Here in Sunny Australia we recently had an election that saw the conservative Liberals defeat the Labor party in a landslide. The size of the victory has meant that the Liberal party has senate control which gives them the power to pass any legislation they want, a first for Australia. Already they have flagged there intentions to destroy the unions which have strong links to the Labor party but they have also brought religous issues to the fore, mainly due to the strong ultra right wing christian prescene in the party. This scares me already these moral crusaders have been all over the press indicating drastic changes to abortion rules, it is only the beginning but the element of the ultra right christian in the Liberal party begs me to ask what place does religion have in politics.

I'm glad that you think everyone should have a right to be who they want. But then when this party you don't like some to power you think it shouldn't be.

^Freedom mumia, i dont even understand your response

Anyway, what place does religion have in politics? Well ill tell you what place it should have: NONE. Unfortunatelly, its not like that, as we all see, which is becoming a worrying problem.

How is religion invading politics?

Just because we believe in democracy and popular election, that doesn't mean we can't oppose the policies of a democraticly elected president. There is such a thing as legitimate opposition, meaning opposing the government within the limits of a democratic system. I wouldn't advocate violently overthrowing a popularly elected government, be it the Socialist government in Venezuela or the "Liberal" (ironic name, hahah) government in Australia. However, that does not mean I won't oppose the policies of that government if I believe they are wrong, or that I won't advocate electing a new government into office. I'm just surprised that so many people would be so supportive of a right-wing party like that, if it is as conservative as I keep hearing it is.

I have no problem with someone's policies being motivated by their religious beliefs; however, my problem is with making a specific religion itself a federal institution. We all have our convictions, so I think it is somewhat cheap to say simply that it is wrong to make a policy because of your religious beliefs (after all, what about people who believe in raising the poor up because of religious convictions?). Whether your beliefs are inspired by religion or any other type of conviction, they are all still your beliefs, and that is how you are going to decide policy if and when that power is given to you. But when a religion itself becomes a state institution (i.e. Islamic government in the middle east, or Papal government during the middle ages, etc.), that is when it goes from your policy being motivated by personal beliefs (which all policy is based on anyway), to the government and the country being completely dominated by one specific doctrine or philosophy, which is a dictatorship, in this case a religious dictatorship. That is what I am opposed to. Obviously I may or may not oppose certain policies that are based on a leaders religious beliefs, but that is not because it is religiously motivated, but rather because I oppose the policy. However, I would oppose a government being totally dominated by a certain religious institution, specifically because it is making that religion a government institution.

Our government is so far removed from being a "Religious Dictatorship" I do not understand what all the hub-bub is about.

(DId I just say "Hub-Bub"? What am I..........80?

Dont be ridiculous.

Religon was a major deciding factor in this election, its pretty obvious. It wasnt THE major issue, but it had an effect. Kerry is a religous man, but when you are a democrat, a lot of people get all uptight when a politician talks about god all the time. If he had gone after some of the religous undecided folk by being that way, he could have lost some of the liberal votes as well. I talked to some friends from Virginia and other parts of the South, and they all said that they wanted a President that was a man of god, so they were voting for Bush. They just didnt konw that Kerry was a religous man because Kerry really couldnt campaign that way strongly.

I never sad it was a religious dictatorship, so what are you talkign about. All I said as that I am opposed to religious dictatorship. I personally think it would be imposign on religious freedom, for instance, to have class-room prayers. If someone wants to pray to themselves, fine, or if it is a private religious school, fine; but in public schools, it should be and is completely illegal to hold a classroom prayer. However, the freedom-loving religious right seems ot think there is no problem with classroom prayer in public school, and so many on the right advocate having it. That is one example of a policy that can impose on religious freedom. Not saying you specifically believe in it - you are against school altogether anyway, which is great.

What pisses me off is that so many people seem to fall for this "Bush = prophet" crap, or the "he is Christian," and "he is a man of God," crap. What kidn of Christian does the thigns he does? None but a fake. He's nothing like what Christ advocated, so when people vote for him based on his constant use of religion, it really is very ironic and extremely irritating, to say the least. Holter explained it well.

I am against people even making decisions based on religious belief. Religion has NO PLACE in a political institution..

Religion relies on dogma, superstition and various other things. It should stay OUT.

