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Is Religion a Threat to Democracy?
Faith Talk on the Campaign Trail
It's a presidential campaign like no other. The candidates have been falling all over each other in their rush to declare the depth and sincerity of their religious faith. The pundits have been just as eager to raise questions that seem obvious and important: Should we let religious beliefs influence the making of law and public policy? If so, in what way and to what extent? Those questions, however, assume that candidates bring the subject of faith into the political arena largely to justify -- or turn up the heat under -- their policy positions. In fact, faith talk often has little to do with candidates' stands on the issues. There's something else going on here.
Look at the TV ad that brought Mike Huckabee out of obscurity in Iowa, the one that identified him as a "Christian Leader" who proclaims: "Faith doesn't just influence me. It really defines me." That ad did indeed mention a couple of actual political issues -- the usual suspects, abortion and gay marriage -- but only in passing. Then Huckabee followed up with a red sweater-themed Christmas ad that actively encouraged voters to ignore the issues. We're all tired of politics, the kindly pastor indicated. Let's just drop all the policy stuff and talk about Christmas -- and Christ.
Ads like his aren't meant to argue policy. They aim to create an image -- in this case, of a good Christian with a steady moral compass who sticks to his principles. At a deeper level, faith-talk ads work hard to turn the candidate -- whatever candidate -- into a bulwark of solidity, a symbol of certainty; their goal is to offer assurance that the basic rules for living remain fixed, objective truths, as true as religion.
In a time when the world seems like a shaky place -- whether you have a child in Iraq, a mortgage you may not be able to meet, a pension threatening to head south, a job evaporating under you, a loved one battling drug or alcohol addiction, an ex who just came out as gay or born-again, or a president you just can't trust -- you may begin to wonder whether there is any moral order in the universe. Are the very foundations of society so shaky that they might not hold up for long? Words about faith -- nearly any words -- speak reassuringly to such fears, which haunt millions of Americans.
These fears and the religious responses to them have been a key to the political success of the religious right in recent decades. Randall Balmer, a leading scholar of evangelical Christianity, points out that it's offered not so much "issues" to mobilize around as "an unambiguous morality in an age of moral and ethical uncertainty."
Mitt Romney was courting the evangelical-swinging-toward-Huckabee vote when he, too, went out of his way to link religion with moral absolutes in his big Iowa speech on faith. Our "common creed of moral convictions... the firm ground on which Americans of different faiths meet" turned out, utterly unsurprisingly, to be none other than religious soil: "We believe that every single human being is a child of God... liberty is a gift of God." No doubts allowed here.
American politicians have regularly wielded religious language and symbolism in their moments of need, and such faith talk has always helped provide a sense of moral certainty in a shape-shifting world. But in the better years of the previous century, candidates used religion mostly as an adjunct to the real meat of the political process, a tool to whip up support for policies.
How times have changed. Think of it, perhaps, as a way to measure the powerful sense of unsettledness that has taken a firm hold on American society. Candidates increasingly keep their talk about religion separate from specific campaign issues. They promote faith as something important and valuable in and of itself in the election process. They invariably avow the deep roots of their religious faith and link it not with issues, but with certitude itself.
Sometimes it seems that Democrats do this with even more grim regularity than Republicans. John Edwards, for example, reassured the nation that "the hand of God today is in every step of what happens with me and every human being that exists on this planet." In the same forum, Hillary Clinton proclaimed that she "had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought. And that's all one can expect or hope for."
When religious language enters the political arena in this way, as an end in itself, it always sends the same symbolic message: Yes, Virginia (or Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina) there are absolute values, universal truths that can never change. You are not adrift in a sea of moral chaos. Elect me and you're sure to have a fixed mooring to hold you and your community fast forever.
That message does its work in cultural depths that arguments about the separation of church and state can never touch. Even if the candidates themselves don't always understand what their words are doing, this is the biggest, most overlooked piece in today's faith and politics puzzle -- and once you start looking for it, you find it nearly everywhere on the political landscape.
The Threat to Democracy
So, when it comes to religion and politics, here's the most critical question: Should we turn the political arena into a stage to dramatize our quest for moral certainty? The simple answer is no -- for lots of reasons.
