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Explain how we can have people that are amoral, areligious and totally without faith - you apparently have things all figured out - please clue me in.
And that is your real point! You aren't asking a question about separation of church and state; you're saying that you have a problem with people who don't have "faith."
Your thread does not belong in the politics forum; it belongs in the religion forum. In other words...a separation of church and state!
No one seems willing to point out the differences between the religious and non-religious viewpoints that would effectively counter my assertion.
Your assertion is faulty. The fact you made it and you think it's wonderful doesn't make it valid.
Quote:
Gosh, is there anyone out there that can speak to the issue?
You first!
Explain how religion is indistinguishable from politics and how political viewpoints and religious viewpoints are one and the same. Because for billions worldwide, that simply isn't the case. You claim to have already established this in another thread, but are somehow reluctant to repeat it here.
OK guys, as I have pointed out in another thread, you cannot have freedom of religion w/o freedom from religion. The minute government gets involved in the spiritual life we are on our way to being the Taliban. Hell, we have Taliban-Christians in this country now, and seems a couple are posting on this string.
The government has enough on its plate providing secular education, defense, highways and all the other traditional areas that sane people expect and want government to provide. I do just fine with my pastor, church family and so forth without religious police beating the young girl that has the brain disconnect to wear a too short a skirt. Keep the religion and faith in YOUR Church and YOUR Home and keep your religion out of my government.
If some demented soul wants to worship a deformed Billy Goat in Parker county as the one true god what is it to me?
BTW, to the ignoramanous that stated separatation of church and state is not mentioned in the Constitution, I suggest you "GIT LEARNED UP" and read the establishment clause and the series of letters between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison so you can discusss this subject with some lucid authority. We do not need laws that make the way you think against the law, we have already had the trials that burned "witches".
Faith religion. Someone may have faith that tomorrow they'll wake up as a giant sea horse. While that belief is irrational and requires faith, that doesn't make someone religious about it. A religious person may not even be religious in the matters of the supernatural, they may eat corndogs religiously, that doesn't mean we should set up a government ruled by a corndog king where eating corndogs is integrated into governmental decisions. Also, lack of belief in the supernatural doesn't require faith, just as it doesn't require faith to not believe in invisible green goblins. Also, even if everyone were religious in belief/nonbelief of the supernatural, that doesn't mean that church and state should not be sperated. There are thousands of worldviews in the United States. Making church and state inseperable means that you exclude all other faiths from governmental processes while giving favor to a specific faith. Governmental decisions are then based on what that faith teaches to be moral/immoral and true/untrue. Why not make Wicca be the religion that makes all the decisions rather than Christianity. Laws and decisions are supposed to be formed by neutrality and rational thought though, not giving preference to a single set of opinions on reality.
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And that is your real point! You aren't asking a question about separation of church and state; you're saying that you have a problem with people who don't have "faith."
Your thread does not belong in the politics forum; it belongs in the religion forum. In other words...a separation of church and state!
You responded in this thread, so I responded in this thread and am responding again. Yes, this part of the discussion belongs in the other thread - if you want to continue on this specific topic - I advise you to respond in the other thread.
Why are you avoiding my question about what differentiates the religious from the non-religious? Possibly because you can't see or articulate any differences?
If you check out my thread in "religion and Philosophy" you will see that I have demonstrated the following:
All world views require faith and also contain many of the tenets of the BASIC definition of religion. Therefore, it can be reasonably asserted that we are all, to a degree, religious in our various world views.
Next question:
If we are all religious, how is it possible to have a separation of church and state?
This is silly. You might as well say, "Church X uses Isaac Watts hymns; therefore Isaac Watts was a supporter of Church X."
Religion plagiarizes all sorts of ideas from many sources. That doesn't make those sources "religion."
"You don't have a point. You can't state an honest premise to begin with."
That's part of what the discussion is about - is it not? Whether or not I have a premise to begin with?
"Oh gee...let's see here. Suppose we start with belief in something supernatural. Beings who live on top of mountains whose children are sometimes born by bursting from a parent's forehead. Cosmic beings who live inside the sun or a tree or a goat. Superhuman beings whose job it is every day to pull the sun through the sky from one side of the earth to the other. Celestial beings who sit in the clouds and take up sides as between the peoples of the earth, rooting for some (often "us", as it turns out) and against others. Kharmic beings from higher planes who leave clues and messages to help us move from this plane on to the next. Suppose we say that people with a firm belief in any of those supernatural sorts of things are religious."
Surely you can do better than this. Whether we choose to believe in the supernatural or choose to believe in the non-existence of the supernatural makes no difference in basic methodology. Each person utilizes faith, evidence, reason and logic to formulate a conclusion. What would be the great difference here between the two?
"But then we come to those who deny the existence of any reason whatsoever to believe in anything supernatural at all. They see such beliefs as grand but childish fairy tales. They observe that religions have a noted tendency simply to steal their supposed higher moralities from the values of the secular societies that surround them. They sometimes even notice the every god that has ever been supposed actually to exist has behaved in exactly the same manner as a default god who is supposed actually NOT to exist. In the end, these people junk the whole supernatural paradigm completely. Let's say that these people are non-religious."
Again, those who deny do so utilizing the same methodology as believers. I would agree that you can make a case for a distinction between the two groups - obviously. However, going back to my premise (religion thread) I assert no difference in the basic methods of both groups to arrive at their conclusions.
Again, those who deny do so utilizing the same methodology as believers. I would agree that you can make a case for a distinction between the two groups - obviously. However, going back to my premise (religion thread) I assert no difference in the basic methods of both groups to arrive at their conclusions.
That wouldn't matter even if it were so. Some conclusions are clearly religious and some are clearly not.
That wouldn't matter even if it were so. Some conclusions are clearly religious and some are clearly not.
I'm not asserting that the religious are actually non-religious and/or vice versa. I realize that the religious are different from the non-religious - hence the distinction in the titles of religious and non-religious.
My point is that both the religious and non-religious arrive at different conclusions using the same methodology and, in most cases, having many similar tenets.
Why exclude from the public square the believer because they believe or the non-believer because the deny belief? Should we exclude only those who claim an officially sanctioned religion even though there is no basic difference in the way each arrives at their individual beliefs?
Why exclude from the public square the believer because they believe or the non-believer because the deny belief? Should we exclude only those who claim an officially sanctioned religion even though there is no basic difference in the way each arrives at their individual beliefs?
Oh, you're right; we shouldn't exclude believers qua believers or non-believers qua non-believers. It isn't about believers or non-believers as individuals and I don't know anyone who says it is. I'm atheist, but there are some Christians I'd vote for over some atheists. I voted for Obama, and he professes to be a Christian (albeit in a very refined, philosophical, almost existentialist way.)
The point is that exclusively religious doctrines, which pertain to one religion over others or religion over non-religion, needs to be kept out of government and that public laws need to have a "legitimate secular purpose" (Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971)). Constitutional arguments aside, I can't think of any reason why anyone would find that principle objectionable.
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Theocracy works well in Iran and Saudi Arabia