Weren't a lot of Chrisitan experiments aimed at creating a socialist state. I think I've mentioned John Ball before. As a priest, he managed to create a small communistic society.

My karma ran over your dogma

(sorry, we needed a joke in here )

Also, if the vast majority of a population are religous, then of course it will play a part in electoral politics. But isn't this what is supposed to happen in a democracy? Aren't people supposed to elect leaders who will carry out the policies that they feel strongly about, eg/ dissallowing gay marriage or stem cell research. I'm not saying I agree with it, but given the nature of democracy, religion has a very important and legitimate role within democratic politics.

Could he have created one without religion though? That is, without the superstition and just relied on logical propositions? Religion has a for worse track record of sponsoring fascist states and monarchial tyrants than it does of establishing a communist society.

Rageist:

Perhaps he could, but I think the main impetus for its establishment was his dedication of realising the values he saw in the Bible, ie. love and toleration for your brothers and sisters (I'm not a Christian btw).

Some forms of religion have been quite revolutionary, for example the Protestant Reformation in Europe occured at the same time as the Renaissance. As a result of both movements, people came to realise that they could have a poisitve impact upon the world, and that they could discover the laws of the universe and of their creator by science (no less). Religion and scientific reason grew along very similar lines, with many scientists and philosophers still beleieving in the divine. Sorry, got a bit side tracked there.

In short, I don't think you should generalise religion to dogmatism, or indeed generalise religion. Much good has come out of it too, besides the bad.

Values are one thing, religion is another different thing. For example, the christian religion believes in respecting the others (... theorically). So do i. And i think this should be a moral that should be present in society, and also in politics. This doesnt mean the christian religion should be present. Of course, if in a population of 100 people they are all religious, and they elect a religious leader with religious policies, that will turn into religion becoming part of politics. It has been proven that all mixure of this two has caused nothing more than trouble and conflict between individuals.

RAGEist... it took me a while but i finally got the joke... Im not slow, im spanish.. maybe both, who knows

If human rights don't come from God, then who gives them to us? Don't say that people decide what is right and wrong because they don't. If that were true than why would it be wrong to walk out on the sidewalk pick someone out of the crowd put a gun to there head and pull the trigger? If i did that that would mean that I decided that it was ok for me to kill them. See were that logic goes in a hurry. I think religion is nessesery for a stable form of goverment.

HOLY SHIT.

So without a God, we are just evil? God tell us what is good and what is evil, right? We, human beings, have no compassion. We just follow the path that God puts there for us, we dont decide shit.. we are not able to! This wouldnt be being good, this would be being a fooled sheep. Your post get more and more amazing as time goes by... keep it up

^ Please don't take his beliefs as what all religous people believe, they aren't.

I believe that there is a spiritual, uh, plane of existance (for lack of a better term) but what role it plays in life I don't know. I do believe that if people were more in touch with this spiritual plane they would be better overall.

I think that, sometimes, religion can actually OVERCOME the purpose of being in touch with this spirituality by making people feel as though they are in the right for being affiliated with a religion, without actually being spiritual people.
Take, for example, Christianity:
It's principles, the teachings of Christ, (whether or not you believe he existed is beside the point) are very good priciples of how to be a good person, I think we can all agree. The problem is, people can call themselves Christians, simply by going to church once a week, and call themselves "religious." People then get this idea that somehow they're in the right suddenly, because of their "spirituality," and that causes problems.

I hope I'm making sense, I don't know if I've expressed what I'm trying to say clearly, but oh well.

Well lets look at this, if people wern't inherently 'evil' as you put it, then please tell me why a person would lie, cheat, steal, kill?? I mean come on think about it. If there wasn't a defining law then what porpose would having any law at all serve? If people wern't inherently 'evil' why do we need laws?

I hope you're understanding my point.

Humans are neither inherently evil nor inherently good, we're neutral, we're human.

The idea that human beings are either strictly good or strictly evil is ludicrous. It's based on how we were raised, and in what environment we were raised that our nature comes from.

So your telling me that when a 2 year old lies to his/her parents about taking a cookie out of the cookie jar that they were just raised like that.

