The belgian constitution is set up under the influence of the liberal democracy. I already told you that.
There is no Catholic interference in that. State and religion are completely - and I say: completely - separated.
By the way: the Chrisitans at the time were Catholic, not protestant. (For protestants you must look at the Netherlands).
And I also said that the closing on sunday had originally its roots in Catholicism. Yet the LAW on the obligation for shop and stores to close at least one day a week has no roots at all in any religion.
That many people followed old habits in following that law is due to the fact that sunday falls in the weekend. Yet there are many shops open on sunday, as I also said before. Every bakery is open, the most florists are at least open in the morning, every Muslim shop is open, Jewish shops are in many cases open, restaurants are open and so on…
There are in touristic centres whole streets or neighborhoods or even towns where the shops are open on sunday.
The closing day is the choice of the shop owner, not the choice of any religion.
However, the weekend is, itself, a cultural holdover from Christian practices, when Sunday was the day of rest and Saturday began to be used as a preparation for Sunday, so that industries shut down earlier in the day on Saturday and, finally, began shutting down entirely on Saturday as people began to use the “preparation” time for other liesure activities.
Originally:
Now:
You are backpedaling and you are making our point. The blue laws of the United States were not written to enforce any particular religion. They did not serve tha Episcopalians. They did not serve the Methodists, Baptists, or Congregationalists. They were simply extending the “habit,” if you will, that did arise from Christianity. You are quibbling over a detail that does not make your point.
Not from a U.S. perspective. It would not be legal in the U.S. for the government to pay the wages of the professors at the University of Notre Dame the way that the Belgian government pays the wages of the faculty at Lueven and Louvain.
You are looking at how two different countries deal with the issue of government and religion and are simply declaring that Belgian does not do what is clearly does. (You are also basing your claims about how the U.S. is on one or two anecdotes that have more to do with the personalities involved than with the U.S. approach to religion and government.
I find it amusing that you try to tell us what happens in our country (while clearly not understanding the history or the social interactions), yet you continue to insist that we cannot comment on your area of the world. It may give you great satisfaction to lecture us (in your ignorance) on our situation while claiming that we cannot comment on yours, but most of us simply find that to be silly.
OP provides no example in support of this sweeping statement, other than the BBC report referring to a single judge in Alabama. BTW, the link doesn’t work.
OP has anwered his own question in the quote he referenced. The judge was duly elected by a majority of the voters in his constituency. There is no mechanism I know of to annul a properly-held election simply because a candidate chose to campaign on statements supporting a particular religion.
The OP is correct that it is unusual by current European standards for public servants to be elected based on statements of support for a particular religion. The OP is also more or less corrrect that there is a certain degree of political influence wielded by self-identified ‘Christians’ in various parts of the country. It is simply incorrect, however, to make the sweeping assertion that the entire United States is governed by ‘religious fanatics’ based on the one example given here. In any event, the cited example does nothing to support the OP’s opening statement, quoted at the beginning of this post.
Try to read my posts in order to avoid quoting not only out of context but in an attempt to make points where there are none to makesince you make the wrong connections using these quotes in connection with others in connection with your additions to them who are no points you can make on them but merely attempts to mislead readers who didn’t read all the posts I made here.
Now is this sentence clear to you?
OK. Then you must be able to read my posts as they are written instead of reading and quoting them as you wish to read and quote them.
Thank you.
I’ll send you some aspirine since I guess you have now the beginning of a headache.
The only reason that you have heard about this situation at all is that there are Americans – US’ers – that find this man’s decision to be unsuitable – against the laws of this land – weird. Some of them are Southerners! Some of them are from Alabama! And some of them are Christians!
I think you are pretending not to hear us.
Tom, you might be surprised at the number of non-religious people who would come before this judge’s court. (BTW, you do as much to fight my own ignorance as anyone at SDMB. Thanks for that.)
It is not because the State has a budget for financial support of the recognized religions (pay attention to it that this is not the same as “legal” since the religious freedom in Belgium makes every religion legal), that those religions can have any influence on the State or the State has any influence on religions.
Read my posts about how a religion can get financial support.
The same counts for secular organisations.
And even little purely local events like a streetbarbeque orgnaized by a neighbourhood can ask and get financial support by the state, through its local town or village administration. Which is called “cultural budget”.