For starters, it's a direct threat to democracy. The essence of our system is that we, the people, get to choose our values. We don't discover them inscribed in the cosmos. So everything must be open to question, to debate, and therefore to change. In a democracy, there should be no fixed truth except that everyone has the right to offer a new view -- and to change his or her mind. It's a process whose outcome should never be predictable, a process without end. A claim to absolute truth -- any absolute truth -- stops that process.
For those of us who see the political arena as the place where the whole community gathers to work for a better world, it's even more important to insist that politics must be about large-scale change. The politics of moral absolutes sends just the opposite message: Don't worry, whatever small changes are necessary, it's only in order to resist the fundamental crumbling that frightens so many. Nothing really important can ever change.
Many liberals and progressives hear that profoundly conservative message even when it's hidden beneath all the reasonable arguments about church and state. That's one big reason they are often so quick to sound a shrill alarm at every sign of faith-based politics.
They also know how easy it is to go from "there is a fixed truth" to "I have that fixed truth." And they've seen that the fixed truth in question is all too often about personal behaviors that ought to be matters of free choice in a democracy.
Which brings us to the next danger: Words alone are rarely enough to reassure the uncertain. In fact, the more people rely on faith talk to pursue certainty, the more they may actually reinforce both anxiety and uncertainty. It's a small step indeed to move beyond the issue of individual self-control to controlling others through the passage of laws.
Campaigns to put the government's hands on our bodies are not usually missionary efforts meant to make us accept someone else's religion. They are much more often campaigns to stage symbolic dramas about self-control and moral reassurance.
Controlling the Passions
American culture has always put a spotlight on the question: Can you control your impulses and desires -- especially sexual desires -- enough to live up to the moral rules? As historian of religion John F. Wilson tells us, the quest for surety has typically focused on a "control of self" that "through discipline" finally becomes self-control. In the 2008 presidential campaign, this still remains true. Listen, for example, to Barack Obama: "My Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it. So I think faith and guidance can help fortify... a sense of reverence that all young people should have for the act of sexual intimacy."
Mitt Romney fit snugly into the same mold. He started his widely-heralded statement on religion by talking about a time when "our nation faced its greatest peril," a threat to "the survival of a free land." Was he talking about terrorism? No. He immediately went on to warn that the real danger comes from "human passions unbridled." Only morality and religion can do the necessary bridling, he argued, quoting John Adams to make his case: "Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people" -- in other words, people who can control themselves. That's why "freedom requires religion."
All too often, though, the faith-talk view of freedom ends up taking away freedom. When Romney said he'd be "delighted" to sign "a federal ban on all abortions," only a minority of Americans approved of that position (if we can believe the polls), but it was a sizeable minority. For them, fear of unbridled passion is stronger than any commitment to personal freedom.
In the end, it may be mostly their own passions that they fear. But since the effort to control oneself is frustrating, it can easily turn into a quest for "control over other selves," to quote historian Wilson again, "with essentially bipolar frameworks for conceiving of the world: good versus bad, us versus them" -- "them" being liberals, secular humanists, wild kids, or whatever label the moment calls for.
The upholders of virtue want to convince each other that their values are absolutely true. So they stick together and stand firm against those who walk in error. As Romney put it, "Any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty has a friend and ally in me."
That's the main dynamic driving the movements to ban abortion and gay marriage. But they're just the latest in a long line of such movements, including those aimed at prohibiting or restricting alcohol, drugs, gambling, birth control, crime, and other behaviors that are, in a given period, styled as immoral.
Since it's always about getting "them" to control their passions, the target is usually personal behavior. But it doesn't have to be. Just about any law or policy can become a symbol of eternal moral truth -- even foreign policy, one area where liberals, embarked on their own faith-talk campaigns, are more likely to join conservatives.
The bipartisan war on terror has, for instance, been a symbolic drama of "us versus them," acting out a tale of moral truth. Rudolph Giuliani made the connection clear shortly after the 9/11 attack when he went to the United Nations to whip up support for that "war." "The era of moral relativism... must end," he demanded. "Moral relativism does not have a place in this discussion and debate."