Yes. They were tought that taking the cookie is bad, but they also know that cookies taste good, so they took one. When they take one, they lie to remain in their parents favor, it's human nature not to want other humans - especially ones you have important emotional ties to - to be angry with you.

See that means that they new that they would be in trouble so of course they would lie. Which goes back to the main point. lying is lying it doesn't matter whether they wanted to gain favor with their parents they still lied.

So? I didn't deny that they lied, what does that have to do with your idea about god and human nature?

Yeah, he just decided to ignore the parts of the Old Testament where God commanded Kings to march into surrounding cities and burn them to the ground, rape the women there, and kill the children. So basically, he picks and chooses which parts appeal to humanity the most...

You don't NEED THE BIBLE to come up with a communist system of thought... materialist analysis is all that is needed. It is only when you combine this analysis with the Christian religion that you get some sort of "christo-communist" society. It smells like utter SHIT to me though.



Did I ever say they couldn't? No, all I said was that it's not needed. And religious people whom are "religious communists" are merely attempting to grab the reasoning that has led to a communist society and mold it to state that their religion advocates it as well. It doesn't take into account that religion is a tool that can be used by the opposite parties for the same reason as well.... and the problem with both of these "movements" is that neither can be disproven because of their claims to something that lies "beyond" the material world. So, it is still a PROBLEM.

For every communist christian you have, you have about 10 Capitalist ones. They both use religion to defend their political stances and they both have dogmatic assertions behind them that cannot be refuted.



As a friend of mine once said... nothing that getting rid of christianity wouldn't fix.

Which means that all the good that has come out of religion could have been done in the absence of it. The same could not be said of many of the bad things... Like, for instance, Monarchial Kings whom held divine rights... the Crusades (whichever side was wrong, is not the issue... that they were both caused by religious people is), etc...

My original statement still stands, all the communist social constructs could and SHOULD be found using a materialist analysis. A "spiritual" analysis leads to all sorts of problems.

Freedom Mumia:

One does not have to believe in a creator to believe in an objective reality. Marx, for instance, believed that history was on an unchangeable course as defined by dialectic materialism. No diety was needed.

However, I do not presume that dialectical materialism is true, but rather that it is mumbo jumbo. I am leaning towards the idea that our ethical senses have evolved with our species since it helps humanity survive.

Could have been done? Maybe. Would have been done? Probably not.

Who else takes food to war torn regions? Sets up hospitals in the poorest regions of the world? Who houses orphanages for abandoned girls in India or frees them from a life of forced prostitution? How many secular food pantries exist in any given city verses religious ones? Who else runs food drives every Sunday? Who else raises money for children who would die because they need a mere $5 worth of penecillian?

I think your thoughts on Christianity today are based in ignorance and not knowing who Christians are. You make some brash judgement on people you hardly know. I know them, I see them several times a week. Today, at work, a man came in who worked for the baptist church......his job? To go to a local penetetary and talk to the inmates there. How many secular organizations do that?

A friend of mine is building houses for those who cannot afford them.

That sad fact is is that Christianity and other religions encourage their followers to help the sick and poor while everyone else can coast through life.

Goodwill? Red Cross? Salvation Army? Habitat for Humanity? All faith based ministries and all working to help the less fortunate for a combined several hundred years.




Would it? I guess we'll wait and see.

Most likely so if the specified organizations used some sort of scientific analysis or just plain out CARED about their surrounding neighbors.



To state that because it happens with religious institutions even more so only reflects the population center of religion. Atheists are about 10% of the American population and are probably a SMALLER part of the world population. So the fact that there are more "christian" or religious stuctures present has nothing to do with what I said.

You have furthermore, given no reason as to why this WOULDN'T HAPPEN without a "spiritual" analysis of our society.

And tell me this, would all this happen or even be needed in a communist country? Wouldn't communists, anarchists, and socialists also be working towards these goals based on their own economic analysis of the world?



And look at this comment kids, this is called being a hypocrite. In claiming that I am making a brash "thought" on something or someone I do not know, he, in fact, IS making a brash generalization of ME and he does not KNOW ME either.

I know Christians fairly well. My mom is a Christian, my family is christian; I was an "apolgetic" researcher at about 18.



They do it to "convert souls" and "earn points" with the "big guy." Think of it as earning some sort of reward for yourself.

