Separation of Church and State

[Charlotte21]

Yes, there should be a seperation of church and state. For if there was not a seperation between the two, laws would become too personal (as they are).

Prime example: It is illegal for gays to marry in 11 states. That is when a law has become too personal. We are ruling it illegal for a subculture to follow their way of life. IT'S RIDICULOUS! Are they going to stop being gay? NO! So what is expected of gays in those 11 states? Are they supposed to go straight? Doubtful that will happen. All it does is restrict the amount of priveleges they have: they can't be considered family @ hospitals, they can't write off each other on taxes, etc.

And why? Because of religion in state. That's what you get with church and state not being seperated: ridiculously overpersonalized laws.

[torres1287]

I personally am glad that I don't see homosexual people get married and so forth. Marriage is supposed to be between a man and woman. Homosexual people can't have children. You need the other sex to survive. If this world was all one gender...the world would end as soon as everyone got too old and died. That should tell you that something is wrong...

[MonkeyFoo]

Keep in mind that marriage is a religious thing. If we have laws on marriage, they oughtta be about what the religion says they should. But, it makes more sense to take the word "marriage" out of all our documents, and just put a blanket term that lets anybody get married.

While I do support gay (take this word out of the god damn filter; we're mature enough to smack anybody who uses it derogatorily, and filtering it portrays it as a bad thing that we should avoid talking about.) rights, and I'm not homphobic, I do believe that homosexuals are not good for the survival of the human race, just Darwinian-wise. If you don't seek the opposite sex, you simply aren't going to spread your genes. It makes them seem somehow unnatural. Of course, we humans will survive anyway, so it's not anything major. Meanwhile, my views on gay rights aren't related to religion, especially not to church, and not in the slightest way to state. So back to the topic at hand:

I need to point out that I wrote cases for both sides of this question, for my high school debate team. In my affirmative case, which says that democracy is indeed best served by a strict separation of church and state, I basically say that the church can corrupt the process of deliberation. It can do this because a church, as a large institution, can tell many people the same thing, and they will believe it because they've been raised believing in the church. So basically, religion inhibits discussion over moral values and eventually leads to illogical or immoral decisions in voting. This obviously leads to an illegitimate government, because immorality in voting is reflected in the immorality of laws and elected officials.

My other argument is that if the church wants to, and there is not a strict separation of church and state, then it can have pawns running for various offices. A church can preach to all of its followers that voting for anyone who is against slavery, for example, will lead to eternal damnation. All of the religion's followers will go on to vote for the church's pawn candidates, and then the church can control the decisions of the elected leaders as well as most of the people in the country. This effectively defeats a democracy, and creates a theocracy. This obviously does not best serve a democracy.

As a subpoint, I note that theocracies tend to be more belligerent, especially toward democracies. Example: All those middle-eastern countries which are dominated by islam. If the grand ayatollah comes out and says, "kill americans! Why? Allah says! Bomb the americans and get a free trip straight to heaven, where you can cavort with dozens of lovely maidens!" then muslims are going to go and bomb Americans. Note: 9/11, and ensuing deaths from war in Iraq. It's all bad for democracy, and it all stems from too loose a separation (or no separation) of church and state.

Finally, as an end to my ranting, it was either LD or Jewpin who said that we should have separation, but no restriction. While I admit that this would be great, it would never happen. We must restrict the church from having political involvement, (though not religion, mind you. Religion and church are different things.) or else it can just take over if it wants to. Separation without restriction requires that the church simply doesn't try to become involved in politics, which is simply not the case. People are drawn to power, and government offers lots of it. Remember the power that popes had back in the middle ages? They could send the holy roman empire to war, and start crusades. That's too much of an opportunity to pass up, for any church.

[alainbryden]

I agree with Charlotte one hundred percent on this one.

[torres1287]

I am happy where I stand, but for others...sometimes it just kind of makes you wish you were born before when you were so you wouldn't be conflicted with these issues...

[The_Q]

Alain, just postign "I agree with _________ entirely" or something that resembles such a post without valid points to add to it. The Critical Thinking board is not for "I agree," it is for "This is what I think and why." It is for discussion. If you will not discuss, don't post.

