Without jumping into the evolution/creation fray, I have a question for those who are maintaining a stauch position of “no religion in politics”:
What distinguishes a belief based on religious moral conviction from one based on secular moral conviction? It seems to me that, in the end, laws that enforce morals are co-equal, irrespective of the basis of the moral belief.
zepplen, I am not wrong because I never said “the constitution does not allow for this” I simply stated that I believe it is folly for a leader of a nation who has many religions to rule based on his religion. That is all.
Also on the religion/morals thing, I do not want a person to give up their morals or religion if they are going to run for office. If they want to make decisions based on thier religion like “I think we should attack this nation because my god thinks it is the right thing to do” then they better come up with some secular reasons that people of other faiths would want to do this also. Like The regime has WMD and could use them against us or give them to terrorists. Then if he was wrong about the regular reasons we have to call him on it.
BB-
Okay lets say we are going to go with the mix of religion and politics. Which faith shall we go by? Catholic, Baptist, Southern Baptist, Hindu, Bhuddist.
Why can’t we just leave them out and agree to live by set of standards of decency and respect for one another?
Why can’t the religious be comfortable in their beliefs? because the majority of religious people, mainly christians believe they have the one true way and it is their duty to convert everyone else.
I will respect your right to worship whatever you want to. Respect mine not to!
Vegita –
That’s simply basic consensus building and politics – offer a plethora of reasons to appeal to people with different backgrounds and beliefs. Nothing wrong with that, but I think it’s a non-sequiter to my point.
My question, I guess, was more concerned with people who believe that religious morals are completely illegitmate reasons for laws, to the point that they make the whole enterprise of making a law on that topic from a coalition of the religious and secular illegitimate. See, for example, the thread on gay marriage.
elk –
As to laws of forced conversion, I think you can rest assured of your safety from a modern parallel to the Spanish Inquisition.
It’s quite a stretch to go from people motivating their political support for various programs to the idea that religion is being forced upon you. Basically, despite the popular saying that you can’t legislate morality, all laws legislate morality. They legislate the consensus morality of those doing the voting.
For example, let’s assume that person A wants to support a ban against insider trading because he thinks using secret information to his advantage violates the Christian maxim of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” person B wants to support the same ban because he is a Marxist and will support anything that keeps capital from congealing with a privileged few, and person C is a Buddhist who supports the same ban because he does not believe people should be allowed to do things for the sole purpose of seeking wealth. Are any of those reasons more or less valid reasons to support a clearly non-religious law, simply because they are religious motivations?
It gets a little less clear when one side tried to characterize a law as religious even though many non-religious grounds can be used to justify it – and, I am not going to say that it would be impossible to justify a clearly religious law, such as mandatory church attendance, on secular grounds. Still, I think those cases would be rather clear cut – the anti-drug laws, liquor-sale laws, gay-marriage laws, etc. seem to me to not fit in that category.
In addition, a blank edict against the religious from supporting change they believe in on religious, moral grounds is not justified by the Constitution (which, by the way, does not say “separation of church and state,” but does say “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”). And, if one did institute such a ban, one would run the risk of alienating a not insignificant body of support for programs such as welfare. Finally, it is important to note that such social changes as the abolition of slavery began as religious crusades against perceived evils.
Do I want my pastor preaching to me on the inequality of tax cuts illustrating the principle that money is the root of all evil, or that the death penalty is wrong because thou shalt not murder? Not particularly. But his religious beliefs are just as valid as reasons for him to hold those positions and pursue political policies based on those positions as my views are for my politics.
I do not feel that the reason behind a good or bad policy or law makes it good or bad. In other words, if a president makes a policy for feeding all hungry children, this would be a good policy. Now certainly If his god wanted him to do it it does not make it wrong or bad policy, he just needs to write the policy and talk about the policy and decisions made with it in a way that all religions and non religions will accept. He should not say my christian god would want this to be so it is. Or My god is doing this through me. He could say something like children are our future and they need to be taken care of. Or children should not be left behind as innocent beings suffering from another generations follies. Any of these reasons can be accepted by all faiths and all peoples. The bottom line is that if it truly is a good policy for all people then it is not because of your religion that it is good. It is because there are benefits to the people and those benefits should be the reason.
Science has a process. It’s based in hypothesizing, gather EVIDENCE, building theories and subjecting them to critical scruitiny.
Science has only gotten a few things 100% right.
Religion’s justification for belief is “faith.”
