State-Church Separation

[Brovo]

ActRaiserTheReturned said
He's saying at least two different things. One of these things he's saying is what you just pointed out, and another thing he's saying is that the entire world belongs to God. Thus, God would rather you give to someone what belongs to them. In this case "taxes". :D

At the very least if it keeps the spiritual to the spiritual and government to government, it's a healthy policy. Each service a purpose, but they needn't mix. Like fire and water.

[ActRaiserTheReturned]

Brovo said
At the very least if it keeps the spiritual to the spiritual and government to government, it's a healthy policy. Each service a purpose, but they needn't mix. Like fire and water.

A half-truth that isn't necessarily meant for deception, that's for sure, but it is repeatedly used as a total truth to keep either side of the issue totally silent.

[mdk]

Brovo said
What's that one line in the Bible again? "Give unto God what is God's, and unto Caesar what is Caesar's." I don't remember specifically what it is but I get the idea of it, Jesus saying to give to God what is his and to the state what is theirs.

'Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God which is God's.'

A bunch of religious zealots had just come up to Jesus and asked if it was okay to use church donations as a tax-writeoff. It's... scary how easily some of those parables translate to today, honestly.

[So Boerd]

Brovo said
How about the Taiping rebellion? Twenty million deaths.My point isn't to defend the communist manifesto, it's to tell you why religion and government don't mix. The middle east is a perfect example of that right now. Sharia law is a perfect example of it. So on and so forth.There is an inexhaustible amount of evidence showing why mixing the two is just a bad idea flat out.Besides, in American schools, I don't think teachers could hand out Communist Manifestos and not get chewed up for it. Not even if they did it to teach what's wrong with the theory and how it doesn't account for human nature.

Sorry, Mao's still got the Taiping rebellion beat by a factor of 4 (I went with the highest estimate, 78,000,000 to fit all other killings he might have done under the folds). And then if we're including wars, Korea, Vietnam, Greek Civil War. Communism, in its short 170-ish years, has been able to kill more people than any other ideology. Mao plus Stalin plus Pol Pot is 90,000,000 is. For context. WW2 killed around 72 million. So if you're asking me which I would rather have the government totally insulated from, Communism, in a heart beat. I would rather live in Iran than North Korea.

[mdk]

So Boerd said
Sorry, Mao's still got the Taiping rebellion beat by a factor of 4 (I went with the highest estimate, 78,000,000 to fit all other killings he might have done under the folds). And then if we're including wars, Korea, Vietnam, Greek Civil War. Communism, in its short 170-ish years, has been able to kill more people than any other ideology. Mao plus Stalin plus Pol Pot is 90,000,000 is. For context. WW2 killed around 72 million. So if you're asking me which I would rather have the government totally insulated from, Communism, in a heart beat. I would rather live in Iran than North Korea.

It's not just bad ideas that kill people, you know. 400,000 corpses litter the great wall of china, built to (successfully) protect the empire from rape and murder at the hands of mongol raiders.

[Halo]

Arguing based on past experience is all well and good, but, in my opinion, defending something on a theoretical ground rather than simply "it didn't work last time" is always beneficial. Only one person, iirc, has mentioned the primary reason for separating church and state: conflicting interests.
In the end, government in a democratic society exists only to represent the will of the people, and to act in their best interests. As soon as they are beholden/answerable to other, religious, faith-driven obligations - for example, Catholics are answerable primarily to the Pope, hence Britain's raging hate-rection for Catholic politicians - their impartiality in acting in the interests of, and according to the will of, their country's people is questionable.
There's a freaking tonne of other arguments, but that one's my favourite because I get to talk about "society" a lot, and as a young and naive teenager nothing gets me off quite like talking about lofty ideals of rights, and "the people".