Nor does it have a place in the current campaign debate about foreign policy. Candidate Huckabee, for example, has no hesitation about linking war abroad to the state of morality here at home. He wants to continue fighting in Iraq, he says, because "our way of life, our economic and moral strength, our civilization is at stake... I am determined to look this evil in the eye, confront it, defeat it." As his anti-gay marriage statement asks, "What's the point of keeping the terrorists at bay in the Middle East, if we can't keep decline and decadence at bay here at home?"
On the liberal side, the theme is more muted but still there. Barack Obama, for instance, has affirmed that the U.S. must "lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good. I still believe that America is the last, best hope of Earth." Apparently that's why we need to keep tens of thousands of troops in Iraq indefinitely. Clinton calls for "a bipartisan consensus to ensure our interests, increase our security and advance our values," acting out "our deeply-held desire to remake the world as it ought to be." Apparently that's why, in her words, "we cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current leadership of Iran."
When words and policies become symbols of moral absolutes, they are usually about preventing some "evil" deed or turning things back to the way they (supposedly) used to be. So they are likely to have a conservative impact, even when they come from liberals.
The Future of Faith Talk
In itself, faith in politics poses no great danger to democracy as long as the debates are really about policies -- and religious values are translated into political values, articulated in ways that can be rationally debated by people who don't share them. The challenge is not to get religion out of politics. It's to get the quest for certitude out of politics.
The first step is to ask why that quest seems increasingly central to our politics today. It's not simply because a right-wing cabal wants to impose its religion on us. The cabal exists, but it's not powerful enough to shape the political scene on its own. That power lies with millions of voters across the political spectrum. Candidates talk about faith because they want to win votes.
Voters reward faith talk because they want candidates to offer them symbols of immutable moral order. The root of the problem lies in the underlying insecurities of voters, in a sense of powerlessness that makes change seem so frightening, and control -- especially of others -- so necessary.
The only way to alter that condition is to transform our society so that voters will feel empowered enough to take the risks, and tolerate the freedom that democracy requires. That would be genuine change. It's a political problem with a political solution. Until that solution begins to emerge, there is no way to take the conservative symbolic message of faith talk out of American politics.
Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin.
Copyright 2008 Ira Chernus
130 Comments so far
Show AllReligion used to be a private decision and people respected that. It didn't matter who your God was; since all Gods were good. The idea of keeping religion out of politics showed a lot of wisdom on the part of the founding fathers, or maybe some of them read Thomas Paine. Either way the Constitution makes the separation of religion and government very clear. And if we had some smart thinkers or some Chomsky readers in our government today it would surely see the need to also keep business and government separate. This alliance is much more dangerous than government and religion. Just look at Bush doing business in Saudi Arabia. It reminds me of the line in Apocalypse Now: "He's an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill."
Hoa binh
The Christian fundamentalists who think that God wants them to relive the crusades, who also think that we shouldn't take care of our planet, because (in their view) God's going to come and pick all the christians (who are good enough) up and take them to heaven - are much more than threats to democracy.
They and their extreme ignorance threaten the existence of our whole civilization.
If you want a look at the future as envisioned by Christianists, theocrats, dominionists, Scalia, Roberts and Huckabee, check out the new book "Department of Homeland Decency: Decency Rules and Regulations Manual." It's a funny political satire of how our lives would be ordered if -- or when -- they get the power. The Department's motto is "Marching proudly backwards to the future and the book is just out from Three Rivers Press.
If religion must be part of politics, would that we had the brains to select a decent one. I think the amount of misery the Abramic Trinity have created in the world disqualifies them. A return to Earth Based (what is now called Paganism) Spirituality would surely be a plus, at least there would be so many factions that the Pat Robertsons of our world would have to find real work. In any case, bringing Religion into our Democracy seems to cheapen both.
Veteran, 66-68
When politicians and clerics say morality they mean sex. They don't mean torture, war, plunder and lies.
Religion a threat to democracy? Maybe and then again maybe not.Christianists on the other hand are an ABSOLUTE threat to our democracy.
It has become quite apparent that the fundamentalist versions of the big two of monotheism: Christianity & Islam, have become the enemies of free choice and thought. Where once they served to advance mankind, they are now hinderances. Voltaire is more right than ever, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary for man to invent him."