Science CAN be wrong. Religion has set itself up so that it CANNOT be wrong. That is what might be considered fundamentally wrong with it.
BB-
In many instances that you cite can’t the religious template be removed and the issue be decided on right and wrong?
Christians or the religious don’t have the market cornered on justice or decency.
I must say that I see Vegita’s point whatever the catalyst is whether it be religion or a good set of morals just state your position.BB you are a lawyer or law student right? I believe you are, or will be a very good one!
Dave, actually just having proof behind something doesn’t make it a law. It requires many many replications and a lot of scrutiny. A theory in the eye of laymen is different than that of a scientist. However, I personally have reproduced evolution and natural selection on a micro level, that is easily provable. The question pertains to macroevolution, and if natural selection is a mechanism for this. As far as teaching it in school… do you suggest we don’t teach the theories of gravity either? Just because something isn’t considered a law does not mean it should not be taught as the main theory held by scientists…
Oh, BB, not to start an argument, but I just haven’t heard an argument against gay-marriage besides a religious one, could you give me an example?
Elk and Veg –
I think we may be approaching the same basic idea from differing angles, which is leading to different perceptions. The central idea that both of you are indicating is that a “right” policy is a “right” policy – I agree.
The underlying problem is agreeing on what makes a “right” policy different from a “wrong” policy.
People have various filters, including religious ones, for making that determination. Each individual makes that determination, as in my example above, based upon his own criteria, and the “right” policy ends up being the one that the majority agrees is the correct one over the long-term, irrespective of the reasoning behind it. And while people may agree that a good policy has “benefits” for them, they may see different benefits to the policy based on their underlying reasons for supporting it. [Note: Elk, this actually is MORE justification for not discriminating based upon a person’s choice of religion as a reason for supporting a law – that is simply his choice, as no one has a monopoly on the “capital ‘T’ Truth.” (even if he indeed believes he does)]
Also, the “right” policy may change over time based on people’s morals and understanding. I have no doubt that many people viewed slavery as the “right” policy back in the 1500s, but as morals changed – led, prominently, by religious concerns, as I have said earlier – the policy became the wrong one.
This actually goes into a main reason for preserving free speech, but that is another post entirely.
Veg, I don’t believe you are arguing the underlying rightness or wrongness of the justification – you are basically saying that a President shouldn’t risk potentially alienating someone of a different or of no religion by mentioning his own religion as a motivating factor. I think that’s pretty well where you fall as well Elk, but correct me if I am mistaken.
That, I suppose, is a matter of political expedience, and I wouldn’t dispute it in the abstract. However, my main point is that a person’s use of religion as justification of a policy is not presumptively wrong. It may not be persuasive, and it may even alienate certain people, but it is really no different from using any other moral basis for making a decision to support some policy or other.
[Side Note: Elk, I am a lawyer – corporate lawyer to be precise. I’m currently in Boston, MA, but am about to move to Washington, D.C. – I guess I will have to change my handle then…]
BB, you do understand completely where I am coming from, I however do not understand your points completely. In my mind, a social moral is not the same thing as a religious one. A social moral is one in which the society deems something to be acceptable as a whole or not. A religious moral is one in which a section of that whole society identified by their religion deem somthing to be acceptable or not. The main problem I can see occuring is when a religious moral does not agree with a societal moral, then what policy decision will be made the one based on the societal moral or the religious moral.
Example, (hypothetical) in a few years Gay marriage is accepted by our society as a whole, but the catholic church does not accept it. President Bush is re-elected and starts to try to hammer down the right of gays to marry because his church does not agree with it. If he does not try to do away with it than he is not following his religion the way he should. This leaves our country in a mess. If he could make a non-religious argument like Gay marriage would hurt children, (just made that up) than he should try to beat down the gay marriage thing that way.
BB-
I see your point and I must say your posts always make me think.
‘Barrister’ It flew right over my head!
I have nothing against religion and I think it is a very positive thing for many, but wouldn’t you agree in the hands of people in power it can be used to manipulate and sway the masses for good or evil?
Do you believe we as a society could continue to function if religion was completely seperated from state?
xMillertimex- Very well stated. I agree with you. As a side bar, I consider this group no different from any other activist group. They have every right to have their argument heard. I would also argue that a number of other activist groups push their own agenda and are very much like an organized religion, i.e. NOW, NAACP, GLAAD, GLSEN, EGALE, ACLU. Everyone has an agenda. The laws that a society enacts directly reflect the portion of that society that are vocal.
