypothetical.
Suppose a sincere evangelical believes that gay marriage is God’s will. It seems that the country is not ready for this, based on the lack of success for the various gay-marriage referenda across the nation. What should our hypothetical evangelical do?
Now suppose it is abortion, instead. Different? How?
Nope, at least according to statistics, that is. As I recall, each group pushed its members to vote. The extrely religious groups came out in the same proportion as in past years. However, the perception of the media is diffrent, clouding the issue. Personally, I attribute Bush’s election to a desire not to change horses in mid-war, rather then a desire to keep them-thar gay folk in their place. :mad:
But why? I confess to being an obtuse (at times) American. With my Religious Conservative upbringing I can recognize the fact of the above statement, but what I don’t get is why.
I guess another way to pose the question is why are beliefs based on religious beliefs less valid than others. Especially in a moral context. I understand that people may not want to hear anyone “Preach” at them when dealing with some issues (the War in Iraq), but on other issues (Gay Marriage), religious beliefs are the foundational underpinning of what the plitician believes. As such, it can’t be avoided.
I mean, other than a religious basis, there is little basis to argue against some issues.
(As an aside, are there any European countries that currently allow Gay Marriage?)
You may notice that ** Mk VII** is from England. Despite the fact that the Head of State is also the head of the largest religion England has become a very secular country. Tony Blair has a very strong Christian fate but this is played down and almost never mentioned. There is no political gain in it for him at all, in fact if anything it’s becoming a bit of a problem for him.
Here in Ireland we a VERY large Catholic population proportionally speaking. Religion has lost most of it’s direct political power over the last 2 decades but the Catholic vote is still very strong. An abortion referendum would still fail to be passed at the moment but the gap would be a lot smaller than the last time we tried to get it passed into law. Politicians never talk about their religion unless it’s directly related to the subject at hand. It would be alien to hear a speech end with “God bless Ireland”.
All schools here teach evolution, creationism would only be brought up as another belief in religion* or civics class.
I honestly can’t remember a political ever bringing religion into any argument that wasn’t actually about religion in the first place. While a lot of people are religious we don’t really like our politicians being pubic about their religious beliefs. It’s a personal thing not a political thing.
*Yep we have religion class. In my day(I’m 34) it was Catholic religion class. That may have changed somewhat nowadays. Anybody could opt out of religion. I stopped going at around 14 as I told my father I didn’t believe in God so he wrote me a note. You’re given work to do while the class is going on somewhere else.
I suspect that most, if not all, tyrants throughout history “sincerely believed” all the horrible ideas through which they enslaved people. We don’t elect people based solely on their “sincerity,” but on the actual content of their beliefs, and on how our own lives might be affected.
The litmus test is not how “sincere” the politician is, but how he plans to deal with people who don’t agree with his subjective religious beliefs.
I really don’t give a rat’s ass what a politician personally thinks of my sexual orientation, but when he enacts laws based on his subjective prejudice, he’s crossed a very fundamental line. And it doesn’t matter to me whether the majority of voters agree with him.
one thing voters here are maddened by is politicians lecturing them about their morality (or lack of it) especially when they know (or suspect) that the self-same political class contains some of the most unprincipled amoral individuals still unhanged.
Former premier John Major started a ‘Back To Basics/Family Values’ campaign while in office and the Press tore him and his party to pieces as fresh revelations emerged - as they always will - about adultery, greed, financial corruption and all the other human failings which his colleagues were prey to.
A successful government has to govern for all – or at least most – of the population. In countries such as the UK, Australia and New Zealand, most people do not hold strong, conservative religious views. While the population is at least nominally Christian, church-going-god-fearing folk are comparatively rare (and getting rarer). So while the Prime Minister and his Cabinet may be strong Anglicans or Catholics, they must realise that their religious views are not shared by much of the electorate. They may personally feel that abortion, for example, is amoral and a sin, but are fully aware that the pro-choice side has already won the battle for the minds of the public. The electorate will not take kindly to an attempt to strip back rights already won.
So part of the reason is pragmatism. The other part, IMO, is propriety. Most voters view it as purely distasteful for a politician to mention God. One, many of us don’t believe in God and don’t want to be governed by a man or woman who claims to be inspired by some mythical sky pixie; and two, we simply don’t trust politicians who claim to be holier than thou. As Mk VII illustrates, too many times they’ve been proved to be just as human as the rest of us.
To turn the questions around for a moment, why is it that Christian politicians in the US don’t speak out against capital punishment?
Quite a few. Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland allow “registered partnership”, which are roughly equivalent to marriage. Norway and the Netherlands allow full marriage. Spain’s Parliament has approved a draft gay marriage bill. Also, come this December, gay couples in the United Kingdom will be able to enter civil partnerships, which are akin to marriage.
Same thing over here. I learnt about the religious leaning of the former prime minister Jospin (who at this time had been in charge for several years, despite Chirac being president, because Chirac’s party was in the minority in parliament)…on the Straight Dope!
