Why would anyone want a "Christian Government"??

[shraby]

Those are the kinds of governments where people get hung for being witches, heads lobbed off for not belonging to the "accepted" religion, imprisoned for the demons in their souls, burned in ovens for their beliefs and many other atrocities occur.
Give me a secular government all the time. It's a whole lot safer.

[Fumesucker]

1. "Those are the kinds of governments where people get hung for being witches"..

You say that like it's a bad thing... :shrug:

[shraby]

3. Problem..anyone can be deemed a witch, particularly if

they don't belong to the accepted religion, or to no religion..yes it IS a bad thing.

[Fumesucker]

15. Everything is a matter of perspective..

If you are a member of the ruling class then being able to designate someone as a "witch" or a "terrorist" without any real proof at all is a useful power to have.

"It's good to be King" -Mel Brooks

[niyad]

8. you have no problem with witches, or anyone named as witch, being hung? why is that?

[Fumesucker]

10. That burning smell?

It's your snarkometer. ;)

:hi:

[niyad]

22. the problem is, there really are groups of christian fundies today who advocate the burning of

witches (and I am not just talking about palin's whacko pastor) we have some of them right here in fundieville.

[kestrel91316]

27. They also advocate stoning people to death. They are Dominionists,

and yes, I believe Palin is one of them right down to those beliefs. She just knows not to let people know that part, lest it interfere with her plans to get into the WH.

[Odin2005]

29. And they want to bring back slavery as punishment for debtors.

:puke:

[kestrel91316]

43. You got it. Palin is one of THOSE. She just doesn't want people to know.

[Fumesucker]

28. Which is where and why Poe's Law comes in..

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe's_Law

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing.


Congratulations, you've just been Poed.. ;)

:hi:

:toast:

[LibertyLover]

49. As an ordained high priestess and a Wiccan -

yeah, that's a bad thing.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. I don't want a theocracy either, but secular governments can be just as

oppressive and dangerous.

[shraby]

6. Like I said, if I had my druthers...a secular government is my

choice between the two.

[GreenPartyVoter]

17. But I would hope you would be more specific than just secular if you ever

get the chance to wish up your dream gov't. :)

[K8-EEE]

44. We sent Americans to die to form a secular democracy in Iraq (and FAILED)

It is now an Islamic Republic where Christians cannot even celebrate Christmas openly. FAIL.

Secular government with religious freedom for all -- that is the greatest form of government there is, what is the problem with it? Yet the fundies don't want us to have that. We can spend a trillion dollars trying unsuccessfully to install it somewhere else, but here "secularism" is bad. Why is that? Secularism and religious freedom are our proudest tradition.

[meow mix]

4. non-believers and fornicators must die

puts me first in line for the stake =(

[KansDem]

9. Tell them you're not a "non-believer and fornicator" but rather a "fornicator and non-believer"...

Might buy you some time.

[cali]

5. why would anyone want an Islamic gov't or a buddhist gov't?

because they're passionate believers, that's why.

[shraby]

7. Or a Catholic government ..shades of the inquisition..

or a Protestant government..shades of Bloody Mary. Religious governments tend to be extreme sometimes not, but those kinds have been responsible for a lot of the atrocities in history.

[PassingFair]

35. Bloody Mary was catholic. nt

[badtoworse]

39. In case you don't know, this is the 21st Century

That stuff happened in the Middle Ages. Things have changed since then.

[niyad]

11. the christian taliban, that's who.

[KansDem]

12. I tend to agree...

Government in general and public policy in particular should not be based on religious beliefs.

Having said that, I dread next week...x(

[Cleita]

13. Because some people think the Middle Ages are cool.

Wait until Bubonic Plague wipes out 2/3rds of the population and then I wonder what they will think if they are still around.

[randr]

14. I want the government out of my religion and religion out of my government!

Just like the founding fathers planned.

[Iggo]

16. You're describing fundy porn.

They love that shit.

[Bonhomme Richard]

18. Because it absolves people from personal responsibility.

These people are not reality based and whatever someone in authority tells them it must be right.

[dkofos]

19. Because that is what the church tells them to want.

[Kennah]

20. There is a difference between doctrine and it's application

Most anthropocentric religions could be described politically somewhere between social democracy and democratic socialism--at least in accordance with their religious texts.