What most religious people fail to understand is that the practice of democracy is as much an exercise of the human spirit as in the practice of religion.
That is why democracy is meant to rule in the public arena, not a theocracy that becomes the enemy democracy.
Religion is meant is to raise the consciousness of the faithful as an invitation for personal transformation. Thus our churches are meant to make the faithful better citizens in regards to the moral issues of ALL of the Ten Commandments. But of course this makes you wonder sometimes.
The great Franciscan teacher Fr. Richard Rohr of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque states: Christianity in America has become more of a belonging system than a transformational system.
Real Christians don't torture, don't steal, don't trash the earth, don't invade countries that are no threat to us, don't make war for resources than can be bought, don't arm other nations so that they can make war on each other.
Too bad the US can't be like most other developed nations today, where religion is a non-issue in politics. And where religion does rear its head in politics, it is largely ignored or reduced to a meaningless formality.
Its odd how so many people will tolerate religion in political discourse (and no, I don't mean the government tolerating it, but the citizenry-- there's a huge difference).
~ ~ ~
"If for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please get out of the way." (Kevin Conrad)
God is Truth, Truth is Knowledge, Knowledge is Light, Light is Power, Power is Existence, Existence is Life, Life is Beauty, Beauty is Love, Love is man the Mental Being, Mental Being is Self Consciosness, Self Consciouness is Self Respect and Self Respect is the way to the life of Truth, Knowledge, Power and Love, because Truth is the Beginning, the Middle and the End.
That said, for a pragmatic point of view I always love to have an athiest in any important discussion for they remove the taint of religious exceptialism in order to achieve linear clarity.
Perhaps an Athiest candidate is what we need at this time.
Just one thing: democrats ARE NOT liberals.
All good comments above.
In my view this is one of the best essays ever published by Professor Chernus. It's so important to expose the disconnect between religion's using the term FREEDOM when their actual policies are bent on controling people. And yes. Sex is a huge tool in overall repression. (I posted an explanation for this on another CD site when the topic was abstinency and why it doesn't work.)
Seems Chernus's insight into why uncertainty plays into the hand of fundamentalist religions for their (false) claims to certainty is the religious component to Naomi's SHOCK DOCTRINE. As the religions serve the states that serve the corporations that increasingly make war while breaking down ecosystems (the basis for sustainability into the future) leaving all things in near chaos, FEAR is increased, and then religions rush in to sell the false balm: follow all these rules and your world will be righted. Sure. There were prophecies about false teachers in this interval of global transition... boy have they come out of the woodwork to claim moral authority while pushing the US towards a fascist state under cover of religious fig leafs. 21st century "Dr. feel good" now takes on the mask of pastor.
Organized religion is a fraud and a ripoff. All this believing in supernaturalism is based on knowledge of human mortality and a fear of illness and death (a reasonable fear to be sure), and the hope that their is some other existence after death. Also, religion from the start has been the way for societies to keep people in line and content with their station in life.
Religion is a particular threat to democracy within the U.S. Military, where enforced indoctrination in a radical form of fundamentalist Christianity has been going on for years. Check out the Military Religious Freedom Foundation at:
http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/
I wish politicians had the guts to say, when asked about their religious views, "Sorry, but my religion is private. What you and I need from each other is total commitment to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I promise you I will honor those documents, all laws legislated by the Congress, and all international laws and treaties to which we are a part."
It isn't just that some religious people are hoping to have their particular views enshrined in law, it's that they are for the most part fundamentalists with no respect for the right of others to hold different views and beliefs.
God, what a mess we have wrought!
Religion is really just big business and it has nothing or little to do with God or spirituality or reality as far as that goes. However, politicians seem to be under the delusion that they need approval from some block of voters and they say what they think people want to hear. I for one am not the least bit interested in what another person's relationship to spirit is. I am much more interested in knowing are they open minded and thoughtful and able to think critically. I want to also know if they have a heart and are capable of compassion. The reason I want to know these things is because in the White House now we have closed minded, limited thinkers who were heartless enough to start a war in pursuit of power and greed. The ego as the guiding force must come to an end.