[mdk]

Halo said
Arguing based on past experience is all well and good, but, in my opinion, defending something on a theoretical ground rather than simply "it didn't work last time" is always beneficial. Only one person, iirc, has mentioned the primary reason for separating church and state: conflicting interests.In the end, government in a democratic society exists only to represent the will of the people, and to act in their best interests. As soon as they are beholden/answerable to other, religious, faith-driven obligations - for example, Catholics are answerable primarily to the Pope, hence Britain's raging hate-rection for Catholic politicians - their impartiality in acting in the interests of, and according to the will of, their country's people is questionable. There's a freaking tonne of other arguments, but that one's my favourite because I get to talk about "society" a lot, and as a young and naive teenager nothing gets me off quite like talking about lofty ideals of rights, and "the people".

In the states, a high-functioning republic, these people would presumably have been catholic when they were elected to represent their constituency, and therefore expected to remain thoroughly catholic for the duration of their term, in honor of the democratic process by which we chose him or her as the senator, or whatever. We give out democracy in doses, like a drug -- house, you get tons of democracy! Senate, you get less democracy! President, you only get ONE democracy once every four years, so try to drag it out as long as you can, savor the flavor. Everybody else, we've passed out our remaining Democracies to your state and local regulators, who will detail when and how you can get more Democracy from them. Meanwhile our House and our Senate are going to get their own better Democracy.

Complicated. But the point is, a campaign is about making people vote for you, here, not for a party or a coalition or however you handle it. Once *you* are elected in, you remain you, and your only real obligations are to the people who voted for you, to be you. So be you. If that means be christian then that's what they wanted, and it'd be a shame if they didn't get what they want.

[Brovo]

So Boerd said
Sorry, Mao's still got the Taiping rebellion beat by a factor of 4 (I went with the highest estimate, 78,000,000 to fit all other killings he might have done under the folds). And then if we're including wars, Korea, Vietnam, Greek Civil War. Communism, in its short 170-ish years, has been able to kill more people than any other ideology. Mao plus Stalin plus Pol Pot is 90,000,000 is. For context. WW2 killed around 72 million. So if you're asking me which I would rather have the government totally insulated from, Communism, in a heart beat. I would rather live in Iran than North Korea.

Mao didn't execute people in the name of communism, he executed people in the name of power. Communism as prescribed by Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto... Has never actually been achieved. It's always fallen apart before it could even become a communism. The closest communism has ever come to being a real thing was under Lenin's rule after recently deposing the Tsars, by deliberately taking power and money from the bourgeoisie and giving it to the proletariat class... However, it only reached the third stage of conversion: Dictatorship by the few for the many. Stalin took power before Lenin could finish his dream of an agricultural Russia, and tightened his power grip, which resulted in a far left leaning dictatorship, not a communism.

(Note: Communism as you should surely know with your well endowed American education system is both a political and economic theory. It cannot function without dominating both aspects of life. A dictatorship runs in total contrast to a communism, ergo, it's never actually worked. Ergo a whole zero people have died in the name of communism, because it's a fantasy-land theory that has never been realized. Good job. You're off by a whole 90,000,000+ people.)

For context, Christianity's dominance and ultimately stranglehold over Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire helped to create the fucking dark ages by creating witch hunts and branding anyone who dared to question the faith or any tenet of the faith as a heretic. It took centuries to get out of it. If it wasn't for the dark ages we should literally be thinking about colonizing Titan by now.

Now, I could go ahead and make some claim that Christianity is evil and makes evil people, but that's absurdism taken to an extreme. I mean, come on, nobody would actually take a single specific theory, like, say, a political theory, and proclaim that all of the last century's most vile evils were spawned from it... No way... Nobody would ever be that... Foolish.

Christianity is just a religious doctrine, and communism is just a political-economic theory. They don't create evil: They just have the misfortune of being abused by it as a scapegoat, or twisting the minds of already pretty fucked up people into doing some disturbing shit to create or find utopia. As much as I joke about the Bible being a ridiculously old book with questionable moral concepts written by people who thought the sun revolved around the Earth, I don't think they're evil, and there's still some wisdom to be found in the Bible, some smart stuff, some good parables about life, and what not. And, hey, it works for over a billion people, and the majority of those people are not deranged psychotic lunatics looking to go on killing sprees.

