By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Kasz216 said:
Mr Khan said:

Because politics is necessarily material, and it political motives are often material in desire. The church embraces these agendas for less-than-noble reasons by politicizing, like what the Catholics did in the runup to the 1500s that led (in part) to the Protestant Revolution. When mixed with politics, religion becomes subservient to politics, not the driving force behind political motives, but the moral authority to back another agenda.

Religion has long abused their moral authority to hold back progress in democratic countries. Hell, the Catholic Church is most of the reason that France killed their own democratic transition in 1848, because the suffrage-granted peasants were told "vote for the monarchists" by their priests, and they did. Or in America in the run-up to the Civil War, the Abolitionists were largely religious, but Southern faith-leaders also used Christianity to justify slavery. One of them was betraying their faith (and that's looking at it objectively. One religion can't hold both of these views simultaneously, removing the morality of slavery from the equation entirely).

THat premise only holds up if only religion has ever embraced agendas for less then noble reasons.

Which... just isn't the case.

Outside which... Religion has also often helped democratic progress... and if religion can hold back things in a democracy... well it should.

If people care about their relgion, and their religion says something shouldn't happen... people have the right to know their religion wouldn't like such a thing.

Trying to infringe on religions freedom of speech is extremely heinous.

I didn't say "shouldn't be allowed to," i said, "shouldn't." I'm not trying to repress freedom of speech, i'm trying to say that religious figures should avoid becoming invested in particular earthly political causes, for while it can have good benefits sometimes (like the southern churches that helped push Civil Rights in the '60s), ultimately it's distracting from the mission, because as the political class grows aware of religion's usefulness, they will work to twist it to their own ends (sometimes being objectively good ends, yes, but it works dangerously on the matter of faith)



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.