Religion and Government
 

I was wondering how people felt about this issue. There has been much talk in the government lately of "faith based initiaves" which is a phrase that turns my stomach. At the current juncture, the democracy which the American people claim to know and understand is turning into a theocracy.

I'm atheist, but I understand that this and almost the entire world are full of people who have religion. The trick is to not be biased towards any one religion, but no one would accept a government where there is NO belief in religion.

"Under God" in the Pledge of Allegience is one example. It could be taken out without any real harm.

I too am atheist, but that should not be an issue. One of my friends is a devout catholic and he agrees that there needs to be something done about the christian bias in the government today.

I'm not particularly worried about a theocracy happening. Because I know everybody worships money and not god.

We have those commies to thank for that addition to the pledge in the 1950's(?).

Theres a Christian bias in America because the Christians are the majority. That's how democracy works. The constitution prevents the goverment from establishing a religion or favoring one over another, but it doesn't prevent the majority of people from siding with one.

I believe that religion has absolutely no place in government, but I couldn't care less about the personal lives of normal citizens.

Um... commies, as you so affectionately call them, were the stark raving mad atheists. Those people who were against communism and the likes of it were often people of religious bent.
Please try and at least get your history right.
In fact, I believe that was one of the reasons they inserted it into the pledge. Because communism hold's it alliegance to atheism, and the change in the pledge was the attempt to safeguard against that at the most basic level of citizenry.

Also, like Minion said, the congress is forbidden to make any laws that respect an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise therof. This means that in lawmaking, no particular religion can be singled out for special treatment(whether good or bad for them). However, this does not mean that it cannot have support available to all religions. Nor does it mean that the people of the government cannot be publicly practicing members of religious organizations.

The addition of the "under god" line to the pledge was reactionary. Therfore we really do have the communists to thank for that.

I very much doubt that if the Soviet Union embraced Orthodox Christianity we would have added that line to our pledge in the 1950's.

But the Faith-Based & Community Initiatives did seem to be geared more towards the Christian end of religion than it did towards non-Christian organizations. This is of course entirely speculative from what I viewed and took away from what I have read about this program.
Looking at the 2005 "snapshot" I didn't see anything that stood out as screaming non-Christian organization... Little Mohammeds didn't make the cut... so while they might state that there isn't any one particular religion singled out... they aren't quite doling out equal amounts. Then again, I'm not seeing a listing of those who applied and were denied funding either.

Simply put, any religious ties to government should be blocked. The fact that these Faith Based initiatives exist is problematic, and I'm very worried about how far to the right the US continues to drift. Then again, the US is very reactionary, so at the same time, im not entirely surprised.

Chalk one more up for Arab phobia.

Well, I don't know which groups are supported under the Faith Based Initiatives thing, but I would imagine that the reason why a majority of organizations supported are Christian is because a majority of faith-based charity organizations based in the U.S. ARE Christian in origin.

EDIT: Also, I think a reason why this was even created was because, previously, people were with the understanding that so long as it was a non-religiously polarized organization, it was okay for the government to provide support funds, and any government support of faith-based organizations was a intermixing of religion and state, implying a possible interdependancy of the groups.

I have been wondering. Are the faith based initiative is design to provide social service through the use the infrastructures and grass root connection of those generally religious organizations, or doing so by converting people into the practice of the specific religious practice in order to achieve the social service goal?

Generally, the first seem to be more acceptable and logically consistent with the goal of a government program. In that case, the organizations in those program isn't that much different from their secular counter part. From my impression, that the “faith base initiative” is more like an attempt for equalization of federal supports between secular and religious social service.

Although personally I think there shouldn't be an distinction if all the religious organizations do is providing social service. In that sense, why are those organizations, which receives tax payers money, are allow to discriminate hiring base on the religious and in some cases sexual orientations? And why would those difference in religious ideology matter if they are providing social service, which is a larger goal as a context for a social institution?

Personally, as an atheist , I think having different group that service in different demography is fine, even religious organizations. However, the conducts of those organization should be hold to a certain standards. Because they are receiving funding from a government that base on people of all walks of life, religious or secular, therefore, their practice should reflect that.

Could you clarify the grammar in that? I am awfully confused :confused: .

I think faith-based initiatives are a thinly-veiled attempt at pushing the religious values of the current government onto people who are perhaps more gullible than average. It's advertising plain and simple. Joe-Shmoe will associate people with certain (presumably we're talking Evangelicals) religious values as being wonderfully kind and helpful, thus gaining their undying support in the future. Since I don't have much confidence in a person's ability to make important decisions without those decisions being coloured in some way by their religious values, I think that the boundary between "church and state" should remain clearly defined.

I won't deny that some of these programs do help a lot of people, but I am suspicious of the motives of those who initiate some of these programs. An example of such would be the abstinence program in Africa to retard the progress of AIDS in the continent. It's not a very practical solution, as following the same train of thought you might as well ask them to avoid drought and famine by drinking and eating less.

Being an atheist and pretty much of a hardliner too, I consider ties between state and religion an immediate threat for human life and religious people curious entities, trapped in a mentally limiting, almost childish system of beliefs. It's probably due to global events in recent years, the violence, the lack of progress in certain institutions. And of course, there is a certain comfort in the rather carefree way, people like me can go about their lifes, free from irrational forms of guilt or discrimination.

It is funny that in many ways it seems your perspectives about religious beliefs being "mentally limiting, childish, and irrational" are very similar to how hardliner theists and such viewed atheist beliefs.

In other words, get your head out of your high-and-mighty atheist ass

Makes sense, I guess the same goes for 'God Bless America' and 'In God We Trust'. Not all Americans are Christian, but a lot are.

This kind of retort is probably as old as ancient greek philosophy and all it ever did was to emphasize the insurmountable rift between believers and non-believers. Big deal, I can live with that, I'll have to anyway.

So what exactly is you point (apart from getting for personal just for the heck of it) ?

I believe that religion has to be separate from government. Religion corrupts power as much as anything. Might as well have something that isn't a fundamentalist in religion since with all the other religions out there, you offend a lot more than if you were in Theocracy.

My point is the fact that you appear to be no different from those people who you are so diametrically opposed to, except for the subject to which you oppose them over.
So... perhaps you need a change of perspective.

Yes and no.
If founding my moral code and decisions on personal experience and reason as opposed to superstition and hierachy doesen't make me any different from those people, then yes indeed there is no difference at all. And as I have stated before, I'm fine with that and quite happy with my perspective as it is.

Organized mob rule yayas~

Democracy sucks because of the current average of human intelligence.

Well, then I guess you need to be re-edumacated, because faith is not just a bunch of superstition and hierarchy (although your usage of that second term seems rather ambiguous).

I would argue that that prettymuch sums up faith, actually.

And, of course, religion should be seperate from government. What are we debating in here, again?

This thread needs more "A Letter Concerning Toleration" by John Locke.