I'm adding to a blog I recently read. While the blogger has pointed out the lack of separation between church and state, it's been something I've been wondering about for awhile.
When did church and politics go hand-in-hand? Some could argue it started way back when in the Middle Ages, back in the good olde days of the Hundred Years War and the likes, when priests were told to give patriotic sermons for their country, claiming the glory of God was on their side.
Fast forward to today. . .Not much difference. It's been a looong time since I've been to Church, so long, I can't remember when I stopped going, but I remember on 9/11, flocking to churches wasn't that uncommon. It's was okay, even natural. People needed solistice on that day. But I bet some churches slid into the political while trying to offer solstice. Some priest could have said the War of Iraq God favored so why were we to argue?
People flock to church to decide their political leaders. It was a practice not uncommon in the Election of 2004. Kerry, the Democrat primary, was pro-abortion, which everyone knows the Church doesn't condone. The Church most likely told the people to vote Republican. If you were a true Christian and a true fellow human being, you voted Republican. Never mind that George Bush was killing innocent people on both sides in Iraq at the time. As long as he claimed to be pro-life, the Church voted in his favor and the real religious decided to vote Republican.
Church is probably strictly pro-Republican at the moment but which side they are on is besides the point. If they supported the Democrats or Green or whoever, it would still be wrong. What the Church is doing is propaganda, forcing people to decide what would God do? And what would Jesus do in this situation? Jesus was wise enough to keep out of politics in his time. Using God or Allah or even any form of deity to form your own opinion and force it on someone else is wrong? Who are we to think we know what God or gods are thinking? The Bible, as far as I know, contains no messages about using religion as an ultimatum to make people decide.
Church and state are kept separate for a reason. Religion and politics, while many could argue have some similarities, do not go hand and hand. The Church cannot force their opinion on its members and neither should the government allow their own views bleed into the Church.
It's unfair to give someone an ultimatum. Religious ultimatums are just as corrupt as any other. The Church cannot say God favors when they favor it. In the end the decision rests with the person but the Church sure doesn't make it easy for its members to disagree.
Even though the church-state debate has been going on for centuries, they really do need to be separated. The religious wars centuries ago should be proof enough when the church has stretched too far into politics. God gave us the power of free will. And it's wrong for members who claim to be doing God's will try to destroy that.
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On one hand, be careful of 'evidence' starting with the words 'they probably' did this or that.
on the other hand... why is it wrong for a church to say "we support candidate X" ?
The Constitution has no problem with that and, in fact, only says that the Government can't say "you will be long to Church Y."
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"
that says nothing about a church saying "support this candidate because their political views fall in line with the morals that we profess to believe."
my 2 cents.
"Church and state are kept separate for a reason."
Yeah, and that reason ironically lies in the fact that politics, for it to be truly effective, needs to be based on reason. Religion, on the other hand, flourishes where reason is at it's thinnest spread. The unreasonable will always want to decorate politics with it's talismans and try to employ a smorgasboard of superstitious mumbo jumbo and various witch doctors to exact control over the people, they are unreasonable, we can expect nothing less. As long as the reasonable have the correct expectations they will be ever ready to maintain as much distance between Church and State as is humanly possible. It's not perfect, but it's something at least.
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I am the people my mother warned me about.
Religion is the opposite of reason? Is that your idea?
Here's an odd list... explain it if you can:
Roger Bacon - Christian
Johannes Kepler - Christian
Johannes Baptista van Helmont - Christian
Blaise Pascal - Christian
Robert Boyle - Christian
Anton van Leeuwenhoek - Christian
Carolus Linnaeus - Christian
Leonhard Euler - Christian
John Dalton - Christian
Michael Faraday - Christian
John Frederick William Herschel - Christian
Matthew Fontaine Maury - Christian
James Prescott Joule - Christian
Gregor Mendel - Christian
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin - Christian
James Clerk Maxwell - Christian
George Washington Carver - Christian
Arthur Stanley Eddington - Christian
Since the modern era, when science and not religion took center stage, we have literally thousands upon thousands of such great and notable scientists and mathematicians. When religion still controlled society, we can only count a handful of geniuses who were able to overcome their religious background and think.
in today's day and age, we have much more effective modes of transporting information (printing press... also invented by a Christian, also the internet, television, etc)
we also have more people (increase the population as a whole and you increase the number of people able to mentally handle the challenge requried)
We also have the groundwork to go off of. What did Newton have to work off of? Bacon? they had nothing....
today's scientists base their work on these scientists' models...
No, the idea that religion kept science from working, as 'proven' by how many more scientists there are now.... it doesn't realy hold water.
