Do you think that religion has any place in politics?

[Grey Acumen]

flukus said:

 

 I always see this argument and it's a faulty one. It is religion that has based it's laws around what human societies naturally deem unacceptable. *1

Rape, murder and theft were considered bad by society long before any of todays major religions existed and it will remain when todays major religions die out. *2

Most doctrines are also completely incompatible with what humans now consider immoral. Corporal punishment and animal cruelty are considered bad things in the majority of the western world yet most religions rarely mention. In many cases (such as corporal punishment) christianty and islam promote it. *3

And no one is saying that you can't have faith and opinions on social issues, but you can't enforce your opinions on everyone else through law. For arguments sake your $deity says that homosexual relationships are wrong and should be outlawed. Then through a majority vote it became outlawed. That would be imposing your religion on other people regardless of their belief. In essence, what I'm saying is that your faith is fine as a guiding moral compass that you can personally follow, but if you tried to have your faith enshrined in law then you have overstepped the seperation of church and state. *4

1* Religion covers a lot more than just what is naturally wrong. just take a look at how Pork isn't allowed in most Jewish and Muslim religions. There were quite a few NASTY parasites on pigs that cleaning and cooking procedures at the time simply couldn't deal with. Making pork forbidden protected those groups.

2* How long exactly has the Jewish faith been around? It's still kicking along pretty strong, and since Christianity is simply an extension of that, you can pretty much apply the same age to Christianity. Perhaps my history is a little off, but I believe that still extends back at LEAST to the age of the pharaohs in egypt, and possibly even beyond that.

3* I'm not sure how this is supposed to be a case against religion. quite frankly, I find animal cruelty to be abhorrent, but at the same time I find it utterly ridiculous to elevate them to having the same rights as humans. Or to think that it is abnormal for an animal to suffer. Just look at how the Komodo Dragon hunts. It uses bacteria to infect its prey and then stalk it while the victim slowly rots to death. Is it pleasant? No. Should we add to the suffering unnecessarily? No. Is it in any way our duty to ensure that animals don't suffer? No.

Same thing for corporeal punishment. YOU may think it's wrong, and the media may act like everyone says its wrong, and when people state getting emotional about their reasons for invoking it, yeah, they're generally wrong too, but that doesn't mean that corporeal punishment doesn't have its place. Of course, the real issue is it's not a punishment, it's a measure to ensure the safety of society, both through irreversible consequences as well as the demonstration of those consequences to the rest of society.

4* this is just so utterly flawed: EVERY law that is MADE is enforcing someone's opinion on someone else. I say I want to kill some guy, but there's a law that says I can't. Since religion isn't an issue, it's only their opinion that it's wrong to kill that guy, so why are you using the law force that opinion on me?

The separation of church and State also goes both ways too. If you try making a law that churches have to allow gay marriage, then that is overstepping the bounds of separation of church and state as well. The only thing a law would be allowed to do is make the government recognize a homosexual civil union.