Palin mixing religion with policy

catch22

MattyJoe wrote:

That's pretty ignorant to say. Maybe they did believe that, but that was over 200 years ago. Times change. That's what Amendments are for.

ignorant to say? why? because it killed your "perfect founding fathers" fantasy?

you prove my point though, so thanks for that. those might have been their beliefs... over 200 years ago. but times change. and thankfully, we have become too enlightened for this "christian nation" bullshit. for the most part.

back then, the country was white, male, and protestant. we've accepted that minorities are every bit as good as whites. we extended the vote to women. we slowly began to understand that not everyone wants an exclusively christian country too... started with catholic, has moved to include other faiths, and hopefully will continue to do so.

MattyJoe

Cosmo wrote:

...
Yes... yes... yes... YOU are against it. does that mean that EVERY ONE is against it? No.
The fact is... people will vote for candidates who *claim* to be of the same Religion. that is WHY people like Bush and Palin will toss their religion out there.. to pander to the 27% hard-core, Pat Robertson/Jimmy Falwell Evangelical voters who believe thaty will appoint that decisive Supreme Court Seat that will overturn Roe v. Wade or restore morning prayers in public schools or whatever they want the rest of us to believe.
You cannot honestly tell me that you believe those voters do not exist.. can you?

Voters can vote for whatever the fuck they want and for whatever reasons. That's their prerogative. Of course those people exist but that's not wrong. That's their opinion.

And if they're able to control enough of the government to have Roe v. Wade overturned then so be it. That's the way our system works, and I support the way it works, even if I don't support what may be implemented by it. I have genuine faith in the fact that the framers of the Constitution had enough foresight to ensure that the common good can be best protected, which was their goal. One President gets elected, fucks stuff up, then another comes in and cleans up the mess. It's a cycle.

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

_outlaw wrote:

wrong.
"In Reynolds, the Court denied the free exercise claims of Mormons in the Utah territory who claimed polygamy was an aspect of their religious freedom."
they weren't promoting the religion here, they were forming policies with their religion, and were denied.

thats a trampling of freedom of religion, not separation of church and state.

unless there is more to it than that.

edit: oh i guess you mean Mormon lawmakers. i wouldnt agree with that either probably. i never said the courts never interpreted the laws wrongly

MattyJoe

_outlaw wrote:

they weren't promoting the religion here, they were forming policies with their religion, and were denied.

No they weren't. They simply wanted to be able to exercise their religion under the 1st Amendment. That right was denied to them by the courts. Policies are formed by Congress, not individuals.

fuck

MrSmith wrote:

thats a trampling of freedom of religion, not separation of church and state.

unless there is more to it than that.

not necessarily, they were trying to implement a policy to allow polygamy and were denied on that basis. The Supreme Court referenced it themselves, feel free to argue with them about it.

fuck

MattyJoe wrote:

No they weren't. They simply wanted to be able to exercise their religion under the 1st Amendment. That right was denied to them by the courts. Policies are formed by Congress, not individuals.

already addressed this.

feel free to respond to my other posts whenever you want.

MattyJoe

catch22 wrote:

ignorant to say? why? because it killed your "perfect founding fathers" fantasy?

you prove my point though, so thanks for that. those might have been their beliefs... over 200 years ago. but times change. and thankfully, we have become too enlightened for this "christian nation" bullshit. for the most part.

back then, the country was white, male, and protestant. we've accepted that minorities are every bit as good as whites. we extended the vote to women. we slowly began to understand that not everyone wants an exclusively christian country too... started with catholic, has moved to include other faiths, and hopefully will continue to do so.