If you think a neighborhood can because of this influence the State… Smile smile on this side of the ocean.
Same counts for religions, for secular organisations or for whatever.
What needs to be understood is that religion is by no means given the amount of importance it is given in the USA.
Religion is something personal. Not something advocated in public, let be made appeal on by politicians or any kind of public servant. People would declare them completely mad.
I don’t know how you come to the idea, but the Belgian State doesn’t pay ane wages of any professor or any personel on any university.
I am the first to know how the university of Leuven functions since I studied there.
What is subsidized is of course education in general, which counts from kindergarten upto university and is related to the amount of enrolments in schools. That system is in evolution rigfht now but of course the subsidizing remains.
Sorry but Belgium was and still is a Catholic country, although the practicing part is severely reduced the last decades.
Protestants are to be found in the Netherlands. This has roots in the history.
The point is not just whether the state-funded religious organizations can influence the state, but also whether the state can influence the religious organizations. You assert that this does not happen, but in the real world (Belgium or the U.S.), he who pays the piper can most certainly influence the tune.
Word word word God word word word sentence word God word word God word word God sentence God word word God…
As for your strange interpretationg that I make "sweeping … etc…
?
I only state what I state. Which goes about this case and which goes about the question how such a person can be appointed in such a position in a country that claims toe be (and read here with your eyes opoen please) SECULAR.
As for the USA nowadays government by religious fanatics.
Well fall backwards of surprize, but that is now exactly how so very many people outside the USA perceive a president of the USA who claimes openly that he is “guided by God to get evil out of the world” and uses every two or 3 words the word God in public speaches.
Not to speak about the religious fanatics in his government.
Well then you show me how it is possible in state where such interference is outlawed by the very State structure since the State is the State and religion is religion.
I said: even little local events can ask for subsidizing.
Forgot to point out that “state funded” is to me sounding as if without the State there would be no religion.
What is a fact is that we don’t see TV preachers urging their followers to send them money and becoming ridiculous caricatures of the religions they claim to follow.
There is no popping up of thousands and thousands of sects who multiply like mushrooms, all wanting to have their peace of the cake, raping the religions and tearing them apart in caricatures.
There is no abuse of good believing people who are ripped of their money by criminals claiming they are religious leaders.
If that is what you call “interfering of the state in religion” because this isn’t done in Belgium, well…
You can keep your own system an be happy with all these extremists and lunatics and plain thieves and criminals using religions as a decoy to robb good believing influencable people.
I prefer them not to pop up on my TV screen, on the streets, or where ever I can come across them when I’m in Belgium.
And that money from the state of Belgium is used to pay the faculty and staff–a situation that wouldd not be allowed in the U.S. because it is allows the state to have a voice in the operation of a religion. (If the university does not behave in the “coorect” manner, it is subject to the state reducing its subsidy.)
You are claiming that there is no entanglement in Belgium while there is in the U.S. I am pointing out that both are entanglements, but that they have different forms.
You know what? I never see them, either. They have their own little niche and their own little group of followers, and they never get in my vision, at all (unless someone with too much time on their hands begins ranting about them instead of ignoring them).
That, of course, is not an actual quote by Bush. Perhaps you would like to consider supporting your argument with an actual fact, rather than childish blather.
Here is the answer again, since you apparently did not understand when I and several other posters explained this to you: the person mentioned in the article was ELECTED by a majority of the voters in Alabama, not appointed. This does not mean the country does not have a generally secular political system, only, as I’ll say once again, that there is no mechanism to prevent a candidate for political office choosing to obtain votes by campaigning on a religious agenda.
In any event, I answered the question you asked, without hostility or rudeness. You, in turn, choose to reply not with factuaql rebuttal but with hostility and rudeness. You do this very often. This, in fact, is precisely why you are treated with very little respect in this forum.
I made no argument whatever against the notion that people outside the USA perceive a strain of religious fanaticism in some elements of the US government, nor did I deny that it exists in some areas. What I did argue was that the perception, that this is pervasive in government, may be flawed, due to their, and your, lack of knowledge of the US. You have demonstrated this lack of knowledge numerous times in your posts.
BTW, your second supposed Bush quote also fails to quote him accurately.