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| Do we really look at experience and religion in elections?
Posted: 9/2/2008 4:39:19 AM |
FAITH & POLITICS go hand-in-hand. A person's faith will influence their politics.
You're correct in that a person's faith WILL influence their politics. But that's not a good thing in my book. Politics should not be driven by religion. By creating laws based on religion, then our politicians are doing nothing more than forcing their religions on others.
How many times have we heard George Bush say that God was behind us in this war? President Bush has positioned himself unambiguously as an evangelical Christian who promotes evangelical Christian values - he has done this as a political candidate and he does this in the social policies he advocates.
It's true that most of America is Christian. But it's also true that there are more religions in America than any other country. Therefore, Christianity is a special interest group just like any other. And I, for one, think we should get rid of special interest groups.
It's our freedom of religion that is supposed to make us so great. The constitution was designed so that we would not be forced to follow one religion. But by electing religious fanatics, we are doing nothing more than providing our government the opportunity limit our religious choices. | |
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| Do we really look at experience and religion in elections?
Posted: 9/2/2008 11:20:39 AM | I think that people often CONFUSE God, faith, religion, christianity and church and lump them all in one giant negative bundle. In fact, all of things can be used either for negative things (e.g. war, judgment, fanaticism) or positive things (e.g. addiction recovery, social aid, helping the poor). So, instead of being so quick to judge one must understand the VAST COMPLEXITY of the issue. Also, one must realise that they are Christians on both sides of the Political Spectrum (they are not all on the "Religious Right" has been traditionally thought). The Democrats worship the same God in the Blue States (as Obama mentioned at the DNC 2004).
Obama is a CHRISTIAN and his faith has definitely influenced him in his Character, Family, Worldview, Speeches, and Policies. Obama thinks that it is important to discuss Faith in a Pluralistic Society. I agree with him. | |
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| Do we really look at experience and religion in elections?
Posted: 9/2/2008 3:38:42 PM | Obama is a CHRISTIAN and his faith has definitely influenced him in his Character, Family, Worldview, Speeches, and Policies. Obama thinks that it is important to discuss Faith in a Pluralistic Society. I agree with him.
While I don't disagree that Obama is a Christian, and I don't disagree that his Christian faith influences his decisions, the fact is, one doesn't have to be Christian (or of any other religion) to have a strong character, firm family values, compassionate world views, and moral policies.
I also agree that religion can be used to make good decisions, but it can also be used to bolster much needed support for not-so-moral campaigns as we have seen in the last 8 years. It can also be used as a tool for deception and a scapegoat for misdeeds. It's much more acceptable for a president to say "We will win this war because God is on our side" than it is to say "We will win this war because we have bigger guns and we are not afraid to use them". As long as our politicians use religion as a smoke screen, I will rather it be kept out of the picture. | |
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| Do we really look at experience and religion in elections?
Posted: 9/2/2008 4:39:53 PM | I would just like to point out some quotes from a couple of our most prominent founding fathers. The creators of our constitution and liberates of America.
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity, one redeeming feature." Thomas Jefferson
"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies." Thomas Jefferson
"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned: yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites." Thomas Jefferson
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." James Madison
"Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together." James Madison
"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries." James Madison
I think the last two quotes are the most important since Madison was considered by his peers to be the foremost expert on the subject and was therefor given the task to write the first amendment. He may not use the specific phrase "separation of church and state" in this amendment, but he does use the phrase when talking about the purpose of the amendment in a letter objecting to the use of government land for churches in 1803. I would think that the author of an amendment probably has the most accurate translation of said amendment, for he, if no one else, is truly aware of his reasons for writing it. | |
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| Do we really look at experience and religion in elections?
Posted: 9/3/2008 12:46:37 PM | | Cncgandolf, I find you along with Exodus, Stranger, Mackevinized and Stefano among the best-informed and most articulate of "the enemy", but I have to take a bit of issue with the conflict in Ireland, especially Northern Ireland being "Anglican vs Catholic." The English having little stomach for dirty work that they can get lesser people to do confiscated land from Irish Catholics and granted it to Scottish Presbyterians who were farther to the right in the religious spectrum and possessed genuine hatred for the "Papists" while sharing a common Celtic ethnic heritage. Not to say that no Anglo-Saxon Anglican ever oppressed a Catholic in person, or even that some of the more aristocratic members of the Guards Regiments and even the SAS were not members of the Church of England and killed by the Provos... | |
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| Do we really look at experience and religion in elections?
Posted: 9/4/2008 8:15:26 PM |
But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789 (Richard Price had written to TJ on Oct. 26. about the harm done by religion and wrote "Would not Society be better without Such religions? Is Atheism less pernicious than Demonism?")
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Mrs. Samuel H. Smith, August, 6, 1816
How's that for kickin it old school on this subject?
See more here
http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm | |
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| Do we really look at experience and religion in elections?
Posted: 9/4/2008 10:44:31 PM | It's always seemed strange to me that the USA , which is a secular country , and prides itself for it's religious tolerance , is still full of people saying they couldn't vote for Obama because he might not be a Christian.
And yet in the UK , which is a Christian country ( and even has it's own church ) , religion never seems to be an issue. | |
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| Do we really look at experience and religion in elections?
Posted: 9/4/2008 10:50:02 PM |
It's always seemed strange to me that the USA , which is a secular country , and prides itself for it's religious tolerance , is still full of people saying they couldn't vote for Obama because he might not be a Christian.
And yet in the UK , which is a Christian country ( and even has it's own church ) , religion never seems to be an issue.
It might be because a good bit of your religious zealots ran here. Remember the puritans?
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| Do we really look at experience and religion in elections?
Posted: 9/7/2008 8:39:02 PM |
And yet in the UK , which is a Christian country ( and even has it's own church ) , religion never seems to be an issue.
Do you remember when/how that church came into being? It didn't have anything to do with God, and everything to do with...yikes...politics... | |
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| Do we really look at experience and religion in elections?
Posted: 9/8/2008 1:03:17 AM | | England was strongly Christian prior to the Angican Church being formed due to the Henry VIII conflict with the Catholic Church. So, the Church in England has EVERYTHING to do with God. Politics came into the picture later. | |
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| Do we really look at experience and religion in elections?
Posted: 9/8/2008 2:19:10 AM | I normally look for someone who is qualified and experience is one factor. But this election is a bit different because of how screwed up Bush/Chaney has made this country that we may need to think outside of the box a little bit when it comes to experience. I don't think either Obama or McCain is qualified. One wants big government to solve the world's problems and promises a vague sense of change while the other one wants to continue the Bush economic policy and wants to start wars like a school yard bully. Neither of those is acceptable or qualified.
As far as religion is concerned as long as they are not too far off the deep end either way I can care less. I rather enjoy McCain's understated religious beliefs. But since he wants to pander to the far right he is being much more demonstrative about them and that turns me off. I thought the republican convention was a bit extreme in their religious conservative ways. I personally think the religious right has destroyed the republican party but that is just me. | |
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