The same goes for communism. It's not evil.

Now, were people murdered in the name of religion? Yes. Millions of them. For centuries. From the Vikings to the Chinese to the Aboriginal peoples of North America, there has been murder over who's God has the bigger dick or otherwise for a very long time... And when governments get their hands on it, they abuse the shit out of it to excuse their own vile acts against their own people or against other peoples, or attempt to institute ridiculous laws from a book that was not meant to be used as a judgement for the modern age, just as some dictators used the idea of communism to expand their governmental power and then simply... Never let it go to become a communism. This does not make communism or religion evil, and as I said earlier, the government should make laws neither for or against religion: It should be up to the people to decide their own religion.

...But mixing the two just... Doesn't work. It really doesn't. I mean imagine if your entire congress thought the world was going to end in 2016 because their church pastor said so and decided "fuckit lets not do anything and let the economy tank." Or if they decided to fund Israel to go blow up Palestinians and take their land because they're Jewish and their enemies are Muslims.

... Oh, wait... Now can you see why I think mixing religion and politics is just a dumb fucking idea?

mdk said
It's not just bad ideas that kill people, you know. 400,000 corpses litter the great wall of china, built to (successfully) protect the empire from rape and murder at the hands of mongol raiders.

Yep. Unfortunate that it's true, though.

[So Boerd]

Uh, whether he successfully implemented Communism is irrelevant. Those people who died died for Communism.

Regardless of your false assertions about tge Dark Ages, which are patently so, People do dumb thing in the name of all ideologies or doctrines.

What if your Congress thought sea levels were going to rise 20 in a decade? Or thought that killing all the academics was needed for the proletariat? Nobody is taking about establishing a state church, we are talking about things loke Christmas Trees and "Under God" in a voluntary pledge. If you think those things will cause a governmental collapse, you are silly.

[Brovo]

So Boerd said Uh, whether he successfully implemented Communism is irrelevant. Those people who died died for Communism.

Because remember: You can die for a thing that doesn't exist.

So Boerd said Regardless of your false assertions about tge Dark Ages, which are patently so, People do dumb thing in the name of all ideologies or doctrines.

No, they aren't. Just... Look at the Dark Ages. Look at them. Look at any history from that period. It's usually "the church didn't like X, so it had it killed/repressed." Or, "the monarchy didn't like X, so it had it killed/repressed, and used the authority of God to do so."

So Boerd said What if your Congress thought sea levels were going to rise 20 in a decade? Or thought that killing all the academics was needed for the proletariat?

Nobody did either of those things.

...And, my country doesn't have a congress, I'm Canadian, but, then, you don't read, why would you ever know such a thing like that?

So Boerd said Nobody is taking about establishing a state church, we are talking about things loke Christmas Trees and "Under God" in a voluntary pledge. If you think those things will cause a governmental collapse, you are silly.

Nobody's banning Christmas Trees and the original pledge of allegiance did not invoke any kind of divine authority. Nor did the original version of your currency. All things you should know if you had even an inkling of knowledge of the history of your own country. But you don't. Because you're a troll, and you're just seeking a rise out of people by using the most batshit arguments and ignoring counterpoints in favour of filling in things nobody said or implied.

A huge chunk of my argument was devoted to denying the idea of religion or communism being evil, and that people used them as scapegoats to do bad things. But, again, you ignored that, because you can't read, or because you're a troll, it's rather irrelevant at this point, isn't it?

Ah well.

[Gwazi Magnum]

So Boerd said Uh, whether he successfully implemented Communism is irrelevant. Those people who died died for Communism.

Did they? Brovo just went into a rather detailed explanation of how Communism was a system that never happen, and how they died was under a Dictatorship.
Would you like provide some proof, evidence and/or reasoning as to why it was in fact Communism or would you rather simply go "No, I disagree and you're wrong"?.

So Boerd said Regardless of your false assertions about the Dark Ages, which are patently so.

