Is religion the problem with U.S. politics?

gretchen

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http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6146226

.......Despite polling showing a waning in religion’s influence in the US, the country remains one of the most devout in the Western world, an outlier amongst the secular, industrialised democracies, with more than 50% of Americans saying that religion is important to them, almost three times as many as most of Western Europe. Centuries of bloodshed over God finally persuaded Europeans to extricate religion from political life. The US experience ran counter, with religion and politics becoming inextricably fused, pushed together during the 20th century by the preaching of Billy Graham, the “good versus evil” framing of the Cold War and the end of the self-imposed exile of the evangelical right. As the German sociologist Hans Joas noted, “The more secularised large parts of Europe became, the more exotic the religiosity of the United States seemed to European observers.” Which brings us to today: an America in crisis - limp, hobbled and unable to function. All but the opening act of Obama’s six-year vignette has been mired in political dysfunction, the tribes parting as Republicans retreated to an ideological hinterland formerly the redoubt of biblical literalists, economic fantasists and men with too many guns and too little life experience. Last October, Republicans courted global economic calamity by failing to pass legislation to appropriate sufficient funds to pay America’s international debts - shutting down the government for two weeks, a bizarre act of retribution against the President, enacted by the Tea Party-wing of the GOP for his attempt to reform healthcare. The current (113th) Congress is the least productive in modern American history. Its divided factions passing so few pieces of legislation that is has garnered a staggering public disapproval rating of 83%. Following the Republican victory in the recent midterm elections, the deadlock looks set to continue at least until the end of the Obama presidency, but very likely beyond for a generation. Sitting at the heart of this intransigence appears to be religion, with the Republicans, once the party of business and a strong military, morphing into an entity preoccupied with so-called “Christian values.”
 

pboy

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one part, yes, but the same character flaws that would use religion to justify non harmonious acts, if not religion, would likely find some other way of doing it. Its just the peoples psyche, that needs work
 
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gretchen

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It's called the Christian Right. You would have had to have been there growing up, or at least paid some attention to politics the last 30 years in order to understand.
 

mt_dreams

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Man has been asking the question of "good versus evil" for all our recorded history. Religion acted as a safety blanket for the masses, so they would not have to ask and answer the question for themself. Religion would rather have a society acting in unicence than have division of thought within the society.

there are both religious and non religious people within the two political parties of U.S. The real problem is the many different groups who wield power within the political process, and their desire to prevent progress of different idealolgy when it does not come from their own set of beliefs. Much like what has happened over the last couple of years from congress pertaining to the president's agenda.

religion much like gun ownership or security of the public by all means, etc, are used as large fishing nets to get as many people as possible to say yes without asking the above question on more fundamental issues pertaining to our species, and every other species living on the land.
 

burtlancast

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No.
The real problem is that in reality, only one political party exists.

Recently deceased Stnley Monteith, Ed Griffin, Charlotte Iserbyt and others have proved convincingly both Republicans and Democrats agree in reality with just about everything ( if not in intentions, at least in concrete facts) and are playing a cynical game destined to fool people into believing there's a choice.

Religion is just a distraction.
 

LucyL

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burtlancast said:
No.
The real problem is that in reality, only one political party exists.

Recently deceased Stnley Monteith, Ed Griffin, Charlotte Iserbyt and others have proved convincingly both Republicans and Democrats agree in reality with just about everything ( if not in intentions, at least in concrete facts) and are playing a cynical game destined to fool people into believing there's a choice.

Religion is just a distraction.

This. :1

Bloodshed is not over in Europe. People cry "peace" when there is no peace (Jer 6:14). It has only be 70 years since a major outbreak, but years have not been as still as one might think. This wikipedia article on the Pax Europa lists all the wars Europe has been involved in since 1945.

List of wars in Europe during the post-WW2 period:

Greek Civil War (Greece)
Invasion of Czechoslovakia (USSR)
Ten-Day War (Slovenia vs. Yugoslavia)
Croatian War of Independence (Croatia vs. Yugoslavia)
Georgian Civil War
East Prigorodny Conflict (Ingush militia vs. Russia)
War of Transnistria (Transnitria vs. Moldavia)
Bosnian War (Bosnia vs. Yugoslavia)
Albanian Rebellion
First Chechen War
War of Dagestan
Second Chechen War
Russo-Georgian war
2014 pro-Russian conflict in Ukraine
2014 Crimean crisis
War in Donbass
2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine

Wars waged by European countries during the post-WW2 period:

