State-Church Separation

[Vortex]

A few other threads got me thinking about this subject, and as you will have figured by now this is about the church and the state.

Thoughts?

[mdk]

When the church and state were the same entity there was never a wars.

.....

[Dervish]

mdk said
When the church and state were the same entity there was never a wars......

I sincerely hope you're just being a trolliollio, because humans are champs at finding the flimsiest justifications for going to war, and let's not forget the time the Vatican was all "Hey, see those fuckers South of the Mediterranean? Go send our Jock-Knights to go collect their heads and take back some city that was mentioned in the Bible a few times, a'right? Pope OUT!" Because that was a thing.

Or when the Incas were all, "Oh shit, our God's having his time of the month. Better go invade and enslave that neighbouring city because we're waaay below quota for getting the sun to come up next week."

Or when Joan of Arc was waking up from a hangover, stumbled out and was like, "Guys, guys! God just fuckin' told me, 'Fuck the English, amirite?' in those exact words, and he said I had bigger balls than the rest of you, so I'm totally in charge."

And so on. Point is, the state and church being bed buddies hasn't boded well for preventing wars anymore than kicking the Church to the curb like the USSR and China, 'cause if you don't fear God, you don't really care that you've got enough corpse-bones to remake the cities that were destroyed in whatever war you were apart of.

[Brovo]

mdk said
When the church and state were the same entity there was never a wars......

Au contraire. They were very common, from civil wars to international conflicts.

EDIT

Specifically: The Catholic Church would say "fuck these guys" and the rest of Europe typically went along with it. Them and rogue knights/mercs and so forth. Same goes for retaliatory jihads. Also Japan. The entire history of Japan is riddled with examples of the religious government ordering exterminations, wars, and so on.

[ActRaiserTheReturned]

mdk said
When the church and state were the same entity there was never a wars......

[Jorick]

I'm 100% in favor of such separation. Religious beliefs should never be the foundation for a system of governance, because then dogma tends to get into the mix and dogma is almost always awful. When you combine religion with your government it inevitably leads to people enforcing their religious beliefs on others. This, as most people ought to agree, is shitty and shouldn't be done. Everyone is welcome to have their own beliefs, but forcing them upon others is bad and that's what a joining of church and state does.

mdk said
When the church and state were the same entity there was never a wars......

Iran has been a theocracy since 1979. The Iran-Iraq War started in 1980 and ended in 1988.

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was a theocratic state formed in China in 1851. They waged a war of rebellion against the Qing Dynasty, which today is known as the Taiping Rebellion, that is said to have been one of the deadliest military conflicts in all of history and resulted in the deaths of an estimated 20 million people.

The Byzantine Empire was a theocracy (the Emperor was an absolute autocrat who was considered God's omnipotent representative) that lasted for over a millennium and engaged in well over 100 wars throughout their history, both as defender and aggressor.

I figure you were trying to be a cheeky little troll here, but come on, it takes all of fifteen seconds to do a little bit of research and debunk your claim. Try harder next time.

[mdk]

sorry. Just my way of saying this isn't really a controversial topic anymore, and hasn't been for 250 years or more; everybody agrees, and setting it up as an argumentative topic is a fallacious premise. Nobody wants a conjunction of church and state. I'd wager that anybody still wanting to talk about it has an axe to grind.

Closing a post with awkward-silence ellipses is my way of denoting sarcasm, for future reference. Forced grammatical errors too.

[So Boerd]

We could always make this a discussion of sonething controversial. For example, the Arabs had stolen Judea from the Christians. In effect, they started the religious wars and the Christians were retaliating. Why do we not equally vilify the conquests of the Rashidun or the subsequent caliphates?

[ActRaiserTheReturned]

So Boerd said
We could always make this a discussion of sonething controversial. For example, the Arabs had stolen Judea from the Christians. In effect, they started the religious wars and the Christians were retaliating. Why do we not equally vilify the conquests of the Rashidun or the subsequent caliphates?

