The confluence of religion and government is of course, perfectly right. You see it in pretty much every ethical code that translates into law and every idea of right conduct on the part of our officials.
Establishing a state religion is, of course, another matter. And I don’t see anybody trying to do that. The worst the evangelists seem to be doing is trying to get judges who will render legal interpretations that will overturn decisions that are stare decisis anyway.
Religion has been used to justify every government action from Divine Right Monarchies to small government capatlism to dictatorships to socialistic democracies and every other government under the sun. A religion “supporting”, and I put supporting in quotes becuase religion can support any government, says nothing about the rightness or wrongness of an action. I prefer our officials to justify their actions on logic and factual results of their actions instead of them saying “God said so”.
No, the worse that the evangelists are doing and have for the most part suceeded in doing is imposing their religous moral code through government. The only thing that has stopped them from succeeding completely is the Supreme Court. If it were up to the evangelists homosexuality would be illegal, abortion would be illegal and perhaps contraception, family planning and sex education in schools.
Consider how Judeo-Christian doctrine and dogma have permeated all social, ethical and moral thought that operates in this country. Religious dogma has frequently been misused in numerous unfortunate circumstances and that is not what I would go so far as to defend.
I would prefer leaders who do what’s right. The logic or facts you call for are very often presented through this lens of what’s right… now you must consider where we get our notion of what is right.
Most of that stuff will never happen no matter how much the evangelicals whine. A lot of it has been illegal in the past, and that changes as society becomes more progressive. Social liberalism is not something that will seriously go away. Trends will change over time and some occurring now may seem ominous but once there’s a government and whenever there’s a government that’s not on the take from the Religious Right you’ll see that influence diminish. Just sit tight. The more you are scandalized by what they are doing, or trying to do, the more opportunity you give them to frame the debate.
The phrases “pro life” and “pro choice” are enough of an example of this.
Indeed and I think its safe to say that “God said so” has a very poor track record and should not be used. I personally subscribe to the general idea of the only right government action would be preventing direct harm to society. I also reject the notion of “living amongst sinners” argument of harm to society.
Maybe and Maybe not. Certainly more conservative states would ban and indeed still have laws on the books for many if not all of the activities mentioned. Regardless the debate isn’t on whether evangelists could enact laws the debate is whether they would. I think its pretty safe to say that they would if they could.
Yeah. Come on. Don’t you know we haven’t had a war over religion since 1648? 
Anyway, I’d agree, it’s somewhat tasteless to flaunt that as one’s impetus and reasoning but at the same time, the strictures of the scripture define most codes of conduct, even for atheists [who worship their atheist deity.]
America was founded by Puritans fleeing the Anglican church on the principle that they could self-determine their religious/social beliefs at the intersection with politics.
The real issue you should be fighting for, rather than trying to scrub away all religious/dogmatic edifice from the political landscape [when this dogma is very central to many peoples’ real way of life] is the issue of states rights.
Most of the most excessive fundamentalist paradigms won’t pass muster in the Supreme Court or make it past the constitutional amendment process, noted for its rigor, but the arrogation of federal powers may make some of this agenda more of a burden on your lifestyle no matter where you go.
If you can live in a state that can make its own choices, at least you then have the opportunity to live amongst like-minded people who maybe even can have God [or Love or Buddha or Satan or whatever] in their hearts while keeping that in its right place… at home. Then, it’s easy to let Kansas be Kansas.
Who said anything about removing religious folk from politics? Most “believers” aren’t all that hard-core anyway … all most American guys care about is making money and getting laid, not necessarily in that order. They go to church and stuff, as little as possible, but it’s all lip service. They just don’t wanna get in trouble so they do the “right” things. They’ll vote against religious types and religious proposals if they think it’ll make them so money or get them laid more often or make them feel more important. That’s why sex stuff generally gets liberalized despite all this religion shit that people have been getting into, despite the preachers howling like banshees about it all the time.
Hell, the main reason most religious types oppose sex and stuff is that it makes them feel important to oppose it.