Please tell the candidates for me and many of us to stop parading around their religious ideas and instead talk about how to bring America out of the mess it is in. Much of that mess is from people who think God is guiding them.
Joseph Bernard, Ph.D.
www.ExploreLifeBlog.com
www.peace-together.com
Bernice, your comment is right on the money.
Check out this site to see how they are trying to do it -
http://www.theocracywatch.org/
Religion is a subject unlike any other; that's why we have Separation of Church & State ---
I think we can handle "god"-talk even in the political arena -- which is the public arena -- IF it is open to the challenging and questioning which it warrants ---
Those politicians who introduce "god"-talk do so because they feel they can rely on only one kind of reception for it --- a reverential reception!
Yet, organized patriarchal religion should be harshly challenged and questioned at every turn ---
First, it's about patriarchal supremacy --
which has required a long list of enemies, i.e., women,
pagans, Africans, Jews, homosexuals.
It's an authoritarian system which has conquered thru
suppression, intimidation, torture, violence of every kind -- introducing the cross with the sword.
And, every intelligent person understands that there is no way to prove either the existence or the non-existence of a god.
Meanwhile, religious hierarchies and religious middlemen continue to try to use government to secure a cooperation with their religous laws which their own members defy.
religion was only RECENENTLY a private decision, usually forced upon you by the ruling elite or even your community or family. American mobility allowed a very large number of people to make a choice. A "personal relationship with god" is very new, in the past 150 and mostly starting in america (and came to a more broad appeal only in the last few generations).
And all gods were not good gods, but they all were powerfull. Religion, like war, is politics through other means.
Why I don't want to live in a religious state: the difference between a Sin and a Law... laws (like the article says) can be changed or debated, the criminal can pay for the crimes.... but a Sin is absolute.
You often hear the most intense young converts speak of feeling an emptiness inside before "finding god". I think the key's in that sentiment. And we've all got to kind of wonder: how can there there meaning in life if a million people can die for nothing in one stupid war? Is Christianity today really anything more than nihilism incognito? No doubt consumerism's part of it.
Religion, they say, is to keep people from a religious experience. I am amazed at people afferming their belief in:
Desire for other's oil
Fear of retribution
Duty to corporate country
In a word the temptations of the Buddah.
Dynamite essey, Chernus is exactly right. Abandoning the quest for certainty, an essentially religious endeavor, in favor of searching for a reliable methods of arriving at concensus, which is the core principle of science, was the stroke of genious on the part of our founding fathers that made democracy viable. Unfortunately, it's not the faux certainty of traditional religious dogma that's the biggest threat to democracy today, it's the faux certainty that ever increasing economic activity equates to societal success. We have an official state religion, it's not Abrahamic, it economic.
Christianism is a threat to democracy because it was created by a committee under the sponsorship of a Roman emperor who sought to make it a tool of political domination. There is a cornerstone moral value in the world, one proved by Immanuel Kant: the Golden Rule. Unfortunately the Golden Rule that can be logically demonstrated is not the one given in the gospels, but the one given by the Buddha: Do NOT do what you would NOT have others do unto you, i.e., do not victimize others. Even more unfortunately the class system of civilization in all its previous incarnations does precisely that. In its current incarnation, the class system supports capitalism, which must obtain victims in order to produce profits. The fictional character Jesus supports capitalism as given by the Parable of the Ten Talents, and again in the Parable of the Pounds, and not only that he does not bother to condemn the most vicious evil of his day … slavery. The message of cosmic love that is supposed to redeem his teaching was one explicitly rejected by Buddha as a non-sequitir; one cannot show love for all because to give love is to show partiality. Christianism is a philosophical delusion and its attendant notion of moral superiority is what binds the conservative base of its poor, ignorant, and deluded followers to their wealthy, power hungry and bloodthirsty leaders.
One only has to look to the Middle East to see the result of a state mandated religion on the rule of democracy. Many of the most oppresive states are Theocratic- not Democratic.
Any religion that doesn't teach and follow 'THE GOLDEN RULE' is a threat to democracy.
Live and let live! The hell with the soothsayers and charlatans and their latent desire for control and manipulation of the constituents who blindly believe them.