No it's rather accurate to say science and advancement was slowed down a good amount. Science and research has constantly led to things that:

1) People did not understand
2) Conflicted with the Bible

Both of those beings things people would burn evidence of and kill people over. It's well known that lots of scientific progress was lost due to Religion. On top of it such behaviour would of made many others too afraid to advance the human race, and lastly with so many people following such a Religion it leaves less people to do said Scientific research to advance humanity with.

So Boerd said People do dumb thing in the name of all ideologies or doctrines.What if your Congress thought sea levels were going to rise 20 in a decade? Or thought that killing all the academics was needed for the proletariat?

And Religion counts as one of those Ideologies, and a quite effective one since it's no longer fear of a man or something physical/observable. It's fear to a supernatural being that people were raised to believe is something on a whole other level of existence, one where any kind of question, rebelling etc is futile. I mean just look at North Korea, yes it's a political one mainly but Kim Jong effectively has people think he is a deity... Encouraging the same level of fear and obedience. To the point that people who flee the country still for years after fear to think ill of him out of fear of him knowing instantly and causing them to die.

As for your example's they'd probably do it. People all the time spout "End of the world" shit, and a ton of people buy into it. Hell I'll admit to during my later Christian days I was one of those nutter's who thought shit like "Obama is the anti-christ" and the end of the world would be from him. Also religion did kill academics, this was addressed above with the whole "Does not understand" and "Conflict's with Religion", they take it as an attack on their God/Religion so they kill them as part of their crusades, cleansing etc.

So Boerd said Nobody is taking about establishing a state church, we are talking about things like Christmas Trees and "Under God" in a voluntary pledge. If you think those things will cause a governmental collapse, you are silly.

Actually we are... When you say Church and State that means giving Church the political power to rule. Which means the whole of that religion is going to pour through. Not just the minor parts like Christmas tree's or saying "Under God", but also stuff such as Homophobia, teaching said Religion was fact.

And depending on how the Religion on top cherry pick it could also imply the day of Sabbath, stoning of disobedient children, the allowance of rape, execution for blasphemy etc.

Even if they were fairly moral with the cherry picking and most of the Bible's ugly bits/most of the bible didn't show itself you've still got the issue of political choices are now based on "What does the book say" or "What does God say" rather than using intellectual reason and debate.

[So Boerd]

Here is my proof, it's called a dictionary. Do I need to define for you "in the name of"? Mao's justification was Communism. The people believed in Communism, even if Mao did or did not. They died as a result of Mao pursuing, no matter how incorrectly, Communism. Communism came out of his mouth, Communism was what was in his head, Communism made him break an alliance with the Soviets because they were being bad Communists.

Now, with regard to Science and Religion. Religion gave people an incentive to be literate. Do you honestly believe that if the Germanic barbarians had remained Pagan, kept their oral tradition that we would have been any better? Ever hear of Cyrillic? The writing system of almost all of Eastern Europe? Made by a priest. A lingua franca for all scientists in Europe? Thank a Catholic Priest for making Latin universal. Printing press? Thank a protestant.

[ActRaiserTheReturned]

So Boerd said
Here is my proof, it's called a dictionary. Do I need to define for you "in the name of"? Mao's justification was Communism. The people believed in Communism, even if Mao did or did not. They died as a result of Mao pursuing, no matter how incorrectly, Communism. Communism came out of his mouth, Communism was what was in his head, Communism made him break an alliance with the Soviets because they were being bad Communists. Now, with regard to Science and Religion. Religion gave people an incentive to be literate. Do you honestly believe that if the Germanic barbarians had remained Pagan, kept their oral tradition that we would have been any better? Ever hear of Cyrillic? The writing system of almost all of Eastern Europe? Made by a priest. A lingua franca for all scientists in Europe? Thank a Catholic Priest for making Latin universal. Printing press? Thank a protestant.

For a lot of other fine results, we look to the Irish monks.