Indonesian War of Independence (Netherlands)
Suez Crisis (UK and France)
First Indochina War (France)
Algerian War (France)
Ifni War (France and Spain)
Bizerte crisis (France)
Angolan War of Independence (Portugal)
Dhofar Rebellion (UK)
Mozambican War of Independence (Portugal)
Shaba I and II (France and Belgium)
Falklands War (UK)
Afghanistan War
Iraq War
Northern Mali conflict (France)
Central African Republic conflict (France)

Thanks to modern technology, the nature of war has changed. Modern artillery does so much damage that a lopsided conflict can be very short, and often "war" is not officially declared. Instead it is couched as suppressing terrorist activity or something like that. But still, people die.
 

Blinkyrocket

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Why don't we just settle our differences over call of duty matches? Seriously, you're not actually killing each other and it's the same idea of competition and whoever "wins" gets to do whatever it is that they wanted to do. There's gotta be a way to virtually war without real world consequence. Unless that would result in overpopulation caused by not enough human death of course. Oh and I'm a Christian but I try to not think of the Bible as something that says "this is the right way and if somebody doesn't agree, they're idiots" mostly its ppl's fault (even Christians can get high serotonin) for making conflict that would happen if there was ANY sort of disagreement, regardless of religion. Besides, me and my family don't think of Christianity as a religion, in that we don't ritualize and don't obsess, Catholicism is extremely sucky and produces a lot of mentally ill ppl just because of the "do good or you don't get into heaven" stuff. I could go into what morality is but suffice it to say that you can't JUST say that one thing isn't actually that bad if there's a person on this planet somewhere that would get offended by that thing, for example, swearing is a huge pet peace of mine and it's not enough for the person to not swear with me around, if someone casually swears with no logical and understandable reason behind it, they lose my respect forever and I'm not gonna and probably can't change that anyway.
 

tara

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LucyL said:
burtlancast said:
No.
The real problem is that in reality, only one political party exists.

Recently deceased Stnley Monteith, Ed Griffin, Charlotte Iserbyt and others have proved convincingly both Republicans and Democrats agree in reality with just about everything ( if not in intentions, at least in concrete facts) and are playing a cynical game destined to fool people into believing there's a choice.

Religion is just a distraction.

This. :1
:1

And both of them well to the right/more imperialist in policy than the majority of the US population on many issues.
 

Blinkyrocket

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I'm serious though on the substitution of war with games lol, we could have each nation that's going to war build a giant robot that goes up against our giant robot, whoever wins, wins the war it's that simple and noone dies. The only problem is that noone dies and it therefore might feel like it wasn't enough justice.

.....
Can't blame me for having childish views since growing up is something I've desperately tried not to do and have successfully reversed (Thank God) in some areas because I found that when I was more stressed out I was subsequently more "mature". Funny how ppl tell you to grow up when the act of "maturing" is synonymous with misery and is just plain stupid and masochistic imho. I'm not talking about lazy/slob which is an image one might conjure when talking about immaturity, I'm just talking about childishness. Like, wearing batman underwear, who says you can't wear underwear that has batman on it? :lol:
 

Sheik

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Real integrity, real strength starts with INDIVIDUALS. Politics is a byproduct of culture. Our culture is one of weak men who rarely leave their bedrooms. Internet porn is taking away men's innate masculine power and drive to achieve. TV, junk food, Facebook,... is numbing us from being able to hear the whispers of the soul. Taking away our sensitivity and severely undermining our innate power.

When your attention is locked in these distractions, the growth of your character is stunted. We don't take the time to let our minds heal and assimilate what we've learned.

We're not getting out and learning life's lessons because our eyes are glued to our electronic devices.

Would it be a stretch to say this is a nation of addicts?

Politics is the practice and theory of influencing people. How can you influence narcissistic, self entitled addicts? What people need is a humbling dose of reality.

I don't have much hope for America, but I do have hope for humanity.
 

mt_dreams

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Blinkyrocket said:
Why don't we just settle our differences over call of duty matches? Seriously, you're not actually killing each other and it's the same idea of competition and whoever "wins" gets to do whatever it is that they wanted to do. There's gotta be a way to virtually war without real world consequence. Unless that would result in overpopulation caused by not enough human death of course. Oh and I'm a Christian but I try to not think of the Bible as something that says "this is the right way and if somebody doesn't agree, they're idiots" mostly its ppl's fault (even Christians can get high serotonin) for making conflict that would happen if there was ANY sort of disagreement, regardless of religion. Besides, me and my family don't think of Christianity as a religion, in that we don't ritualize and don't obsess, Catholicism is extremely sucky and produces a lot of mentally ill ppl just because of the "do good or you don't get into heaven" stuff. I could go into what morality is but suffice it to say that you can't JUST say that one thing isn't actually that bad if there's a person on this planet somewhere that would get offended by that thing, for example, swearing is a huge pet peace of mine and it's not enough for the person to not swear with me around, if someone casually swears with no logical and understandable reason behind it, they lose my respect forever and I'm not gonna and probably can't change that anyway.