Or for that matter, why is Israel villainized as the real life evil Empire of Mordor?

[Vortex]

mdk said
sorry. Just my way of saying this isn't really a controversial topic anymore, and hasn't been for 250 years or more; everybody agrees, and setting it up as an argumentative topic is a fallacious premise. Nobody wants a conjunction of church and state. I'd wager that anybody still wanting to talk about it has an axe to grind.Closing a post with awkward-silence ellipses is my way of denoting sarcasm, for future reference. Forced grammatical errors too.

You would be surprised how many people want the church in more areas of Goverment, or at least in my town, and I wager that if people in my town want it to happen then there has to be somebody like that in the inter webs.

[Vortex]

ActRaiserTheReturned said
Or for that matter, why is Israel villainized as the real life evil Empire of Mordor?

Wait so your saying, Shimon Peres the leader of Israel is portrayed as Suron!?!

[Dervish]

ActRaiserTheReturned said
Or for that matter, why is Israel villainized as the real life evil Empire of Mordor?

This might explain why they're so touchy about people wearing rings around Mount Tabor.

[mdk]

A great 'I,' porkless, wreathed in missile-defense networks.

[ActRaiserTheReturned]

Dervish said
This might explain why they're so touchy about people wearing rings around Mount Tabor.

And why people who play Dungeons and Dragons are frowned on in the military.

[Nevis]

So Boerd said
We could always make this a discussion of sonething controversial. For example, the Arabs had stolen Judea from the Christians. In effect, they started the religious wars and the Christians were retaliating. Why do we not equally vilify the conquests of the Rashidun or the subsequent caliphates?

You just said the Middle-Easterners stole Middle Eastern lands from European invaders-though they actually did take form Middle Eastern Christians as well. And many of the Christians from the Jews. And many of the Jews from other Jews, who took from the Canaanites... how far back to you want to go with this?

On the OP matter-a LOT of people in the US actively seek out a conjunction of Church and State (so long as it is their denomination). Myself, my stance on government is anarchistic, anyways.

[ActRaiserTheReturned]

Nevis said
You just said the Middle-Easterners stole Middle Eastern lands from European invaders-though they actually did take form Middle Eastern Christians as well. And many of the Christians from the Jews. And many of the Jews from other Jews, who took from the Canaanites... how far back to you want to go with this?On the OP matter-a LOT of people in the US actively seek out a conjunction of Church and State (so long as it is their denomination). Myself, my stance on government is anarchistic, anyways.

In the furthest reaches of the Primordial Past, when Man was not yet Man, but a small mass of singled celled amoeba, one of the others bumps into the other two hard!

[mdk]

Nevis said On the OP matter-a LOT of people in the US actively seek out a conjunction of Church and State (so long as it is their denomination).

Maybe if we count atheism, but who does? I think this is a flawed perception. You see, say, a cross on a hill in a national park, and you want to take it down because separation of church and state, but people disagree with you and don't want to take it down. Your first reaction is to say, 'well they must NOT want a separation of church and state,' because that's how you're interpreting the situation and your perspective alters your perception. Maybe people just want to say 'merry christmas' and not get sued.

[Vortex]

Do they really need a religious symbol to celebrate a multifaith/multicultural/international celebration? Can't they just have a Christmas tree?

[mdk]

Vortex said
Do they really need a religious symbol to celebrate a multifarious/multicultural/international celebration? Can't they just have a Christmas tree?

We could use a kwanzaa lamp, but there's also this thing about separation of race and state.....

[Nevis]

No, there are literally plenty of people who literally actively work (and publicly advocate) the US becoming-officially-a Christian state. And, as for that comment-what? Atheism is by definition actively believing there are no divine entities; how does someone who thinks religion is entirely false want there to be a union of Church and State?

Really, spend ten minutes googling it. There's enough religious zealism in the US that some people actually want that.