I suspect more cultures that practice biocentric religions come a lot closer to democratic socialism.

[Karmadillo]

21. Given the horrors inflicted upon the world by securlar governments, I would guess

the solution is not so much in having secular or Christian governments as in avoiding the kind of hierarchical governments where the powerful are able to treat people as means rather than ends.

[madrchsod]

23. a secular "government" does`t bother itself with religion...

we do have a secular government and as a person of faith i will do what is possible to keep it that way.

[silver10]

24. I do agree with you if forced to choose...

And I cannot speak for God (if you believe in the existence) but the repukes who call themselves Christian are not at all Christian - their actions in politics are quite different than what they claim to be - what the Bible teaches how Jesus was supposed to have been. So the real dangerous thing is the definition of a Christian government, since we can't even decide what Christianity is. For example, the world has really never known a true communist government - the ones that existed were really brutal and dangerous dictatorships and oligarchies.

And I agree with one of the comments that the secular government can be just as dangerous (or less or more) than the religious one.

But since freedom of religion should be a right all humans have, the best choice would be secular.

[hfojvt]

25. that's your view of a Christian Government

most Christians do not see it that way, and a "Christian Nation" is not the same thing as a Christian Government.

[Igel]

46. Yes, but you don't understand.

It doesn't matter what people think they mean by their words.

People's words *actually* mean what selected others, wise and far more intelligent them, interpret their words to mean.

Long after they write words down, long after they die, their brain cells are retroactively revised through the marvels of temporal engineering to mean what the final arbiters of meaning dictate. It's a continuation of the dictatorship of the passive observer over the actual producers of speech.

It alleviates the listener of any responsibility to understand and think, to consider that their intellectual foes (if we so dub them) are anything other than a monolithic bloc. It properly guts progressivism of all nuance, all empathy, and any critical thinking, reducing us to blind automata following the wise leader.

Oh. Wait. That's not what progressivism is to be at all.

I somehow feel reductioed to an absurdum.

[patrice]

26. A. They think they are going to do better than what we see in History. They are wrong, because

the abdication of moral authority to an Other makes "Christians" weaker, not stronger. Certainly that is the lesson we see in the crucifixion of the Christ, a guy named Jesus. It is extremely interesting how much it is ignored that Jesus was crucified by his CHURCH-STATE.

Though in this time we probably would not see crucifixions, witch burnings and such, abdication of free personal moral responsibility makes it such that we can and do see the modern equivalent of these kinds of atrocities. Some cases in point: the Invasion & Occupation of Iraq in which 10s of thousands of innocent men, women, and children suffered and died, the persecution of LGBT, Racism, and the economic utilitaritization of future generations. All sanctioned, nay, BLESSED by our Church-SaintCo slave auxiliary to the Transnational Financial Fiefdoms who own this country.

[Taverner]

30. "The Family" and the Dominionists want just that

A Theocracy, Republic of Gilead style

[Duwamish]

33. This is a frightening thought.

What happens to those who disagree with the dominant religion?

Just recently in Texas, the Legislator who was in line to take over a GOP leadership position was opposed because he's Jewish and Texas "should be run on Christian principles." I'm paraphrasing poorly but that was the gist of it. The Leg. saying this claimed that the Jewish Leg. was "one of my best friends." When these guys talk about returning to Judeo-Christian laws or principles, where do they think the "Judeo" part comes from?

[badtoworse]

34. That Texas example is one person's ignorant prejudice...

Anti-semitism and other religious prejudices certainly exist, but they are not the same as a religious government where the religion's doctrine carries the force of law. A true religious government exists in places like Iran and the Sudan. Even though they are technically not running things, the Taliban are another example of how a religious government would operate. In places like that, you can be arrested for violating Ramadan, even if you are not Muslim. Criminal penalties are prescribed by the Koran.

I'm not aware of any non-Islamic religious governments existing today.

[badtoworse]

31. Exaggerate much?

I believe everyone wants a secular government (I sure do), but your post is bullshit. Christian governments (BTW, where are they?) haven't done things like that since the Middle Ages, maybe the seventeenth century if you count the witch trials in Salem. The only religious governments that actually commit atrocities like that today are run by Islamic Fundamentalists.

