# Does religion have a place in public debate?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-religion-have-a-place-in-public-debate/834709>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [May 29, 2019, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-religion-have-a-place-in-public-debate/834709 "2019-05-29T15:02:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 206

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**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\
**Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-religion-have-a-place-in-public-debate/834709/206 "2019-06-01T16:27:17Z")

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To start off, I ask the question, is this an appropriate use of religion in the public sphere?

> [@Stupid Republican idea of the day](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/41203):
>
> Florida State Rep. Mike Hill (R-Pensacola) jokes about filing a bill to execute gay people:
> 
> A citizen comments: “In 1 Corinthians, it says that a man who has an affair with another man will be put to death.”
> 
> Hill’s response?
> 
> “It says that in the Old Testament, too.”
> 
> Another attendee asks, “Can you introduce legislation?”
> 
> Chuckles are audible. The state representative joins the laughter. “I wonder how that would go over?” Hill says.
> 
> [Rep. Mike Hill facing bipartisan condemnation after joking about filing bill allowing gays to be executed | The Capitolist](https://thecapitolist.com/rep-mike-hill-facing-bipartisan-condemnation-after-joking-about-filing-bill-allowing-gays-to-be-executed/)

> [@D\_Anconia](#):
>
> You claimed that abortion wasn’t a sin.

Ah, there’s your problem, that is not the claim that I made.

> [@](#):
>
> Ok, genius, the word “abortion” isn’t in the Bible. Probably because the word itself didn’t exist thousands of years ago.

First of all, please cite that the King James Bible was written thousands of years ago.

Moby Dick never says that only virgins can ride Unicorns, did you need a cite for that too?

> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> I don’t have to. Evolution has.
> 
> All social species have rules of behavior. They may not be written down. They may not even be in anything resembling human language. And, among humans, they may vary widely from one group to another. But no social species simply thinks there’s nothing wrong under any circumstances with killing other members of the group: because no such group would survive.

Like I said, it is not coincidence that civilization grew up around those who shared a premise that murder was bad. But that did not mean that all members of a community agreed with that. Sometimes those members would leave the community and act as bandits or raiders, and sometimes they would stay in the community and do harm from there.

It actually did need to be written down, in stone as a matter of fact, in order for the people to really _get_ it.

> [@](#):
>
> Yes, people sometimes break those rules anyway. [ETA: And the rules of a particular society may allow killing certain of its members under some circumstances.] But that’s not the same thing as claiming no society had any such rules until we got around to writing them down.
> 
> And people still do that; and modern societies, in certain circumstances, still agree with it. Modern societies allow among other things for self-defense, for killing in war, and for such things as ‘eminent domain’, which is taking property against people’s will, supposedly (and sometimes actually) for the good of the group.

Which is my point, we still don’t think that killing is wrong if there are no negative consequences.

> [@](#):
>
> Precisely as you say: the 10 Commandments didn’t change any of that. This bit of discussion is in response to some people claiming that before the 10 Commandments people had no idea of what was ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.

No idea as to what was right and wrong? Not really, they had ideas.

An _agreement_ as to what was right and what was wrong? That needed to be written down for everyone to see.

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