You don’t have to dump the religious from politics, you just have to convince the congregations that whatever you’re proposing falls under the more money/more sex/more egoboo rubric and you’re in. They’ll mouth whatever the preacher says they should mouth in public but when they’re in the privacy of the voting booth and there’s no one can see what they vote, they’ll vote pussy/money/egoboo every time.
Damn that infernal Cardinal Richelieu! But seriously though religion as a source of armed conflict still exists today.
Sure at the end of the day everyone subscribes to some sort of moral code and has writings that influence there thinking. My argument is that in terms of government though is that the secular code is qualitatively better and fundamentally different from a theocratic one.
Well I am a big states rights guy but its not as though the evangelists only operate at the Federal level. It matters little to me whether an evangelists is using government power at the Federal, state or local level to impose its moral code on me. Limiting Federal power will do little to curb evanagelists becuase they simply would move to the State level.
Perhaps but again the discussion is what would the evangelists do not whether they can.
Like I said I am a big states right guy but I am always dubious of the “if you don’t like it just move” argument. Its extremely hard for someone who has lived in one place their entire lift to just up and leave.
Then it would be a pentagon, not a quadrilateral.
Damn straight. Alongside our drug war, religion is one of the main causes.
And mine is that the “secular code” is for the most part only different cosmetically or aesthetically. It amounts to largely the same ideas, just without the god talk. Secularism = philosophical satanism, which is, I believe, the American faith. That it often puts on Christian raiments is a little bit frightening at times, but hey, it’s Halloween now.
There are certain issues that evangelicals take farther than most other folks [even of parochial thinking] would and they make the mistake of thinking they speak for more people than they do.
But apart from using government to establish their particular Church or churches, there’s no good reason to limit how people talk about the issues that matter to them in political discourse. If somebody feels a certain way because he has been educated in that, for me it is enough that it is his feeling and he is free to express it.
Limiting federal power would bring about heaps of good. The evangelical agenda is far less dangerous on the local level because they would be unable to hijack national platforms and their area of influence would be reduced.
It’s tyranny of the majority at any level but at least, if more issues were handled on the state level, those states could generate results that are more commensurate with what people demand. Evangelists are certainly not by any means in the majority but now that they’ve got a President, they can frame all kinds of debates we don’t really need.
They’d nuke Muslims, enslave Jews and blast Buddhists and Hindus to the moon. They will be stopped. They must be stopped. We will find a way!
Oh, I wasn’t making that argument precisely. There are always going to be people who will be dissatisfied with political results in their polity but the damage is significantly reduced when it’s narrowed to the local level. For example, there is less damage vis a vis citizens having their views trampled by evangelists if Kansas turns into a theocracy than if America does.
This is why it is my contention that the best thing for anti-evangelists to do [myself included, btw, I am no evangelist] is to drag as many of these debates down to the state or local level as possible.
For starters, it re-draws the battlefield in a way that is more to our liking and to follow up, it prevents them from actually talking about the real issues they get righteous about. And if you live in a community that is free of their assinine belief-peddling, you are less likely to be bothered in the long run.
Whoa! The evangelicals, fundamentalists, and the overwhelming majority of at least the vocal American “Christians” (I don’t know how better to describe them and I use scare quotes quite deliberately) have virtually no intellectually honest respect for Jesus’ teachings. That’s the primary thing people must strive to understand! They’re Paulists who don’t even realize they’re polluting Jesus’ message and replacing it with what I feel is a somewhat hateful, generally anti-Jesus mythology (though I also believe, qua Burton Mack, that Jesus, too, was entirely mythical).
Do you honestly think these “Christians” would genuinely respect anyone who “hung out with sinners”? Or – Bob forbid – was “buddies” with them and would actually help them? How can you not know that these people are primarily interested in the Bible because it is such a powerful and useful weapon and not because of any wise and benevolent teachings?
I’ve never even met a Christian in the sense of a Jesusian!
I sure hope you don’t actually believe that the Establishment clause merely prohibits the actuall establishment of a State religion. The “Christians” I described in my previous post are trying to establish the vast public pre-eminence of Christianity. That, my friend, is a clear violation of the Establishment clause as it has been interpreted by the Supreme Court.