And I hope that no secular organizations are out preaching some dogmatic assertions based on a religious institution. Otherwise they wouldn't be secular.



And? I also know someone who is doing that who is an ATHEIST.



That's not a sad fact at all. And I agree that many parts of the Christian doctrine could be said to do that. But everytime a Christian opens up his mouth about a divine boss, he robs them of their freedom. Everytime a Christian opens his mouth about eternal damnation, he robs them of their dignity.

"A boss in heaven is the best excuse for a boss on Earth; therefore if God did exist, it would be necessary to abolish him." - Mikhail Bakunin



And they are all great things. So what? Again, provide evidence that all this cannot be done except for a spiritual analysis and I will gladly concede.

You missed the point of my entire argument:
All good things that come from religion could come from a simple materialist analysis of it. Freedom, equality, all these things... are all logical concepts.

It shouldnt be a negative for someone to be Religous if they are a Politician. Politicians arent supposed to make personal decisions anyways.

Course that doesnt happen, but

^ It shouldnt be negative, of course. It shouldnt matter, IF they keep religion out of politics. We are not discussing here if polititians can have religious beliefs, rather than what role has religion in politics.

Somasoul, helping others is not an ideal that is property of the freakin church. As i said before, one thing is ethic, ideals, morality, and other thing is religion. You and I might believe that we have to be helpful with others, but you might believe in God, and i might not. To say that good actions are property of an organization is ridiculous.

Hardly. I've never said such actions were the property of anyone. The church and other religious establishments do many good deeds, deeds overlooked by religion haters. They'll gladly talk about preists who molest little boys but never about the good work of nuns and volunteers.



You obviously understand nothing about Christianity.

No I understand a lot. The part about building up a reward was more of a joke. But we all know about Jesus' commandment to his disciples as he parted to go and make disciples.

So my point still stands... they are doing it to "convert souls." Not because they are generally interested in helping change the prison system.

The idea that ALL of them are doing it to convert souls is just as ludicrous as the idea that ALL of them are doing it because they're good people. Just because they're religious does not mean they don't have individual personalities and motives.

Humm not at all. Read my post again and tell me where i misvalued what religious people have done. Neither did i talk about child molesters. I know a lot of religious people are really great people, and this makes a lot of sense. What i said is, that good does not belong to religion, and to use the argument that "religion does good while non religion doesnt", is not valid.

Really? Can you please explain to me how going to prisons in order to "preach" and build churches is anything BUT evangelizing? This is not to say that they're doing other things as well, but their main priority is "saving" the "unsaved."

It is the exact same reason that they go to other countries. Feeding the homeless and building shelters is merely a backdrop to the religious reason for them heading there; to convert the "unsaved." Which is why it's considered evangelizing.

I do not disagree with any of this. Is there a reason why it is wrong? Does anyone do anything for an unselfish reason or without other intentions?

Christians will gladly help people who do not convert, even if they are trying to "save" people's souls. If people refuse the message they still receive bread and water and medical attention. We do all things in the name of Christ so that the name of Christ may be glorified. We do not always do those things well and we do mess up.......a lot, we're human. Our message is a message of peace and of hope, taking that message to other places and meeting the physical needs of the people is what our religion has done for thousands of years, even in the worst times of Christianity hope still shown through.

It is merely underlying the reason for it. It is further showing that their intentions are not merely to help people, that is but a backdrop for their real goal... CONVERSION.

Now, you can agree with this and find no fault in it all you want. But I do. Doing good purely to get someone to "convert" to your dogmatic faith so you can gain some sort of "satisfaction" from "saving" souls, shows that there is an underlying motive.

The good that comes out of it is much appreciated, but it'd be more appreciated if the religious bullshit was simply, DROPPED from it.



Yes and they do that so that the "non-believers" will see it and give "thanks to God" along with them. So even while they help people who do not convert, they are doing it TO CONVERT THEM. I believe it was Jesus who asked "Do not the pagans do that?" Telling his disciples to repay evil with good so that they may "stand out" and be a "beacon" onto the world. AKA, so that people will notice them and will convert to christianity with them.



LMAO!