[So Boerd]

Also, if you think Christmas trees are going to create a theocracy, you should also know that the government caused 9/11, never landed on the moon, and is spraying us with mind control agents. You would be right at home with Alex Jones and LaRouche.

[Gwazi Magnum]

A person can claim to be something without actually being it you realize.
It's called either:

a) Lying
b) Lack of understanding on what they call themselves

Just because a person claim's they're ________ doesn't mean they're blank.
Hell often times with Religion people would claim they did ________ in the name of God. But they were furthering their own agenda's instead.
You can do this with anything, feminism, being a nationality, in support of a certain cause, a democrat etc.

Religion also gave incentive to keep people from being literate, it was a means of control. The less people could read the more they could be ordered on what to do instead of learning things for themselves. Also just because a few Intellectual's happened to be Religious (especially in a time when Religion was established fact among most people, so almost everyone universally was religious) doesn't mean Religion aided progress. It simply means it's not impossible for a religious person to want to progress knowledge/science, and it does nothing to change the fact that countless scientific work was burned/lost/prevented due to Religious fear, hatred and paranoia.

[Brovo]

So Boerd said Here is my proof, it's called a dictionary. Do I need to define for you "in the name of"? Mao's justification was Communism. The people believed in Communism, even if Mao did or did not. They died as a result of Mao pursuing, no matter how incorrectly, Communism. Communism came out of his mouth, Communism was what was in his head, Communism made him break an alliance with the Soviets because they were being bad Communists.

In that case, over a billion people have died in the name of one religion or another, due to anything from the Salem witch trials to improper medical practices based on faith healing to anyone claiming divine inspiration or divine authority starting a war for any reason. This includes Hitler, just so you know.

So Boerd said Now, with regard to Science and Religion. Religion gave people an incentive to be literate. Do you honestly believe that if the Germanic barbarians had remained Pagan, kept their oral tradition that we would have been any better? Ever hear of Cyrillic? The writing system of almost all of Eastern Europe? Made by a priest. A lingua franca for all scientists in Europe? Thank a Catholic Priest for making Latin universal. Printing press? Thank a protestant.

Ever heard of the Babylonians, Chinese, Greeks, and Egyptians? All had writing before Christianity existed. Hundreds of years, before they existed, and a lot of their writings weren't just religious, they were about codes of law, and philosophy, and fictional tales...

So...

...Yeah. Actually. I could easily see the Germanic people with their own religion eventually writing down their oral stories when the secret of writing was passed along to them by the Greeks or others.

As for inventions like the printing press, for the vast majority of time, the vast majority of the population was in one way or another religious. Spouting that religion created anything is nonsensical: The person created it, and once in a blue moon, was inspired by religion.

Then we put religion aside and created this little, nifty thing, called the scientific theory.

Suddenly, inventions and discoveries have skyrocketed at a pace that blows way anything that the iron fisted dark ages ever did.

Gee. Wonder how that happened.

I'm not saying that things were not created in the name of religion. Look at cathedrals and Gothic architecture. That is... Wow. That is breathtakingly beautiful. There's also musical pieces, the arts and so on are where they excelled. This one is one of my personal favourites. Just that when religion held absolute authority in government, shit went to... Well... Shit, and it aided in creating the dark ages by repressing many ideas, not helping them flourish. It only flourished if the church liked it, and this only ended truly when protestantism became a thing.

But, that's a history lesson. An interesting one if you'd like to hear it sometime.

So Boerd said
Also, if you think Christmas trees are going to create a theocracy, you should should also know that the government caused 9/11, never landed on the moon, and is spraying us with mind control agents. You would be right at home with Alex Jones and LaRouche.

... What are you on about?

[Gwazi Magnum]

So Boerd said
Also, if you think Christmas trees are going to create a theocracy, you should also know that the government caused 9/11, never landed on the moon, and is spraying us with mind control agents. You would be right at home with Alex Jones and LaRouche.

Once again ignoring our arguments completely.
There is far more to Religion than Christmas trees.

