Democracy and Religion are Incompatible: Here's why.

[GoBlue]

*Democracy assumes that people should be allowed to think for themselves.

*Religion assumes that people shouldn't be allowed think for themselves.

[SteppingRazor]

1. But...

Thinking for yourself, for some people, will lead them to religion.

Thus, democracy has to include religion.

[Inland]

8. It's a conundrum, isn't it? nt

[Bonhomme Richard]

2. The problem lies in the fact that democracy......

requires compromise in order to succeed while truly religious people are tied to absolutes. Black & white, right & wrong. There is no room for compromise. It is either part if their beliefs or it is not.

[1932]

4. Uhm, don't you think that's sort of a black and white absolutist statement

about religion?

Does that make you religious? Or maybe Jim Wallis's term "secular fundamentalist" is an apt description.

Your description of what religion is like sounds nothing like any of the truly christian people I know, nor does it descrbe people like Martin Luther King, Jr.

[Inland]

6. It's a conundrum, isn't it?

The black and white, absolutist, statement based on presumption about how religious people see things in black and white, absolutes, and based on faith.

[chaumont58]

11. A pet peeve of mine

I tire of people decrying the fundies as not 'truly christian people.' I submit there is as much evidence that the face put forth by Fred Phelphs, Jerry Fallwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, John Hagee, and others too numerous to mention is the face of absolutely true Christians. Spanish Inquisition was made up of true Christians. The Crusades was made up of true Christians. True Christians fought the War of the Protestant Refomation. Spanish Conquistators were true Christians. Those leading the fight against gay rights are true Christians. The idea that only good comes from the actions of true Christians, and that those who do evil in the name of organized Christianity, are somehow, not really true Christians, is a little convenient to me.
I'm an atheist. I don't cut any religion any slack. They don't cut me any slack, so its a little piece of the Golden Rule.

[Inland]

15. Why don't you guys go beat each other up then, and leave others out?

I mean it. The majorities that actually DO give people slack, don't jump to conclusions based on stereotypes or the worst examples of a group, and actually respect positions come to through thought or life experience, really wish that you would direct your anger towards those other guys who don't give slack.

Tying true christians to the spanish inquistion is as fair and openminded as tying you to Stalin or Pol Pot, and other famous atheists. (Or for that matter, tying you to slaveowners, slaughterers of indians, and the invasion of Iraq as an American.) Of course, Pat Robertson would do just that, so why don't you go give HIM shit instead of the people who are trying in good faith to condemn him and distance themselves from him?

Why not just blame people for what they do, rather than the spanish inquistion?

[txaslftist]

23. K'ping! Excellent ripost, my friend!

We've had the "religious" since the dawn of man. We've had "Skeptics" and "athiests" for just as long.

They've been bashing heads for just as long.

They'll keep on bashing heads forever.

Isn't there a "religion and politics" forum somewhere around here where they can practice this unseemly head bashing out of sight and hence, out of mind?

[Inland]

25. Yes, there is a forum for religion and theology

But they'll tell you that atheists condemning religion as contrary to democracy and vice versa is political.

It is political, but it's really bad politics, based on stereotypes, unfair association, and a desire to flame.

[txaslftist]

28. But it makes for lively posting at Free Republic...

...when they reprint it to show how godless all of us Democrats are.

[Inland]

29. Can you blame them?

After all, when the freepers insult the vast majority of Americans on pretty flimsy grounds, when the freeps have the audacity to tell others what they REALLY believe and think, it gets good play here.

In fact, DU has been quoted in right wing christian fundraising letters.

[Bonhomme Richard]

13. I guess using "truly religious" was not correct.

I do like "Secular Fundamentalist" though.

[1932]

3. Not only are faith and "thinking for yourself" entirely compatible,

the core values of religion -- looking after the least among us, doing good deeds, compassion -- should be core poltical values.

I'm not saying religion and government should be the same thing. But recognizing they have overlapping values and then not resisting that truth would give liberals a lot of opportunity to affirm those values in way that resonates broadly.

Trying to separate the two merely leaves religion to hands of the right wing.

People who have faith who feel inclined to look after the poor and care about society need to hear arguments about policy and politics that show them where progressivism resonates with their faith.

If you need to read the 800 page version of this argument, it's in Jim Wallis's God's Politics.

[Midwest_Doc]

7. Freedom is NOT Compatible with ANY Religion

Every religion requires belief in something that defies logic. Once the leap is made to believe the unbelievable, you are fair game for indoctrination.