I'm sure God was moved by that little speech you just gave. Your message is one of "convert" or "die." And "you're evil so you need to be saved from yourselves through the help of God." You dress up your religious "nature" in sheeps clothes but you are the same wolf that sponsored the inquisition. You are the same wolf that sponsored the crusades. Your name? Religion.

And if you want to talk about what your religion has done for thousands of years, we can do that.

I'm done trying to talk to you, Dataika. Your lack of respect is astounding.

Ask anyone here, they will tell you how I feel about religion. I do not respect religion because it is dogmatic superstition.

You can't refute any of the arguments I have made:
You didn't refute that all the good things that happen because of religion could happen and probably would have without it
You didn't refute that there is an underlying method to their helping others and that is to convert people.

In short, you didn't refute any of the claims I made, so why did you even enter into the debate?

Dataika, I know where you're coming from, but i'de like to discuss something that's irritating me. You say that ALL religion is dogmatic and based on superstition, and, when I look around, I see this dogmatism in many Western religions, as well as others. I don't, however, see it in ALL religions.

I've been interested in Buddhism for a time, and am going to use that as my example:

The teachings of Buddhism, I believe, are not based on dogmatism. While it does present an explanation of the purpose of life, Buddha expressly tought that his students shoud not take his word as truth, but think for themselves about whether or not what he was saying resonated with them and made sense. This seems to directly contradict the idea of dogma, as they are not tought as "truth," but simply an explanation.

This is more of a questioning on what your thoughts are on this, as opposed to what you'de use to refute it, than the beginning of a debate, and I am most certainly not trying to convert you or some such nonsense.

I honestly do not know about Buddhism. I do however, know that it has led to corrupt tyranny and heirarchial institutions. So while it may not be "dogmatic" it is still superstitious and can lead to abnormal amounts of dogmatic theories.

Buddhism may be the exception though because of its atheistic tendencies.

I believe you're reffering to the corrupt government of Tibet? I don't have many details on that, only what the Dalai Lama mentions in his autobiography, but I'm fairly certain that it's because Buddhism is more concerned with inner peace than government affairs. Unfortunetely, this allowed the current situation with the Chinese to accur in Tibet, but I don't believe that's the fault of Buddhism.



By superstitious I assume you mean belief in something that cannot be proved? If so, then that is the basis of all religion, to an extent that varies between religion. The word tends to have negative connotations, but if it's taken literally than that's what religion is, although some who have had religious or spiritual experiences may dissagree. Personally, I would really liketo talk to someone who has had one of these experiences in order to find out more on the matter, but I don't know anyone who has had that happen.



It may be, and this is why I'm interested in it. Other religions, while all having the same fundamental ideals of morality, tend to have a large amount of religious baggage, such as all the negative things in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, which have repelled me from them.


Just a note: I find it interesting that they are able to "recognize" (in quotation marks because if I don't you'll argue with me, and all I really want is contemplative discussion ) the various incarnations of the Dalai Lama. I'de like to find out how they do this, because I think it's fascinating. (Ugh, I feel like an old person using fascinating, maybe I should change that to "really really coolz" )

Edit: Just something about religion that I have to get out, it really doesn't have anything to do with any of the rest of my post:

I feel divided on the matter of religion. I see all these Chrisitan Fundamentalists telling people to vote for Bush because gays are evil, I see "You can't be a Catholic and be Pro-Abortion" bumper-stickers (although the abortion issue is something I can see the other side of, unlike gay marriage) and I see our president, thinking he's on some sort of crusade of righteousness, and I agree with you that we would be much better off without religion.
But then I see people like my grand-parents, who are VERY religious, doing good things because they believe it's right, because of the teachings of their religion. I've been with them, and it's not because they're trying to convert souls, or save them, but because they're good people. Is this a result of their beliefs? I don't know. I also see the likes of Malcolm X, who was "saved," in his own words, by religion, and continued to be a religious person throughout his life. There are also people such as the Dalai Lama, who I have much respect for, and are very religious.
I simply feel that I cannot condemn religion, because of the good it's done, but I cannot condone religion, because of the evils it can cause.

Whew! That felt good to get out! You have my permission to laugh at; respond to; not respond to; ignore; print out and burn, physically consume, liquify; or plagarize the above two paragraphs.

