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Couldn’t modern day Great Britain be considered a religious state? The monarch is the head of the Anglican Church. Anyone who marries into the royal family must convert to the Anglican religion. I’m guessing maybe a few other European monarchies are the same way.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Avondalist
Medieval Christendom birthing the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment.
The first caliphate leading to the Muslim Golden Age, the House of Wisdom, etc.
The Hindu Indus valley civilization producing schools and hospitals.
Do you have any examples of atheistic civilizations? Historically the closest has been Confucian/Buddhist China, but that is more animist/deist than atheist.
And were they good for all classes of people or just the gentry? And didn't Medieval Christendom do such lovely things as burn people at the stake for the mere suspicion of being heretics? And what about the church's treatment of Galileo? And the way they'd happily sell you an indulgence claiming it your gateway to heaven? What's desirable about hucksters running a country? No thanks, I'll pass on the theocracy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avondalist
Religion serves an important role in human civilization by constraining behavior into a set of norms that are shared. Once you have a shared culture, civilization can scale beyond the personal networks found in tribes.
Most dictators do a fine job of that too. It's desirable because?
Medieval Christendom birthing the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment.
The first caliphate leading to the Muslim Golden Age, the House of Wisdom, etc.
The Hindu Indus valley civilization producing schools and hospitals.
Do you have any examples of atheistic civilizations? Historically the closest has been Confucian/Buddhist China, but that is more animist/deist than atheist.
Religion serves an important role in human civilization by constraining behavior into a set of norms that are shared. Once you have a shared culture, civilization can scale beyond the personal networks found in tribes.
I'm not sure why you specifically call out atheists.
The United States has a separation of church and state. Thankfully. And is good example of how it should work. Although I'd argue that we should do a better job at separating the two.
When you look back over the course of world history, theocracies have never been good places to live regardless of the religion. The Middle East is currently in the midst of a dark age because of Islamic theocracies. While we romanticize medieval Europe in our culture, that was an absolutely horrible time and place to live if you were a common person. Theocracies also have the tendency to corrupt both religion and the state as the people in power can use the religion to justify doing anything they want to do, whether that means hijacking planes and flying them into buildings or sending armies to wipe out entire populations because they happen to believe in the wrong holy book. Historically, the best countries to live in have been secular. Western civilization has been trending towards secularism since the Enlightenment and life has become consistently better because of it.
So with this in mind, it's definitely concerning how close the Religious Right, with the full blessing of Donald Trump and the Republican Party is to setting up a Christian theocracy here in the US. It's already begun, with evangelical churches focusing more and more on politics and their power within secular society. The founders set up separation of church and state for a reason. They were much more in tune with old Europe than we are today and knew the issues that theocratic rule can cause.
So has there ever been a theocracy that was actually a good place to live? If so, which country? If not, what makes you think a Republican/evangelical theocracy will be different?
Of course theocracy is a terrible form of governance.This is all the more reason to vote for Trump, a non-religious person vs liberals, who have formed their own religion and are among the most religious people in the world, wishing to push their values on the rest of us.
of course theocracy is a terrible form of governance.this is all the more reason to vote for trump, a non-religious person vs liberals, who have formed their own religion and are among the most religious people in the world, wishing to push their values on the rest of us.
Not from tribalism but the good ol' USA certainly skipped religion as a requirement.
BTW, I notice you failed to address the horrors of Medieval Christendom. Why is that?
And I'll take chaos over life under some bastid like Stalin or Kim Jong Un any day of the week.
Are you serious? It would be some crazy liberal to make that claim... The people colonizing the US were there to escape religious persecution... It was so important that they codify that the US had clauses to ban the persecution of religion...
Has there ever been a religious state that was actually a decent place to live?
Homosexuality was kept in the closet in the founding of America's days.
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