"Voters reward faith talk because they want candidates to offer them symbols of immutable moral order. The root of the problem lies in the underlying insecurities of voters, in a sense of powerlessness that makes change seem so frightening, and control — especially of others — so necessary."
I'd suggest to you that Christians usually vote for Christians simply because they want some one like themselves and some one that reflects their values. They are hardly likely to vote for a secularist that espouce's removing Christianity from government or the Constitution.
the only thing that frightens them is giving control to inept, corrupt and incompetent people whatever their religious or political persuasion.
Hypocracy and Religion have always gone hand in hand. Saying that religion is a threat to democracy is the same as saying that Evil is a threat to Good. They are opposites. Religion has always opposed Deocracy and will always do so. Once someone gets hooked on the religion drug, they immediately try to hook everyone else on it too. Religious people routinely try to tell others how to live and what to do based on their own distorted version of reality and the fantasy land they live in. Religious people care nothing about freedom unless you are part of their own little clique.
Religious people will willingly commit any crime, any atrocity, or violate any civil rights as long as they think it will benifit their church or their diety. This makes them a very serious threat.
A threat to Democracy? Absolutely!
Religion and patriotism, better defined as superstition and jingoism, have been with us since witch doctors, priests and politicians sought to centralize their power and concentrate their wealth by using fear of death and the unknown and promising to assuage our fears if we obey them.
Religion truly is the "opiate of the masses". It is the supreme distraction from the fact that throughout history, humankind is dominated and exploited by a small cabal of the rich and powerful. We can't escape our fate until We the People become the deciders by direct democratic means.
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."
Albert Einstein
In the West, when has religion NOT been a threat to democracy? Most Americans would still be worshipping Odin/Wuodan but for autocrats from about 600-1100 AD in Europe who, seeking to reduce balkanization, homogenize disparate populaces under a monothestic system, etc. forced their subjects to change religions. At the time, many people were little better than slaves. Serfom in some parts of eastern Europe lasted until the mid 1800's. Of course religion is about control.
Monotheism has served emperors well for a number of theological reasons since at least the time of Pharaoh. The middle-eastern monotheistic mythologies posses an unresolved dilemma known as theodicy, the so-called problem of evil (I prefer to call it the "problem of suffering" instead). All sorts of techniques have been offered by means of explanation: punishment, sin, a master plan, free will, etc.
But the bottom-line is that people are dropped off at a place of cognitive dissonance in which a supremely powerful and kind being/force lets all sorts of bad things happen.
This serves emperors well, something for them to model, since they can -- at once -- also claim that they are working in everyone's best interests, etc. despite anything bad that may happen. The people just need to have hope, faith, etc. in their leadership despite anything that outwardly might appear to be neglect, wrath, corruption or outright eating of its own people.
Using terminology like "evil" is an important propaganda piece. If the terrorists are evil, then we are -- of course -- supremely good. A holy war, good vs. evil, black vs. white, reduced into very simple and digestable terms.
As I grow older, I'm no longer so sure what is good vs. evil. So far as I've been able to determine, good is to live and let live. Evil is to exert power or force over people. Therefore, the perfect anarchistic society is supremely utopian/good, and a powerful government/corporate/religious society with tight lines of authority and powerful division of wealth, backed up by force, is evil. This seems to be how Tolkien handled it (Middle Earth was non-Christian good vs. evil). It reduced to power/autocracy vs. self-determination.
I think religion is a subject that we have a right to know about in regards to electing president. I do not want a religious wing nut running things thank you very much. Nor do I want a nihilist.
The larger frame of reference Is key to understanding what kind of metal the President elects are made of. (or anybody for that matter)
I want a spiritual president who has a relationship to the cosmos or whatever.
To say that this is not important is to disregard the very ground we stand on, and to buy into the polarity of political rhetoric.
Adolf Hitler and his Nazi's were christians....
MeYouWeUs: There's a lot of intellectual and spiritual space between "religious wing nut" and "nilist." If our political leaders HAVE to demonstrate some "spirituality" to be considered for the job, I'd prefer someone who has a more balanced point of view than either of these extremes. I, for one, couldn't care less whether a politician believes in god, the tooth fairy, or the Easter bunny, as long as he/she is qualified for the job they ask us to give them. The definition of faith is "belief in something for which there is no proof." That kind of thinking has no place in politics.