[Inland]

10. And yet, look at all the countries where free people practice religion

freely and all the unfree ones where the practice of religion is circumscribed. The most controlled and unfree places in history have been atheist instituting a scientific theory, supposedly.

So it seems that you have made the leap of believing something that is not at all supported by the evidence. Yet you state it categorically, believing the unbelievable.

Turns out that absolutist, faithbased thinking isn't limited to religious, as the SU and NK and Pol Pot showed us.

[The Magistrate]

18. The Key, Sir

Seems to be this: the less seriously one takes one's beliefs, the less harm one can do through them....

[Inland]

20. I don't think so.

There are plenty of beliefs that aren't religious and are held absolutely. The value of democracy and freedom itself is held as tightly as any religious belief, so much so that we send people to die fighting for it. Even religion doesn't get that wide and deep of support.

Strong beliefs, even strong religious beliefs, are clearly compatible with democracy, given the coexistence in fact. If it wasn't, there wouldn't have been a revolution against His Most Christian Majesty in France or against the Defender of the Faith in America.

[The Magistrate]

27. My Comment, Sir

Engaged only the degree of harm that could be done through adherence to belief, not the possibility of benerfit, or whether benefits might outweigh harms.

[ultraist]

19. Seperation of church and state

Seperating church and state is the only way to prevent any government advancement or inhibition of religion.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment01/01.html#1

In 1802, President Jefferson wrote a letter to a group of Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut, in which he declared that it was the purpose of the First Amendment to build ''a wall of separation between Church and State.'' 15 In Reynolds v. United States, 16 Chief Justice Waite for the Court characterized the phrase as ''almost an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment.'' In its first encounters with religion-based challenges to state programs, the Court looked to Jefferson's metaphor for substantial guidance. 17 But a metaphor may obscure as well as illuminate, and the Court soon began to emphasize neutrality and voluntarism as the standard of restraint on governmental action. 18 The concept of neutrality itself is ''a coat of many colors,'' 19 and three standards that could be stated in objective fashion emerged as tests of Establishment Clause validity. The first two standards were part of the same formulation. ''The test may be stated as follows: what are the purpose and the primary effect of the enactment? If either is the advancement or inhibition of religion then the enactment exceeds the scope of legislative power as circumscribed by the Constitution. That is to say that to withstand the strictures of the Establishment Clause there must be a secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion.'' 20 The third test is whether the governmental program results in ''an excessive government entanglement with religion. The test is inescapably one of degree . . . he questions are whether the involvement is excessive, and whether it is a continuing one calling for official and continuing surveillance leading to an impermissible degree of entanglement.'' 21 In 1971 these three tests were combined and restated in Chief Justice Burger's opinion for the Court in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 22 and are frequently referred to by reference to that case name.

[Inland]

5. And yet, there is co-existence of religion and democracy all over.

So you are wrong. You simply are.

Now, and through history, religious countries have been democratic. Democracy was created by and developed in religious nations.

Whereas the longest lasting totalitiarian structures were officially atheist.

So to quote the atheist Friedrich Engels, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating".

[bryant69]

9. OK how about this one

"Democracy requires moral people to work effectively - a Democracy composed of immoral people will shortly decend into anarchy or tyranny."

"Religion is the only way to ensure that people will be moral."

The first statement is largely true (although one might quibble about what being moral means), the second statement is ludicrus. But it makes as much sense as the origional post, so let it be.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Inland]

12. Religion doesn't ensure morality.

Religion is a category that is value neutral.

Anyone who assumes that religion must be good are as misguided as those that assume it must be bad.

[bryant69]

14. Yes that's why I said the second statement was ludicrus

[tx_dem41]

16. I agree..with one modification...Democracy and Your Perception of..

Religion are incompatible.

[ultraist]

17. I disagree with your premise

Not all religions require that people not think for themselves.

Restricting freedoms is inconsistent with democracy. (small d)

U.S. Constitution: First Amendment

First Amendment - Religion and Expression

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

[kysrsoze]

21. This gets my vote for the most worthless thread of the day

A love to see people make blanket statements about people who are part of something they personally despise. Sounds a lot like what the right does.

[Inland]

26. Two sides of the same coin. nt

[ProdigalJunkMail]

22. horseshit... n/t

[txaslftist]

24. Actually, no. It's chickenshit.

as in not of substance enough to qualify as excrement of a larger animal.

[Moderator]

30. Locking...

This is flamebait.