There’s a “solidarity civil pact” in france too, but it doesn’t grant to the couple all the rights granted to an actually married couple. And some of the rights it does give are granted only after 3 years (If I’m not mistaken) of union.
They’re not necessarily less valid (though fro my atheist point of view, I might differ) but first the population is much less religious on the overall, so mentionning your religious values might not give you much support, and second, it’s perceived very differently. In France, a politician quoting the bible or mentionning god, or explaining that his decision is related to a religious belief during his official duties or in a speech would be perceived as the equivalent of an official endorsment of religion, hence completely unnaceptable. The political culture and traditions are simply different.
And the biggest revelatio didn’t emerge until years later – that Major himself had had a four year affair with fellow MP Edwina Currie before he was PM.
This may be more true for nations that are run by parliamentary democracy. The two party system used in the U.S. only requires that a candidate win 50.000…001% of the vote. They can do this by winning over the voters or by dividing or discouraging the opposition–coalitions do not really exist here.
Thanks to everyone. I am still an obtuse American but I am beginning to understand. (It is a very foreign idea to me).
FWIW, I do count myself to be a Christian Fundamentalist, but unlike many of my cohorts, I tend to be much more libertarian. My thought is that I know what I believe, and you have every right to be wrong.
You should have seen the faces of the group I was talking to when I suggested that in general churches could learn a lot about how Christ intened for them to treat one another by studying the polyamory ideals.
That must have been something to see!
And thanks for discussing the question, too SC. You’re much more open-minded than I was when I was a fundie, and I respect your ability to question rather than proclaim. There have been some nasty threads involving people who were just out to repeat their own fixed beliefs; and for what the sentiment of a total stranger is worth, I appreciate your openness.
A few (disorganized) thoughts:
there are sects of Christianity that believe that God’s kingdom is not part of this world, and it is best to withdraw onesself as much as possible, not only to avoid unnecessary ‘worldly’ influences, but also to focus on God’s work. Then there are Christians (I don’t believe of just one particular strain) that ardently believe and fight for the institutionalization of their beliefs. Since both base their conclusions on the Bible, it seems impossible to really ‘know’ (you could believe, though) that you had picked correctly. This sort of intractable certainty worries me.
-Really vocal fundamentalist politicians (or those who base their public speech on fundamentalist beliefs) basically believe that we are going to hell in a handbasket - modern society is not a good thing (too morally permissive, too corrupt, too faithless, etc) and that the tide must be turned back - to a more ‘traditional’ (regardless of whether or not such a time ever really existed) era. I’m not a traditionalist: saying that something is legitimate because ‘it has always been that way’ is a non-reason to me. People used to truly believe the body was composed of humors, and that poor people were incapable of love. As other posters have already mentioned, people are certain about all sorts of things that turn out to be incorrect. IMO, if I were creating my utopia, I would prefer to have progressives than traditionalists. I want people who believe in the power of the human being, in education and progress, not someone who believes we are doomed and flawed. (I’m making massive generalizations, I know.)
To turn your question around, why ‘should’ a politician have a religious foundation, or a religiously-based philosophy? Do you believe that morality can only come from religion? I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, but this is a common answer - humans are not capable of creating their own morality.
-Again, IMO, because most religious beliefs are predicated on the notion of providing access to a truth (Truth) that another religion/ philosophy cannot, they are inherently elitist and relative - relative in that they depend on other beliefs to define themselves (in agreement or in oppoistion to), and that, had I been born in Iran, I would have (most likely) been a Muslim.
As a lurker on many a gay marriage thread here, I don’t believe there are any arguments against gay marraige that aren’t some permutation of either 1) ‘ick’ or 2) ‘it’s against my religion’. So obviously we don’t give any creedence to the ‘ick’ argument - people used to think interracial marraiges were abominations, hence, ‘ickiness’ is not a fixed quality, hence it should not be used as the fundamental criterion. I’m not breaking any new ground by saying this, but religion can be just as relative. The Bible has been used to support all sorts of things - not to mention dogma. If I don’t believe that the Bible is inerrant, and I am cognizant of how much political/ cultural weight is carried in even the translation of one little word (John 1:1, anyone?), the Bible is not more an authority than any other philosophy.
And lastly, if you don’t happen to be of the faith of a given politician, his use of his religion doesn’t lend him much authority.
I’d prefer my politicians not to be pubic about anything :eek:
Apart from the abortion debate, the one time you really do hear religion becoming a political issue in the south of Ireland is in the stem cell research debate. When this was in the Dáil (Irish Parliament) about a year and a half ago a number of politicians made religious arguments against it. It was quite creepy listening to it.
The north of Ireland is a whole 'nother story because of the strength of Ian Paisley’s fundamentalist church.
but I am beginning to understand. (It is a very foreign idea to me).