Religion and Its Place In Politics

This is yet another burr in my saddle blanket. WTF is religion even doing being such a big part (or any part) of a political campaign in 2008? I don't want to make this a giant anti-religion thread because that will get locked right away. I do want to know if you agree with the religiosity of the new politics and if you think it belongs as part of the political landscape.

If We the People want to restore the Constitution we really need to escape the ball and chain of religion. But that's MY opinion. What's yours?

finally jumped the shark. We may have Rev. Wright to thank for that. He may be the one who killed off the Religious Right as a political force. Incredible, isn't it?

will respond to a question about his/her religion by saying "that's a personal area of my life that I do not discuss in a political arena".
Or even, God forbid, "I am an atheist".

It's so crazy.

The MSM has done this and it's just another reason to hate the fuckers.

Just as I don't care to know if the politician is a Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim or Zennist, I also don't care to know if they are Atheist. Though I do understand what you were saying. :)

I fear it. I don't fear spirituality, just organized faith-based thought groups.

Maybe that's irrational. I suppose it is by definition since it is a fear, but I can't get rid of the feeling that it is bad to give one person or small group of people thought control over the masses.

an imaginary copilot is not irrational.

preachers "religion in politics".

I could call it sound bite journalism, which doesn't do anyone any good.

how the far religious right has been able to determine who is going to be the POTUS. It is fucking crazy.

The MSM could change this if they were not all in cahoots with the corporations who want the drones to follow the scum bags who know if you are part of the religious right you are going to do whatever some neocon asshat tells you to do.

the Religious Right and Wall Street. This alliance has dominated politics for the last 20 years.

Democrats need to ensure the party remains neutral to religious views to get these people. If they go pro-atheist they will lose the support they are starting to get in big numbers from religious people (like myself), who feel run away materialism and capitalism run against our religious values.

We don't want the Dem's to go religious in politics, just not pro-atheist.

processes that allow life to prevail. Religious activities are not among those processes. And despite the best valid efforts of living things, the Earth's history shows that the major determining
factors as to whether living things prevailed or not were either geological, astrological or chemical in origin.

Martin Luther King was an ordained minister. Jimmy Carter campaigned on his Christian faith, and acted according to Christ's teachings while in office, and after leaving office.

Obviously the Falwell/Robertson/Hagee/Phelps/Coe/Parsley types have tried to dominate politics, and in that case it's a very bad thing.

For me, personally?

I think believing in any form of religion is nutball. People used to believe the sun was pushed across the sky by an enormous dung beetle - They believed that because they saw living examples in their everyday terrestrial lives. They would have argued to their last breath about it and would have died defending that belief. The world was flat too... Belief is all perception. It certainly does not make it factual. It means nothing except to the person who buys into it.

I would much rather have a rational, science driven belief system dictating our laws.

But then, that's me.

(edit to make "on" into "in" ---- :D)

I am fine with people having their personal religious beliefs influence their political choices. I think that groups of people using their religious beliefs as a foundation for political action is a good thing.

I do not think that other people's religious beliefs should dictate the political or social choices of others.

I agree with the Amendment 1 position that government should never advocate or oppose any religion.

it's almost impossible for them to do so without violating others' rights. The Blue Laws prevent me from doing things which are against someone else's religion, and decriminalization of the drug wars and prostitution won't happen because of someone else's religion, just to name 2 things off the top of my head. What is a murderous act to some is a medical procedure to others. What is accepting the medical, physical and possibly even spiritual reality of death is "suicide" to others. Laws don't have to be on the books for the religious to avoid things they personally oppose, but when such "morality" based are enacted, they are infringing on my rights.

I actually don't even like it when people on the left claim to want to help others because it's Christ-like or whatever. How about because it simply makes the most sense for a society? It's been demonstrated time and again that an educated, well fed (ie, not hungry), healthy populace creates a better nation state. Why is that not enough? Why must we inject morality into places it doesn't belong? Especially since no 2 people will ever agree on what is and isn't "moral." I just don't get it.

Though I do agree with you that the government should stay out of religion as well. I only wish that the religious people understood that once you give the government the authority to impose your religion on another, you've also given them the authority to impose another's religion on you.

None whatsoever.

...get both out of our government and our laws. Marriage is a pagan spiritual rite adopted for use by religions to subjugate women. And by government to tax the people.

If it's about government and law it's a civil union.

If its about uniting one's 'spirit' with another, it's marriage.

Rewrite our laws to negate marriage in favor of civil unions.

If two people can find a congregation who endorses their form of 'marriage' then let them be married within that congregation.

The laws and courts can then deal with the civil union issue to protect families.

Given what happened to the last guy who tried that, I can understand the hesitation.

.

ask her what?

Why she took impeachment off the table?

What's for dinner?

She thinks it's 'swell'.

that stoopid.

I mean she has pissed me off to no end but I missed that...
(edit to fix dumb typo)

they want.

The separation of church & state exists to protect religion not the other way around.

The separation of church & state exists to protect people from persecution.

I know Obama supporters won't be happy with my post, but here it is anyway. I have yet to hear the man speak or read statements of his in which he does not invoke god or religion. He has admitted that he lets his religious views color his political views- you know, like Antonin Scalia. He has cited his religion as one reason that he does not support gay marital rights and invokes religious thought/imagery in discussions of choice, even in discussions of fighting AIDS. He has held political rallies that had all the hallmarks of a tent revival, complete with bigoted ministers spouting hatred towards GLBT folks. He has almost constantly discussed how much his church means to him and how close he has been to his spiritual leader, Pastor Wright.

Considering all that, how the heck do you people think that religion could be kept out? When our most "liberal" contender invokes religion more than the republican, we have a problem.

I admit that I am biased, but not in the way most people will initially charge. I am not a Clinton supporter and at this point think she should drop out of the race. But I am an agnostic who lives in the bible belt, and I get tired of religion ALWAYS finding its way into public discourse. I actually came into this primary fairly neutral towards Obama, even with his more conservative policies. I was a Gore fan, then Kucinich, could have grudgingly supported Edwards. I've never really been wholly invested in this primary since Gore never entered, and it's allowed me to sit back and watch with what I think is a much more objective eye than I had in 2004.

I say all that so that my next statement hopefully means something to the sane Obama supporters- his religiosity was what initially drove me away from his campaign, when I was looking for a place to land. Clinton had long been at the bottom of my list, and yet I quickly found myself placing Obama only just above her. I know that we live in a hyperreligious society and that I am out of the mainstream in America, but I guess I never knew just how out of the mainstream I was even in our own party. I just hope that there aren't enough people like me who are so turned off by the religious exortations coming from Obama that they sit it out in Nov. I'll grudgingly vote for the man, but I hope he learns to dial down the religious pep talk.

...from the beginning, only because we need to completely turn this mess around. Out with the old, in with the new....etc. But the religious speak and anti gay civil rights issues have narrowed my focus to see how he behaves once he's in the White House.

It might feel good to them but I don't want to be anywhere near it. x(