I agree that there should not be any kind of imposition of religion on people by the government, and so did the founding fathers. That's why freedom of religion is in the fucking Constitution. The social norms of the time were contrary to that principle though, and it took some time for everything to trickle down. At the time, don't forget that they were struggling to get everyone to accept and ratify the Constitution, which is why they couldn't forcefully impose anything. The states were still very divided at the time. Thats the reason for the Federalist Papers, for instance, to convince people that the Constitution was a good thing. Most people supported independent, ununified states. That's the reason they didn;t address slavery or women's rights. That would've turned people away, especially with regard to slavery. That would've turned away the whole South, therefore preventing the ratification of the Constitution. They believed what they believed for a reason.

Can we have a little more respect for other people and their beliefs though? People have a right to believe what they believe, no matter how much you disagree with them.

Cosmo

MrSmith wrote:

separation of church and state is about not using the state to promote a religion. you can form policy from whatever you want, as long as you arent officially promoting a religion using the government.

...
Which is scary... forming a policy based upon belief.
Imagine a leader... that is capable of a nuclear First Strike... believeing that in order to get Jesus' ass back down here... the Armies from the North are supposed to amass around Israel and he can let the birds fly that will make their flesh hit the sand before their bones fall to fulfill Biblical Phrophesy and formulates a policy to achieve that goal. No Constitutional violation... it is policy... that can be masked as Economic Growth or Wars on Terror or whatever they can think of. Policy based on Religion is scary.. that's what fucking Bin Laden does.
As for Church and State... I don't want ANY Church, temple, mosque mixed with our State. and I don't want our State in the affairs of the Chruch or temple or mosque.

catch22

MattyJoe wrote:

I agree that there should not be any kind of imposition of religion on people by the government, and so did the founding fathers. That's why freedom of religion is in the fucking Constitution. The social norms of the time were contrary to that principle though, and it took some time for everything to trickle down. At the time, don't forget that they were struggling to get everyone to accept and ratify the Constitution, which is why they couldn't forcefully impose anything. The states were still very divided at the time. Thats the reason for the Federalist Papers, for instance, to convince people that the Constitution was a good thing. Most people supported independent, ununified states. That's the reason they didn;t address slavery or women's rights. That would've turned people away, especially with regard to slavery. That would've turned away the whole South, therefore preventing the ratification of the Constitution. They believed what they believed for a reason.

Can we have a little more respect for other people and their beliefs though? People have a right to believe what they believe, no matter how much you disagree with them.

i'm ok with people holding christian values. i'm not ok with those people saying this is a christian nation because that's what the founding fathers said and thus it should reflect christian values in its policies. because going by that logic, there is also an argument to be made that slavery and non-suffrage from women are legit positions as well. i find that unconscionable.

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

Cosmo wrote:

...
Which is scary... forming a policy based upon belief.
Imagine a leader... that is capable of a nuclear First Strike... believeing that in order to get Jesus' ass back down here... the Armies from the North are supposed to amass around Israel and he can let the birds fly that will make their flesh hit the sand before their bones fall to fulfill Biblical Phrophesy and formulates a policy to achieve that goal. No Constitutional violation... it is policy... that can be masked as Economic Growth or Wars on Terror or whatever they can think of. Policy based on Religion is scary.. that's what fucking Bin Laden does.
As for Church and State... I don't want ANY Church, temple, mosque mixed with our State. and I don't want our State in the affairs of the Chruch or temple or mosque.

every one bases policy on some belief, religious or not. its up to the voter to not vote in a crazy asshole who think Jesus wants to nuke everyone. there have been plenty of presidents who base decisions on Christian principles (or all of them). some of them made good decisions, some bad.

and many athiests have made some pretty barbaric decisions, too (Stalin, Mao, Hitler).

fuck

MrSmith wrote:

edit: oh i guess you mean Mormon lawmakers. i wouldnt agree with that either probably. i never said the courts never interpreted the laws wrongly

alright, well then that's a whole other discussion.

the entire point here though is that Palin taking us on wars that are 'tasks from God' should not be allowed in the government.

people who actually defend this are just insane, in my opinion.