Yes, religion did keep science from working. For instance, the entire idea of the Earth-centered world was Church policy. No scientist could contradict this dogma. So for hundred of years, even though quite a few, well before Copernicus, hinted at a Sun centered solar system, you could not discuss it in public. If you think foundations are important, what do you think would have happened if all inquiries were allowed by the Church?
Even today, science is being hampered by the religious. The Bush Administration is not allowing any grants to go to scientists studing evolutionary biology. They are preventing the study of human embryos. We have a handful of people endorsing "intelligent design" and pretending it is science, murking the rules of what truly is science.
That embryonic stem cell research cannot find enough private donors is based more on the history of embryonic stem cell research. Every time they test the embryonic stem cells, it leads to cancer.
The 'good things' that they attribute to stem cell research are done with adult stem cells and cord stem cells. They are the methods that show promise, they are the ones that are getting funding and they are, oddly ehough, the ones that don't involve destroying embryos.
Funny how that works.
An organized belief system that actively encourages people to suspend disbelief and one that fetes those who believe blindly without any reasonable evidence in something unprovable as fact, could be said to be unreasonable, no?
Do you think that an organization that encourages people to believe in unproven metaphysical concepts like Heaven and Hell and actively promotes superstition and the employment of superstitious ritual as a means to dealing with the world around us could really be considered reasonable?
You list a number of great scientists and thinkers who also demonstrate allegience to Christian belief systems, but that still doesn't make these systems reasonable. You can stick Shaq on the front of a sugar drenched breakfast cereal, it doesn't mean that this cereal will help you perform like Shaq, or that the cereal had anything to do with his success. He may even actually eat this cereal, but he counters it's effects by training extra hard and eating correctly in other areas.
Religious belief systems are for the most part based on manipulative persuasive technique. When you take a baby and condition it ruthlessly in an agressive religious belief system from birth, one that threatens their very soul for eternity with a pain unheard of on Earth for non-compliance, it is hardly surprising that an otherwise reasonable adult might still harbour unreasonable superstitions as a result of their childhood. Intelligence alone will not protect a person from this kind of conditioning, only freedom will.
It is not at all uncommon for a religious individual to be able to dismiss another another religious belief system based on reason, however it them proves very hard for them to disregard the content of their own belief system using the same reasonable measure. That is unreasonable. I have watched Christian friends of mine scoffing and laughing at the Hindu belief that there are 50 million Gods, like the notion was just primative superstition, as if the notion that there is one God and he wrote a book for humans dictating his likes and dislikes to us like some kind of aggressive myspace account is the epitome of reason, the religion of the future...progressive.
Religion is not based on reason, it is based on the suspension of disbelief and the encouragement of faith. It rewards those who blindly obey without question, regardless of how unreasonable the order. Most organized religions discourage query and ridicule reasonable examination of their beliefs as 'worldly', 'blasphemous', 'sinful' or whatever, basically telling those arrogant enough to demand a bit of reason here and there that they will get theirs in a firey pit somewhere by the king boogeyman and his many minions. It all sounds a little bit Harry Potter to me, and that's enough to cement my resolve regarding Church's seperation from state.
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I am the people my mother warned me about.
The people I lsited are historically some of the greatest Scientific minds to have existed, and their work is the basis for many things today.... and they were Christians.
That seems to rather nicely counter your idea that religion is in opposition to thought and reason.
In fact, many christians exist as scientists today, and have historically been the major push of scientific discovery.
Unlike many scientists today who want to use science as a tool to try and prove that God doens't exist, Christians who are scientists want to use science to further explore creation.
One scientist sees a hand and sees billions and billions of years of evolution. Another scientist sees a hand and see the artistic work of a Creator.
"The people I lsited are historically some of the greatest Scientific minds to have existed, and their work is the basis for many things today.... and they were Christians.
That seems to rather nicely counter your idea that religion is in opposition to thought and reason."
That doesn't counter shit, nicely or otherwise. Just because somebody who is a member of a church is reasonable in their practices outside of church doctrine, that doesn't mean the church and it's dogma is reasonable by default. What your list highlights is the fact that even intelligent, scientifically minded people can be sucked in by unreasonable organizations.
I didn't originally claim that a person's church membership would prevent them from achieving scientific excellence, I said that organized religions and many of their unfounded beliefs defy reason; they operate off the back of superstitious behaviour, which is pretty much the opposite of reason.
Listing out scientists who are Christian does nothing to prove organized religions aren't more driven by superstition than reason. I don't actually think you read a single word of my last post or if you did, you just ignored the content.
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I am the people my mother warned me about.
I couldn't get past the word "solistice."
i hope it is
"Pride is concerned with who is right. Humility is concerned with what is right."
http://www.progressiveu.org/231615-this-is-a-muslim-girls-plight