If you don't understand that you either

a) Know nothing about Religion
b) Are a terrible troll

Either way I'm now done debating this until you actually start addressing the arguments being made rather than what arguments you want us to be making.

[So Boerd]

"In that case, over a billion people have died in the name of one religion or another, due to anything from the Salem witch trials to improper medical practices based on faith healing to anyone claiming divine inspiration or divine authority starting a war for any reason. This includes Hitler, just so you know."

Like hell. If you think Hitler did what he did for religion and not for his moronic racial ideology, you're out of your mind. Gonna need a source for that number. You assume that in the absence of religion these wars would have never happened. Remember, church and state were the same. How much was done in the name of the church by the state, and how often was what the state wanted what the religion subsequently endorsed? Like the Franco-Ottoman alliance or Carolingian attempts to make an alliance with the Abbasids. The secular government dictated to religion, RARELY vice versa, and when that did happen, it was the pope maintaining his secular power.

[So Boerd]

Magic Magnum said
Once again ignoring our arguments completely.There is far more to Religion than Christmas trees.If you don't understand that you eithera) Know nothing about Religionb) Are a terrible trollEither way I'm now done debating this until you actually start addressing the arguments being made rather than what arguments you want us to be making.

There isn't more than Christmas trees and prayers in what I am proposing. Not sure what you are arguing against

[ActRaiserTheReturned]

Ever heard of the Babylonians, Chinese, Greeks, and Egyptians? All had writing before Christianity existed. Hundreds of years, before they existed, and a lot of their writings weren't just religious, they were about codes of law, and philosophy, and fictional tales...

So...

...Yeah. Actually. I could easily see the Germanic people with their own religion eventually writing down their oral stories when the secret of writing was passed along to them by the Greeks or others.

Hellenism is bad kay? As is ancient Greco-Roman Culture. It's not a miracle that civilization's foundations for later orders came from the Greeks and Romans, it's a miracle that they weren't all somehow mentally retarded by the time they died with some of their cultural attitudes and norms. Seriously. One of the most brilliant cultures in all of history, didn't have a word for the English equilavent of "humble". These are the two cultures that revolutionized hygiene, philosophy, medicine and music, law and order, etcetera.

This is also the same culture that worshiped statues with fertility goddesses who had rows and rows of marble tits. (Not that different from other cultures, but bare with me), had established usury, pederasty (look it up), drunken orgies, littered their streets with abandoned children, where creeping horrors from the anus of Humanity could pick up and do God knows what with them. Spartans legalized the murder of Helots. You had to murder a Human being in order to become a Spartan warrior. Yes you were punished harshly if you were caught, but if you got away with it, you were golden. Despite revisionist nonsense to the contrary, Spartans liked to molest younger men. The idea was to groom other soldiers as "lovers" so they would fight for each other on the field of battle that much harder. -_-

Celts and maybe even Germans had a good point in hating Roman culture, despite early interactions with the Romans. There was plenty to admire and respect about Romans, like the rule of law, and to an extent, something of a half-assed peace. Hygiene, medicine, etcetera, things I already mentioned. Even then, if you were a vaunted Roman soldier, if you so much as got out of line but charging in battle before you were given the order, they cut your junk off. (Maybe testicles to, I don't remember). Oh, did I mention they experiment with surgery on prisoners?

Of course Western Europeans also had bad, maybe even to an extent, worse ethics than Romans. Now you are probably going to ask, "What does this have to do with writing?"

Well, my point is that while I get your point in that the Western European Pagans could have adapted writing from their Eastern "neighbors", there wold have been a religious emphasis on resisting change. Keeping traditions mostly or totally oral was a religious matter, not a matter of pragmatism. It's kind of like some people in the days of the old Arabic Empires and Middle Eastern powers looking down on coffee houses. They would see something morally wrong with such a thing, as absurd as it sounds to us. It could take at least a hundred, two hundred or more years before the West would adopt the Eastern cultures enough to replicate the same thing that had happened in real world history.