Now, back onto the topic. I honestly believe that there needs to be a separation of church and state for a proper democracy, or in our case a democratic-republic, to succeed. There still needs to be such a separation. For instance, recently a child brought a bunch of pencils to school in order to give them in the gift exchange his school was hosting. The pencils had the words "Jesus loves you" on them. They were taken away. That is not separation of church and state but rather a state's interference with the church. Because there are other religions and minorities who oppose the evangelism in public schools the government decides to supress the evangelism. This is not only just inches from a violation of first ammendment rights that the U.S. gives me but it is also violates one of the principles our founding fathers agreed upon (even if the fathers were greedy white scrooges).

What kind of a tolerant society keeps a people from making certain personal choices (even homosexuality)? The school board taking up the pencils is ruling in the minority's favor because if they don't they'll end up with a lawsuit. Our problem is not intolerance from the majority but the intolerance from the minorities If minorities, such as the Muslim family who took caused the pencils to be taken, were to be more tolerant we would not run into these religious fiascos quite as often. Not only would a higher tolerance end up saving many people socially but it is an economically wise decision. To be more tolerant means that more business between people can be made.

I'd go into a rant about homosexuality and all sorts of discrimination but that's thread hijacking, isn't it torres?

Q

[torres1287]

:P it might be...how am i supposed to make decisions like that? Okay, actually I'm just wondering if you're indicating that I've changed the subject on you all. Just explain your last sentence...

[Tasselfoot]

He is explaining your nature of making posts that aren't relavent to the topic at hand, including the very one you just made asking what he was saying.

Please. This is the CT forum. Keep your discussions intellectual. If you have retarded questions to ask about a particular thread, use PMs or AIM to ask someone about it. Some will be happy to discuss the material with you on a lower level to help explain it to you.

[alainbryden]

I agree Q. The government and law places too much favoritism in the would be supressed minorities. They openly express it as an attempt to compensate for past hardships, but I believe, as you, that the inversion of the imbalance is unecessary and undermines the concept of fairness that was really the whole point in the first place. A similar example is in feminism but as you said, I won't change the topic of this thread. Equal rights mean equal rights, less right for the person who used to have more rights. We don't act insulted when a person talks about their Buddah, we just accept the difference of belief and move on. Minorities should not be able to cry conversion each time christianity is publicly mentioned. I do believe in discouraging and even forbidding evangelism though. That certainly is an invasion of personal beliefs and comfort. No on should have the right to consider it their duty to convert others at any cost.

Also, yes torres, you did change the topic, although all good conversations slowly sway, sometimes dramatically from their topic, and what you did doesn't merit the term hijacking, just make sure you finish on a relevant note, especially this early in the thread. Q you're right and I appologise for being brief. My intention was to compliment Charlotte for his ideas.

[CalibreneGuru]

I just want to add to this debate the fact that "marriage" was going on before Christianity. It took place in African tribes, among other places. If two homosexual people want to get married why stop them? Who is it hurting? Freedom is being able to do what you want to do as long as it does not harm others. It would seem that taking the right of marriage away from homosexuals would indeed be limiting their freedom, something I don't think should be going on in the United States, where freedom was one of the key ideals of the founding fathers.

[Charlotte21]

I just want to add to this debate the fact that "marriage" was going on before Christianity. It took place in African tribes, among other places. If two homosexual people want to get married why stop them? Who is it hurting? Freedom is being able to do what you want to do as long as it does not harm others. It would seem that taking the right of marriage away from homosexuals would indeed be limiting their freedom, something I don't think should be going on in the United States, where freedom was one of the key ideals of the founding fathers.

thr34d hij4x

Seriously, read up a few posts, this thread isn't about gay marriage.

[navyseal101]

you started it charlotte...lol.

I think church and state should be seperate.

[GuidoHunter]

Sigh, if you're going to bump an old topic, at least have something substantial to say...

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[navyseal101]

huh? Seperation of church and state is the main topic of this thread.

I didn't have anything substantial to say because I believe it's already been said well by everyone else.

I'm sorry that I'm sorta being the Devil's advocate of CT but it's soo much fun..lol.

[alainbryden]

If you don't have anything to say DON'T POST, and especially don't bump a dead thread! This is critical thinking. Don't wreck it because you aren't capapble of doing even the latter of those two words. You have said nothing that contributes to this community at all since your first post. Take your crap to the garbage bin if you enjoy seeing your name on the internet, or head over to arch0wl dot com. I've had about enough of you.