Is Religion Bad for Politics?

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Is Religion Bad for Politics?

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Post by Diogenes »

Is Religion Bad for Politics and other forms of public discourse? That is the question for debate.

During the last 40 years or so there has been a war waged by many in the evangelical community, a war agains 'secularism.' More recently that war has resulted in congregants leaving their churches to join more conservative enclaves, churches that unabashedly preach right wing politics along with fundamentalist religious views.
How Politics Poisoned the Evangelical Church
The movement spent 40 years at war with secular America. Now it’s at war with itself.

__ Tim Alberta, The Atlantic, May 10, 2022
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/20 ... VXV085L3dA

Don't absolutist views, supported by religious faith, increase the likelihood of increasing conflict in the body politic, making differences irreconcilable and violence more likely? Would both society and the church be better off if the church confined itself to spiritual and personal moral values?
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Re: Is Religion Bad for Politics?

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Post by Diogenes »

One of the reasons I pose this question is that religion, perhaps more than other ideological systems, tends to raise the issues, and their intensity, to a level beyond the rational to a place where adherents cannot compromise and put faith above reason.
One example is the abortion issue. If an abortion is murder as an article of faith, a belief some hold as if told directly by a divine source, then murdering doctors and blowing up clinics becomes justified in the minds of such believers.
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Re: Is Religion Bad for Politics?

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Post by bjs1 »

Diogenes wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 3:01 pm Would both society and the church be better off if the church confined itself to spiritual and personal moral values?
"Would both society and the church be better off is people kept their own ideas private and everyone agreed to only speak my beliefs in public?"

I see the temptation to that, but ultimately I do not think anyone would be better off (except, perhaps, the lucky few who got to decide what everyone was allowed to believe in public).
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
-Charles Darwin

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Re: Is Religion Bad for Politics?

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Post by Diogenes »

bjs1 wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 8:57 pm
Diogenes wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 3:01 pm Would both society and the church be better off if the church confined itself to spiritual and personal moral values?
"Would both society and the church be better off is people kept their own ideas private and everyone agreed to only speak my beliefs in public?"

I see the temptation to that, but ultimately I do not think anyone would be better off (except, perhaps, the lucky few who got to decide what everyone was allowed to believe in public).
The purported quote [in color] is not mine of course. It is your perversion of my question; a completely different question which I did not and would not suggest or ask (even if it did not contain typos). I would neither ask that question, nor suggest people not express themselves.

My question is about the perversion and destruction of religious moral values and principles by cheapening them and transforming them with personal political speech that may transform those ideals into their opposites, into what may in fact be "spiritual lies."

I suggest this is what Bolin does when he wades into an area he is ignorant of such as the effectiveness of vaccines. This is what phony fundamentalists do when they impose their non Biblical opinions about life beginning when the zygote is formed, as if God herself told them so.
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Re: Is Religion Bad for Politics?

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Post by AgnosticBoy »

Diogenes wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 3:10 pm One of the reasons I pose this question is that religion, perhaps more than other ideological systems, tends to raise the issues, and their intensity, to a level beyond the rational to a place where adherents cannot compromise and put faith above reason.
One example is the abortion issue. If an abortion is murder as an article of faith, a belief some hold as if told directly by a divine source, then murdering doctors and blowing up clinics becomes justified in the minds of such believers.
The Christians can have their view, but ultimately they'll have to compromise when it comes to trying to implement it beyond themselves. The United States is not a theocracy, so every Christian should expect that they won't have some special status in society or that their views on morality won't automatically mean more than anyone else's views.

I also have to say that I've experienced plenty of dogmatic or seemingly uncompromising views among secularists, as well. Someone on the Left can simply define or frame the abortion issue as a women's right's issue, so banning abortion, amounts to suppressing women. It's not inconceivable for some to resort to violence. I can think of other examples of recent violence involve secular/social movements, like the recent protests involving antifa and BLM. Hek, there are even people that have committed violent acts in the name of global warming or other environmental related reasons, i.e. eco-terrorists.

In short, I think ANY or ALL groups that become too dogmatic and/or uncompromising are bad for politics. The level of inflammatory rhetoric, involving associating some view with a moral or severe judgement (evil, baby murderer, woman suppressing, race suppressing) also doesn't help. I'd only make such judgements when it's a clear cut case, one that both or most sides would agree on (as opposed to just coming from one side). The negative effects are not just intellectual (lack of freethought), but also leading some to resort to more hate and/or violence.

Okay... off my soapbox.
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Re: Is Religion Bad for Politics?

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Post by Diogenes »

AgnosticBoy wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 9:40 pm The Christians can have their view, but ultimately they'll have to compromise when it comes to trying to implement it beyond themselves. The United States is not a theocracy, so every Christian should expect that they won't have some special status in society or that their views on morality won't automatically mean more than anyone else's views.

I also have to say that I've experienced plenty of dogmatic or seemingly uncompromising views among secularists, as well.
I agree. The real enemy to reason can be any strongly held ideology that steers one away from objective, rational analysis. Certainly popular liberal secularism can function in a way similar to fundamentalist religion. The difference is that religious fundamentalism has a built in resistance to reason in that the practitioner has a built in manifesto, a written idol that can be pulled out to confirm anything, no matter how unreasonable or unlikely. These these things can and do include beliefs in the impossible, once they are christened 'miracles.'

I suggest these ideas, once enshrined with the imprimatur of religious 'truth' become more resistant to reason and modification than other, more rational ideologies. The effect can be just what you point out, a threat to transform secular society into a theocracy. In such a movement we would expect to have the core news information systems discarded or minimized as 'fake news.' This is exactly what has happened in this current unholy alliance between Christian fundamentalism and right wing politics.
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Re: Is Religion Bad for Politics?

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Post by The Barbarian »

We already see one effect of the entanglement of religion and politics; evangelicals have been the most active in this process, and church membership and attendance has suffered the most in those denominations.

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Re: Is Religion Bad for Politics?

Post #8

Post by Athetotheist »

[Replying to Diogenes in post #1

"....the Bill implies either that the Civil Magistrate is a competent Judge of Religious Truth; or that he may employ Religion as an engine of Civil policy. The first is an arrogant pretension falsified by the contradictory opinions of Rulers in all ages, and throughout the world: the second an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation."
---James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments", 1785

The whole thing is a good read.

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A Recent Example of Religion Corrupting Politics?

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Post by Diogenes »

A broader statement would be "Tribalism is bad for politics." In fact historically religion has been used to unite, preserve and defend the tribe. Religion is especially tribal in this regard because it demands absolute adherence to its ideals and whatever tribe it represents.

Rusty Bowers is the Arizona House Speaker. He is a Christian, a Republican, and a Trump supporter. He believes the U. S. Constitution was divinely inspired. He testified before Congress a few days ago that Trump personally asked him to violate his oath of Office and the Constitution by decertifying the electors chosen by Arizona voters for Biden, and help Trump install fake electors for Trump. Bowers refused, telling the President:
“I said, ‘Look, you are asking me to do something that is counter to my oath,’ ” Bowers testified. He told the men he would not break his oath and would uphold the Constitution.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... ers-jan-6/
But the sad point of this story is that after his testimony Bowers said he would vote for Trump again; that he would vote to put back into office someone who represents such a direct threat to country's democracy.

It is hard to make a more telling point about the danger of religious tribalism.
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Re: Is Religion Bad for Politics?

Post #10

Post by 2ndRateMind »

Diogenes wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 3:01 pm Is Religion Bad for Politics...?
I don't think so. But I do think that divisive politics are bad for religion.

Best wishes, 2RM.
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Not all who wander are lost

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