ME SOLOMON GRUNDY
Veg –
I believe our disconnect is coming from differing concepts of morals. You’re approaching this as a group analysis, while I am looking at individuals. To me, any moral is, at its core, an individual moral. The essence of any consensus moral, which is how you are defining a “social moral”, changes over time as individuals change their individual morals. I’m analyzing this from an individual perspective rather than a societal one because all societal morals are really just aggregations of a majority of individual opinions that X policy is “good”, but they are not agreements on the reason that X policy is “good.” This is what my examples above were attempting to illustrate.
Also, I’m referring to policies in general, I believe you are referring to presidential decisions specifically. You can reconcile the two by applying my arguments to agreeing or disagreeing with a Presidential decision if you like. Bottom line is that as an individual, a President will make his decision on an individual basis and on a societal basis – although his vision of “societal” will be influenced by his individual perceptions, as it is pretty well impossible to capture an actual societal moral without an election w/ 100% participation. And people will base their support or disagreement with his decisions on their individual morals. Then they will weight their preferences, and vote in the next election based on how he has done overall, and in comparison to how they view his opponent, based on their individual moral preferences.
Also, given that our system is not a direct democracy, we expect a leader to inject his personal beliefs and morals into his decisionmaking process.
On your hypo, accepting your premises, we’re still talking about the political expediency of the policy, i.e. how best to build a consensus for his position. We aren’t referencing whether his underlying reason is justifiable or not. In this case, as an elected official, his duty is to uphold the law as he interprets it, not to enforce his religious morals. However, in arguing for a change in the law, I do not think it is per se problematic for him to refer to religious principles. Smart? No – especially not politically. But I don’t think having a religious motivation for a law is per se wrong.
Elk:
I’m going to start with your last query first. I don’t think it’s possible to completely separate church from state in a way that means separating all religious considerations from people’s decision-making processes. Whether you’re considering people making voting decisions or lawmakers deciding which laws to pass, I think that their individual morals play a part in those decisions, and that, within the bounds of our Constitutional system, it is permissable for people to decide things for religious reasons.
Now, as I was saying to Vegita, I don’t think that’s the best way to persuade someone – it would only work in a society in which you not only have a majority of a particular religion, but also a majority of a particular religion who agrees with one particular interpretation of that religion vis-a-vis the particular political issue. I don’t suppose a Buddhist or atheist would be particularly persuaded by quoting St. Paul on homosexuality, for instance. All I am saying is that it is not any worse for someone to base a decision on his personal religious morals than for another person to base his decision on his secular morals or the morals of his differing religion.
As to your first question, I think religion can be used to manipulate the masses. Unfortunately, I think anything that people are prone to accept uncritically can manipulate the masses: see, generally, how many political issues are demogogued, or how many people believe the various conspiracy theories that are floated out there.
But, because we premise our system on the ability of an individual to make his own choice - the theory behind universal suffrage is that anyone with the minimum qualifications is capable of voting - we need to trust that enough people can see through the demogoguery, even if it looks scary sometimes. That, and we need to exercise our 1st Amendment Free Speech rights to argue for logic over all the crap that’s floated out there.
I agree with all of that BB, I think we are getting tripped up on context and defenitions. We are both basically saying the same thing.
I think we just feel a little differently about #3 but all in all it doesn’t really matter, like we said before good policy is good policy.
Vegita… let me change my statement a little (oh my gosh somebody in off-topic admitting they were wrong) you are right, something has to be taught about the history of the world, and in a non-religion based school system evolution is the commonly accepted history. BUT, and this is a J.Lo sized but, evolution should not be taught as fact, it should be stressed that this is a theory not proof. But whenm I was in school they taught that it was evolution that brought us to where we are and that was that.
Jackzepplin… I agree the pope has done great things, but that doesn’t mean his opinion holds sway over my thoughts in any way. Alot of people have done good things, even I have done good things, saved some lives, gave people the confidence to make a difference in their own lives, not a candle to what the pope has done, but good none-the-less. I don’t expect anybody to give my words extra credit. So yeah, in essence, just a guy in a hat, just like Bush is a guy who can’t string together a proper sentence.
Sack… I have nothing against natural selection, and I do believe that things adapt to their surroundings, but I just can’t see evolution from a billion years ago being a viable option. I know religion takes a huge leap of faith as well, but that one works for me.
So you believe in evolution from generation to generation as well as the forms of speciation, but just not over many many generations? I agree many links from different species are quite weak, but it still seems the most likely theory.