There has been no shortage of atrocities in the last century, but secular governments have committed the great majority of them.

[Nye Bevan]

37. The Salem Witch Trials are frequently cited by DUers

who want to demonstrate that Christianity can be just as bad as Sharia law. Well it could. In the 1600s.

[PassingFair]

47. It was WORSE.

The christian theocracies were non-functioning.

Hard to come together when every sect had their
own revealed truth.

Maybe that's why they don't exist anymore.

[jwirr]

32. Not to mention that a theocracy in the USA would lead directly to

a civil war between the various branches of religion over who should be ruling: mormons? baptists?, Pentecostals?

[Electric Monk]

36. When they say Christian (in that context), I hear Roman.

They (the majority, anyway) don't seem to worship the guy who got hung on the cross for saying be good to each other so much as they worship those who hung him there for saying it.

[JerseygirlCT]

51. Yup

[felix_numinous]

38. I think people who want a Christian theocracy

are being fed fairy tales ensuring them that they are the 'chosen' privileged people who will benefit from it. Milk and honey, total forgiveness, joy and rapture and of course eternity on the upside. Only heroin is better than this. The 'others' are then dehumanized as evil and not worthy, so this fairy tale is useful for raping, pillaging and torturing.....

Theocracies enable people to play God, but they always end up playing the Devil.

[WiffenPoof]

40. When I Got Remarried...

I married into a religious family...born again Christians. My new wife is pretty open minded, a dem, but still quite religious.

My step-daughter is in her mid-twenties and is home-schooling her two young children. Over the past five years that I have known her, we would have debates over religion. Sometimes they would get pretty heated...but we always knew when to stop. As an Agnostic, I think I'm somewhat a mystery to her.

Anyway, during one of our discussions where we were speaking of politics and religion I asked her if she felt that our country would be better off if the government were religiously based. To my amazement, she said yes. OMG...I didn't know what to say at first. I reminded her that religious governments are governments like Iran, etc. etc. That didn't seem to phase her. She said something to the effect that they are evil because they are not Christian. I could tell that I was digging myself a hole here. But I continued. You do realize, I said, that we have many religions in this country and that having just one of them dictating what our government does is problematic. Still, she made the point that a Christian government would be a vast improvement over what we have now. I began to think that this wasn't going to turn out well...so, I stopped.

I have never had another discussion with her again about any aspect of religion. I sort of felt that if she really believed a "religious government" was the best government, I had no hope of convincing her otherwise.

*sigh*

-PLA

[badtoworse]

41. I think you handled it well.

She is still young and in time, she will hopefully conclude that a secular government with freedom of religion for all is, by far, the best approach.

[Warren DeMontague]

42. People want to hide from scientific truths like evolution and the age of the Earth

and they're operating under some kind of crazy delusion that if they could just put prayer back in schools, people would stop fucking and TEH GAY would go away.

[sarcasmo]

45. This Atheist would have to move for fear of being executed.

[PurityOfEssence]

48. When you believe in bizarre things that don't stand to any scrutiny, you NEED everyone to agree

Ever seen the look in the eyes of the terrified? You know we're right, right? You do, right? Daddy's gonna love me, we're not really gonna die, it's all gonna be okay, right? You do, right?

The mindsets of fantasist certainty share some common aspects, and one of them is the NEED to eliminate any doubt and dissent; doubt is fear, and fear is bad, and...

Like conservatism, religious faith abhors difference; there's only one answer, and anything else, even if relatively benign, is not just a threat, but a pernicious evil.

That's why.

Yes, many Christians are not of this ilk, but this is what the belief tends to produce.

The inherent secularism built in with "rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's..." is a merciful bulwark against close-minded tyranny, but the problem remains.

[JerseygirlCT]

50. Well

perhaps if there were more of the ideals such as caring for the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the sick - those crazy sort of things - it might be something to aspire to.

As it is, the right has so hijacked the religion that it bears very little resemblance to the teachings of that guy Jesus all too often.

[DireStrike]

52. I remember thinking the world would be so much better once everyone was Catholic

I was 10 at the time. That's my excuse.