MattyJoe

catch22 wrote:

i'm not ok with those people saying this is a christian nation because that's what the founding fathers said and thus it should reflect christian values in its policies. because going by that logic, there is also an argument to be made that slavery and non-suffrage from women are legit positions as well. i find that unconscionable.

People who say that are wrong. The Founding fathers did not actually believe in any of that either, at least most of them. As I mentioned before, they just needed to appeal to the whole country. If they addressed issues such as those, they would've have failed to get the Constitution ratified. It's what they had to do. That's the reason for discrepancies between what's in the Declaration, for instance, and the actual Constitution (e.g. "all men are created equal"). If they had prohibited slavery in the Constitution to begin with, they would've lost over half the country's support.

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

are you saying any religious person is prohibited from legally holding office in the US? i dont see how one can not base his decisions based on his principles, which religious people get from religions (and i suspect many non religious people subconsciously have a moral code based on religion, too.) i dont see how you can separate the two. the separation of church and state has probably been misused from time to time, but i dont think thats what it was intended for.

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

_outlaw wrote:

alright, well then that's a whole other discussion.

the entire point here though is that Palin taking us on wars that are 'tasks from God' should not be allowed in the government.

people who actually defend this are just insane, in my opinion.

hey, i wouldnt vote for the crazy ho.

know1

Cosmo wrote:

...
And THERE'S the catch... Elected.
Religion directs personal belief... brought into political ideology... no harm, no foul.
But, if ELECTED and placed in a position of power to decide for the populous... in which case, you cannot disagree with them... FOUL.

Ever heard of checks and balances and the constitution. If they do something to promote religion, then it will be negated.

If they use their belief system to influence their own decision making....well, who doesn't do that?

know1

catch22 wrote:

no, i don't "believe" all republican are convincing every christian pastor to preach against homosexuality.

but i do KNOW for a fact that in ohio last election, karl rove and the republicans maneuvered a gay marriage ban onto the ballot and then joined with various megachurches and pastors to do massive picketing, protests, pamphleteering, and so on and so forth in order to tout the huge threat of homosexuality and to exhort people into voting against kerry.

i'm aware this isn't everyone. hell, our local catholic priest tore into the congregation for flyering cars in the lot about this during a church and lambasted these people for obscuring the issues and pointed out that war and poverty are every bit as much moral issues as homosexuality or abortion. but that does not mean that the republicans have not made a practice of exploiting hot button religious issues to corral votes whenever they feel they won't win. the democrats do it with minority issues too.

there is no tin foil hat here. you're well aware that this is happening and are just digging in because you're feeling defensive. perhaps if more of you and your brethren took the path of our parish priest and became as willing to call bullshit on your own as you are of us "liberal tin foil" folks, this wouldn't be such a problem.

So your local observation is that preaching against homosexuality and gay marriage wasn't happening, but you're just certain that pretty much every where else it is?

know1

_outlaw wrote:

what the hell are you talking about? no one here is even suggesting she wants to make us all christian. The whole point is that her religious beliefs DOES affect us because if she were to be setting policies in this country that have religious intent, then it is unconstitutional. and, as I and the OP just showed you, her religion does affect her policies.

no argument here.

So what affects the policies of a non-religious person? I think it's their personal belief system. So how is that much different?

BTW, Obama is a Christian so his Christian beliefs may affect his decisions in office.

Thecure

cubbieblue82 wrote:

Exactly! This pick has made me SOOOO much more uncomfortable with the thought of McCain anywhere near the White House. It proves that despite what he says, he is willing to go against his own beliefs in order to get to the Presidency, even at the potential detriment to the country and the world at large if this woman should ever be president. :mad:

could you not say the same thing abotu Obama picking Biden (who i like) Obama has been ruuning as teh person who was agianst the war in Iraq and he picked Biden who voted for teh war and also to contuine to fund the war. he picked Biden i believe becuase he felt that he needed a person who was strong on Forighn affairs as that was something that he needed to win the Presidency. McCain also understood that if he wanted to be president he needed to have the right on his side hence he picked Palin.

