RE: Are you for or against the separation of church and state?
April 11, 2013 at 3:31 am
(This post was last modified: April 11, 2013 at 3:37 am by Esquilax.)
(April 11, 2013 at 1:30 am)MysticKnight Wrote: I'm against it because it promotes dishonesty and hypocrisy. If you truly believe in a revelation, you should act upon it individually and as a society.
People do act upon it individually, and that's hardly going to change. I don't really know what you mean by acting upon revelation as a society, though; societies are made up of people, and in case you haven't noticed, there's tons of religious beliefs, all different, all equal. The majority doesn't get to dictate to the minority, that's kind of the point.
Quote: Also if people look towards religious leaders for guidance (church) and want God's guidance, why should that be separated from the political atmosphere?
Fine, that's what you want? Then no more tax exemptions, no more special treatment for religious institutions, no more excuses when a religious figure commits a crime, and you have to prove your god actually exists before you can use him as reasoning when it comes to passing laws, because last I checked, politicians can't use imaginary reasoning in their work. If they invoked any other unproved magical entity for that, you'd rightly conclude they were either insane or being disingenuous, why should gods get a free pass?
You get your religious institutions to agree to all of that and actually follow through, then they'll have a real place at political functions. You want your churches involved with your laws? Then they actually have to be subject to those laws, not holding themselves above them.
Quote:If people want religion out of politics, in my opinion, they should disbelieve in the religion, rather than promote dishonesty and hypocrisy.
Way to poison the well with your skewed language, there. Also, what recourse do I have, as a nonbeliever, if you guys do end up passing laws based on the will of a god I don't believe in? That's sort of the point: your unverifiable beliefs can't be enforced upon everyone, including those who believe otherwise. If I started a religion and gained enough political traction to pass laws that infringed on your beliefs, you'd be fucking furious.
Quote:As for us minority non-religious, we have to convince society to leave religion, rather, than have them act in a dishonest and hypocritical way with their beliefs.
And if we never do? I'd say that possibility is huge, if we allow the religious to pass laws now, while they're in power. We already know the dishonest lengths that religious institutions will go to to indoctrinate children and poison the school system with their beliefs, are we really just meant to appeal to their better nature after giving them all the power and removing the one restraint they had from silencing opposing views to begin with?
Churches don't have a better nature, that's the problem. They can and will censor dissent the moment they have the power to do so.
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee
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