Paul Bramscher,
Excellent points. FREESPEECH TV had a very good documentary on anarchist or 'co-operative' business practices last year. Nobody was 'the boss' or the 'ruler' and they made joint decisions on running their shops and industries. It works.
There are more 'shades of grey' in the world than just black or white, good or evil, this one or that one.
The key to a society living in harmony with others as well as within the group is finding the proper balance in functioning as an entity.
I think you answered your own question about good and evil, Paul.
.
chabuka: They grasped onto the power of whatever symbol was at hand -- and that included Christian, as well as pre-Christian, symbology (the swastika, Wagnerian/Teutonic motifs, Aryan mythology, distorted archaeology, etc.).
look at what Jesus REALLY taught and you'll see a very different picture than that of today's Christian Church.
Jesus' number one priority was POVERTY and STEWARDSHIP; not abortion, homosexuality, etc...
the Church has twisted Jesus' real message....
everyone should read "God's Politics: Why God is neither a Republican or a Democrat"...
i am a devout Agnostic, but loved this book because it points out what Politicians who say they are for Jesus SHOULD be doing....
Spirit is the world view of 380 million Indigenous people. As the First Peoples of this continent Spirit is also very ancient. American Indians do not seem to have the same problem with Spirit that non-Indians do. Indians believe in community, cooperation, respect, and a reverence for life. The oneness or interconnectedness through Spirit is fundamental.
Non-Indian Americans are guided by science, competition, and individualism. This has led to the centralization of power and wealth. Here, greed is a good and death through war, executions, and abortions are the norm. It's clear to me that a culture guided by science, competition, individualism, and greed for power and wealth, stands no chance of ever finding peace and harmony in religion or any other pursuit.
Common Dreams rests in the camp of cooperation and community.
Dark Dreams rests in the camp of individualism, competition, and greed.
To me the dreams of Ira Churnus are unrealistic in the Camp of Dark Dreams.
INQUISITION II: It's bigger! It's better!! It's TELEVISED!!!
See heretics come to Jesus after they're baptized on the holy water board. See atheists begging to recite the 'Pledge of Allegiance' as the flag they're wrapped in starts to burn. Gasp as lions separate false converts from true believers in the 'Pit of Passion'. Watch "Don't Cross Me", the game show where Muslims compete to see who knows the most biblical passages. See the losers do wonderful imitations of Christ on the cross.
Monty Python was wrong, you can expect the Inquisition: Inquisition II, Tuesdays and Thursdays at Eight.
Eric Barth wrote Organized religion is a fraud and a ripoff. All this believing in supernaturalism is based on knowledge of human mortality and a fear of illness and death...
And hence the US Govt's institutionalized "fear of terrorism". The US Govt and religion are handmaidens of control.
What democracy?
Is religon a threat to democracy? Was the Pope a Nazi?
It is a scary thing to admit that your religion is just about as valid as that of the ancient Greeks or the Vikings, and that "No, Virginia, there really is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Odin, Zeus, or any other omniscient diety to watch over us."
It is more fun, more comforting, and more cheerful to be religious, and to buy into the "pie-in-the-sky" fantasy.
I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but if the world is going to move forward in any significant way, if we are going to get through the environmental crisis, if, in fact, we are going to evolve at all, I'm afraid we must give up our security blanket of religion. I always thought that we should respect the beliefs of others, but it becomes harder each day, when we see what those beliefs cause.
When even apparently sane candidates like Obama can say "America is the last, best hope of Earth" there is no hope of a rational world any time soon. I hate to break this to Mr Obama, but (a) a great deal of the damage that has been done to democracies, all round the world, in the last 50 years has been the result of American action to protect its economic interests, and (b) There are many other democracies around the world that function a great deal better than that of America, and in which the values of humanism and the Enlightenment are protected far better than they are in America. This belief that America is somehow the only democracy and has behaved well is a result of a poor education system and a deliberate campaign of disinformation by the American media.