That last’s a particularly idiotic assertion. Atheism is a passive lack of a belief in deities. There can be no “worship” of something one has a lack of belief in.
That’s just massively under-informed right-wing bullshit. The Puritans were despicable theocrats. They came not for freedom, but for slavery: religious slavery. They came here in hopes that they would rule over everyone, and that everyone would think and behave and believe exactly alike and strictly according to their own religion. They were vile extremists and did not have a damned thing to do with founding America! America was founded by Jefferson and Franklin and Washington, etc. Also see: The U.S. Constitution is deliberately Godless. Discuss.
It is interpreted to prohibit uneccessary entanglement with any religion lest the state be in essence supporting that religion. What I am saying is this does not mean religion is not something politicians can talk about. I believe the Constitution was written intentionally Godless and it’s not because they didn’t find belief in God to be politically inappropriate but because it would be impossible to do so without establishing one popular belief system.
When I said the strictures of the scripture define most codes of conduct, even for atheists [who worship their atheist deity.]
The atheist deity, something I alluded to with a trace of irony, is their rigidly held belief that God can either be Reasoned into or out of existence. That’s all I was saying. You didn’t comment on the fact there are many parts of religion that even atheists don’t throw out with the bathwater – such as a lot of underlying values of conduct, business and expression.
Hey, the “right wing” may have had some relevance in France at one point but don’t go hangin’ your sign on me. That’s not it at all. Anyway, I didn’t say anything about what the Puritans wanted to do with their “Freedom,” because you have with your ad hominem attack. It is obvious that they were not holding hands and having drum circles and being politically correct, and I didn’t even have to bring that up because it’s not relevant.
And more importantly, notwithstanding your ad hominem attacks on the puritans and your attempt to extend this to me, the strength of the constitution is not in endorsing a Godless lifestyle but in allowing people to determine and share their beliefs. Some are more tacky than others, of course.
None of the Freemasons who founded this country or authored its initial documents were Godless, but they respected that numerous beliefs could all build on the same common concept of faith.
To me it doesn’t matter if the Constitution is authored Godless, such a belief does not require reenforcement from getting a printing in the Constitution. Whether they wanted to do the same things themselves or not, my initial point about the puritans had been that they needed to escape an Establishment.
Whether or not he was mythical is entirely irrelevant, the power of the meme over our society is such that we must deal with his actual existance, even if it was simply a meme existing and not a flesh and blood person. I agree with you about them being Paulists.
It’s not about convincing the people you are fighting against, it’s about convincing the people who are listening to the argument.
You lead a sheltered existance, I have met loads. Generally they talk about Jesus as an inspirational hero, a buddy or just an all around swell guy, rather than going uppity about the god talk.
Erek
The people who moved here first had everything to do with the founding of America, idealistic propagandizing of the freemason slaveowners who assembled the American government aside.
The reason the first amendment is worded the way it is has LITTLE to do with protecting atheists, muslims, buddhists, taoists etc… It was framed as it was to keep Christians from persecuting other Christians like they were doing in Europe left and right for the prior few centuries. Certainly it was intentionally broad so it could accept all religions, but specifically it was about christian on christian violence, because that’s the experience the founding fathers had. It’s why many people particularly the puritans came here, so they could escape that violence.
The provision doesn’t limit a majority religion dominating the electorate, it only limits the ability to form a state religion. The Christian Right has far less power in this country than people think. It is because we allow them to frame so many of the debates, relegating us to the defensive that it seems like they have so much power, their power is illusory, they might be able to pack 2000 people into an ampitheater in Atlanta, but I can pack 2000 people into a Rave in New York. It’s a matter of their social cohesion more than anything.
This issue is less a matter of particular religion than it is the basic liberal/conservative question. It is easier for ultra conservatives to join a cohesive form of groupthink than it is for liberals. Both engage in groupthink, but one has a hierarchy through which to funnel targetted money that really makes all the difference. That and the fact that we allow them to frame the debate constantly.
Erek
Fritz, about your OP:
Doesn’t Bill Clinton meet most of your requirements?