Dataika:

Really? Can you please explain to me how going to prisons in order to "preach" and build churches is anything BUT evangelizing? This is not to say that they're doing other things as well, but their main priority is "saving" the "unsaved."








Well Dataika, it's true, Christians have gotten all crapped up. What I think is that there are alot of Christians out there now, and they get so cozy in their churches and worry about their own souls, that they forget how to save others. Instead they throw a Bible in your face and tells you God loves you because that's their "job". Technically, I don't think that's right, Christains should love others, and show Jesus' love. So instead of telling someone how much God loves them, I just show them love because that's what "I" am supposed to do. They just want Christians to quit saying that they should love that person, they just want us to shut up and love them. Which is what I do, if the subject of Jesus comes up I'll tell them my philosophys and all that good junk. I'm not ashamed of my religion by not speaking of it, I just don't think that you should force people into Christianity, it's such a turn off. If you havn't seen the movie "Saved", you really should. It is a slammer to Christianity, it shows what Christians do these days, they don't even understand the Bible themselves. So technically, I think there needs to be a new revelation in the churches to get it back of how it's supposed to be. In the Bible, lots of guys just preached Jesus, but they had miracles they could do. That's always a plus. But I think Christians should just shut up and love people and then if people get interested, we should show them what we believe. No one's perfect, if you think Christians think they're perfect, you're way off, well actually some do, and they suck. My main priority is not "saving" the "unsaved". My main priority is living out Christian morals and showing love, and then if it comes up, I do try to "save" the "unsaved", because I want to share the good news. yeah

Q

This is basically what I was trying to say in my post about spirituality. The spiritual part has gone out of the religion, and it's become a title and not a practice. That's not right.

Everyone makes the Dalai Lama out to be some sort of saint. I find this to be rather rediculous. In Tibet, before Chinese "liberation" there was a feudal system in place. The Dalai Lama was a king of "divine" origin. Somewhat like what the Christian monarchs in the Middle Ages.. using Divine Right as an excuse for having everything in a feudal system. Feudal Lords had permission to execute punishments against their serfs. The Dalai Lama has been organizing forces to bring this sort of government back where he and nobles can rule Tibet.

Simply, the Dalai Lama facade of being a "peaceful" man is the west's attempt to make the "commies" seem like evil bastards.

More info: http://www.tibet.cn/tibetzt/question_e/6/095.htm
http://www.index-china-travel.com/g-patala.html
http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclop...f%20the%20lamas
http://www.wpb.be/lalkar/lalkar0001/04tibet.html

These are merely on the first page of the results in google after I typed: Tibet Feudalism.

For info on the Dalai Lama and other ways Buddhism has been used to spark violence and the like:
http://www.swans.com/library/art9/mparen01.html



I see superstition as not only a belief in the "unseen" but as an unreasonable, paranoia belief in what they "feel" is the unseen. It's simply not grounded in any facts, and anything not grounded in logic or facts, should be discarded as unreasonable.



Well you have to wonder, would Malcolm had been any different he had been influenced by socialist ideals? I doubt he would have been any different from his religious incarnation. Islam merely opened him up to a more eglitarian society (as such is Islamic law) and he used this is a "springboard" for his ideal of social equality and the like. I gather the same thing would have happened had he picked up some socialist material as well. Some Marx, some Bakunin, etc... would have probably done the same job as the "Holy Koran" did.

My mom is Christian as well and does good things because of it. However, I just wish they would stop doing it to be a "good christian" and do it because they are concened with social inequality based on both sceintific and materialist analysis.

Well Ragehead, that's good. I like that attitude. I have no problem with religion being a private thing.

However the context of that quote is about prisons and evangelizing. When you go to a prison and the like, as a christian "social event" it is to convert people, otherwise it would be a SOCIAL EVENT without the "christian" nonsense. And if you want to do those actions because a high diety told you it's a good thing, then that's great. Just leave the conversion and religion stuff OUT OF IT and if someone wants to know, THEN explain it to them. That's all I ask... keep religion out of it.

Well that's what I do. But that's not what the Christian body does. Like I said, when it comes to saving souls, they just throw a Bible in your face. It sucks. Christianity has become too much of a practice, a ritual. I can't stand it.

Well you are the exception. But that's a really GOOD thing, in my opinion.