The Romney thing "liberty is a gift of God" is a wonderful example of back to front thinking. Liberty has been hard won in the last 500 years or so, and it has been won by prising the cold dead fingers of religion from around the neck of the people, one by one. The liberty we have in western democracies now was achieved at the expense of religion, and the presidential candidates are all it seems hell bent on reinstating that control, removing liberty from the people. We must keep resisting these nutters (http://www.blognow.com.au/mrpickwick/Religion/), and it would help if those bringing religion to the front with frightening words like those of Huckabee, and even Edwards (what was he thinking?) were soundly defeated in the primaries.
The problem is lack of spiritual infrastructure.
Why else could we treat others so shabbily?
Why else could greed be considers good?
As humans in America we don't share in spirit we each have our own. That hyper-individualism that characterizes us also erodes us.
paragraph 30 states "in itself faith in politics poses no great danger to democracy as long as the debates are really about policies and religous values are translated into political values, articulated in ways that can be rationally debated by people who dont share them.The challenge is not to get religion out of politics it is to get the quest for certitude out of politics" well written the writer does not want faith eliminated but practiced with maturity on the other hand so many who have responded seem to want to see an end to religion ie belief in God or allowable faith practices etc. Remember remember what other countries anti religion anti faith practices brought the world Stalins russia with 10s of millions killed Maos china with millions killed and persecuted and repercussions continuing Does ones quest to relate to God through faith involve struggle and error? Yes but it seems worth the journey to discover what is true and best A leader forcing his mistaken religious rules is dangerous but just as dangerous is a leader or government that imposes a ban on all forms of faith practices and promotes atheism All in All the writer proposes many good points for discussion
Religion is the anti-thesis of a Democracy. Theocracies are always authoritarian ruled governments.
Actually, our founding fathers disliked Democracy profoundly, thats why they chose for us a Republic form of government, free of religous control. Democracy always leads to anarchy, and then tyranny (sometimes just going direct to tyranny). The rule of majority becomes mob rule. In a Republic, we are a rule of law, and inalienable rights can not be voted out my majority rule. Of course, today they are discarded by Executive Order and legislation by a coerced if not complicit congress.
Our Republic suffered a fatal blow in 1913 (Income tax, Fed, Tax free Foundations). And Democracy may have been extinguished in 1933 (creation of Emergency Powers extended to the homeland and the Executive Order), or maybe it was between 1963-1973, but without a doubt, it's gone today. We are some form of an oligarchy under authoritarian rule of corporate, financial, political powers, all of whom are globalists, and many not even Americans.
Technology today makes reversing the direction impossible. Whats happening today is a the creation of an Orwellian society. And 1984 is about to happen (25 years late). Orwell was an assumed name of a man who may have been a member of one of the secret societies and died shortly after the publication of his 1984 book. He might have been punished for warning us about the plan, who knows. Too bad we did not listen.
Religion was used by Hitler to gain support of the people. Germany was a Christian nation, and the churches went along with Hitler. Hitler wrote: "I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.." And so our churches are playing the same role today, against Islam this time.
"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins should be read by everyone on the planet.
doomandgloom said:
"Non-Indian Americans are guided by science, competition, and individualism. This has led to the centralization of power and wealth. Here, greed is a good and death through war, executions, and abortions are the norm."
Indians were not perfect either. Instead of using birth control to keep the population/resource balance, some used war, infanticide or lacking scientific knowledge, had to let diseases and predation do it for them.
What led to the centralization of power and concentration of wealth is simply the invention of easily hoarded money as a representation of resources.
Competition, individualism AND cooperation are common to most species and is nature's way. And nature is God's manifestation. If nature is wrong, then isn't God wrong?
Religion, at least in 21st century America, is clearly a danger to democracy. Led by the Religious Right, which, in complicity with the Republican Party and buoyed by cringing agreement from most Democrats, has its own definition of morality which it avowedly seeks to impose, either in law or by constitutional amendment, on all the American people -- and, if possible, the people of other countries. It clearly states that its kind of morality is more important than protection of democratic freedoms. It seeks a theocratic society, similar to those of extremist Islam and medieval Christianity, from which our progenitors fled. This is blatantly recidivist and plainly anti-democratic. Until Republicans can free their Party from the dictates of the Religious Right they must be opposed vigilantly by all Americans who love democracy and freedom.