lets be realistic, no matter who mccain picked people here woudl not be happy and would be saying the same thing. we don't know how/if Palin would be a detriment to the country. teh people in Alaska seem to like her and it does look like sh ehas done soem good things there.

i think that it is healthy for people to pick others who are not like themselves. we want VP and other members of the government to challange teh president. we have seen what happens when we don't have that.

catch22

know1 wrote:

So your local observation is that preaching against homosexuality and gay marriage wasn't happening, but you're just certain that pretty much every where else it is?

thanks for proving my point elsewhere that the education system in this country is a failure. i guess reading comprehension isn't your thing.

i clearly stated that my local observation was that this did happen quite frequently and extensively: "but i do KNOW for a fact that in ohio last election, karl rove and the republicans maneuvered a gay marriage ban onto the ballot and then joined with various megachurches and pastors to do massive picketing, protests, pamphleteering, and so on and so forth in order to tout the huge threat of homosexuality and to exhort people into voting against kerry." i saw this firsthand.

but guess what? there were more than one church/parish in my town than the example i gave of a priest that did not do this! imagine that! i was simply offering that example of one parish as an admission that it does not mean every republican is doing this to every parish.

my point was that just because not every parish does this, that does not mean that it does not happen at all, as you seem to be arguing. it's a typical christian debate tactic. "evolution has unexplained phenomena still? clearly the only possible answer then is the book of genesis." so black and white. thanks for providing a standup example of why not to vote for palin and other morons who see nothing in between the extreme absurds you are demonstrating.

no, not every christian is a mindless devotee of republican manipulation. but that does not mean that republicans do not attempt, often successfully, to manipulate christian voters.

i'm willing to bet that if we were talking about democrats manipulating minority votes, you would be 100% on board with me. but hey, there's only one party capable of this kind of dirty emotional manipulation to could issues right? it's only the evil democrats using race as a wedge... the god-fearing republicans would NEVER use religion as a wedge to manipulate voters would they?

know1

catch22 wrote:

thanks for proving my point elsewhere that the education system in this country is a failure. i guess reading comprehension isn't your thing.

i clearly stated that my local observation was that this did happen quite frequently and extensively: "but i do KNOW for a fact that in ohio last election, karl rove and the republicans maneuvered a gay marriage ban onto the ballot and then joined with various megachurches and pastors to do massive picketing, protests, pamphleteering, and so on and so forth in order to tout the huge threat of homosexuality and to exhort people into voting against kerry." i saw this firsthand.

but guess what? there were more than one church/parish in my town than the example i gave of a priest that did not do this! imagine that! i was simply offering that example of one parish as an admission that it does not mean every republican is doing this to every parish.

my point was that just because not every parish does this, that does not mean that it does not happen at all, as you seem to be arguing. it's a typical christian debate tactic. "evolution has unexplained phenomena still? clearly the only possible answer then is the book of genesis." so black and white. thanks for providing a standup example of why not to vote for palin and other morons who see nothing in between the extreme absurds you are demonstrating.

no, not every christian is a mindless devotee of republican manipulation. but that does not mean that republicans do not attempt, often successfully, to manipulate christian voters.

i'm willing to bet that if we were talking about democrats manipulating minority votes, you would be 100% on board with me. but hey, there's only one party capable of this kind of dirty emotional manipulation to could issues right? it's only the evil democrats using race as a wedge... the god-fearing republicans would NEVER use religion as a wedge to manipulate voters would they?

I'll admit, I was twisting what you said a bit and almost thought better of it before I posted. I'll also admit that I'm a bit of a "skimmer" when it comes to longer posts.

I'm guessing that the truth of the matter is that widespread, conspiratorial manipulation by either party probably happens far less than what is frequently and casually mentioned as fact - whether it's issues about homosexuality, minorities, etc.

I think we give these parties far more credit then they deserve when it comes to their power to persuade.