There are lots of people who enjoy fighting, even against people from within it's own country, let alone a different culture. Take soccer(footbol) matches from south america & Europe from the past, there's was lots of fighting going on in the stands & after the game. Heck the serb war from 25-30 years ago commenced on a soccer pitch ... so video game war would only work for the part of the population that does not like fighting, the other part of the population needs blood.


Religion = Power
Money = Power

And yes America has too much influencing Power (aka religion & money) in its politics, it's why they've been in the middle east for so long.
 

Blinkyrocket

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mt_dreams said:
Blinkyrocket said:
Why don't we just settle our differences over call of duty matches? Seriously, you're not actually killing each other and it's the same idea of competition and whoever "wins" gets to do whatever it is that they wanted to do. There's gotta be a way to virtually war without real world consequence. Unless that would result in overpopulation caused by not enough human death of course. Oh and I'm a Christian but I try to not think of the Bible as something that says "this is the right way and if somebody doesn't agree, they're idiots" mostly its ppl's fault (even Christians can get high serotonin) for making conflict that would happen if there was ANY sort of disagreement, regardless of religion. Besides, me and my family don't think of Christianity as a religion, in that we don't ritualize and don't obsess, Catholicism is extremely sucky and produces a lot of mentally ill ppl just because of the "do good or you don't get into heaven" stuff. I could go into what morality is but suffice it to say that you can't JUST say that one thing isn't actually that bad if there's a person on this planet somewhere that would get offended by that thing, for example, swearing is a huge pet peace of mine and it's not enough for the person to not swear with me around, if someone casually swears with no logical and understandable reason behind it, they lose my respect forever and I'm not gonna and probably can't change that anyway.

There are lots of people who enjoy fighting, even against people from within it's own country, let alone a different culture. Take soccer(footbol) matches from south america & Europe from the past, there's was lots of fighting going on in the stands & after the game. Heck the serb war from 25-30 years ago commenced on a soccer pitch ... so video game war would only work for the part of the population that does not like fighting, the other part of the population needs blood.


Religion = Power
Money = Power

And yes America has too much influencing Power (aka religion & money) in its politics, it's why they've been in the middle east for so long.
Virtual reality is coming out soon, maybe it'll look real enough to satisfy people :P
I like fighting too, I'm gonna learn Martial Arts and find places to fight but that doesn't mean we can't spill virtual blood instead of real blood, the premise is the same, we win, we get to do what we want, you lose, you don't.
Also, can people stop with the impossible coincidences? I just yesterday saw a Simpsons episode with a "soccer riot" in it; this has been happening to me way too much in this last month.
 

jaa

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Of course it's part of the problem. When a group that collectively believes in a massively distorted view of reality holds a lot of political influence things generally veer away from optimal.
 

Blinkyrocket

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jaa said:
Of course it's part of the problem. When a group that collectively believes in a massively distorted view of reality holds a lot of political influence things generally veer away from optimal.
Nobody knows what reality is, you can't even prove %100 that I or anyone else besides you even exists and vice versa. Not saying your wrong, that's just what came to my mind. I guess one thing to gleam from that is that believing that this world is real could be a massive distortion of reality, it's only a distorted belief if it's wrong so can you really know?
 

jaa

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Blinkyrocket said:
jaa said:
Nobody knows what reality is, you can't even prove %100 that I or anyone else besides you even exists and vice versa. Not saying your wrong, that's just what came to my mind. I guess one thing to gleam from that is that believing that this world is real could be a massive distortion of reality, it's only a distorted belief if it's wrong so can you really know?

I agree we can know nothing about the nature of reality with 100% certainty. All we can do is assign probabilities to certain states based on an evaluation of the information we've been exposed to. When I wrote that to believe that the universe works more or less in the way the bible says it works is to believe in a distorted view of reality, all I meant was that it is very likely that statement is true. You have a much better chance of hitting the lottery than the bible being an accurate account of history.
 

Blinkyrocket

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jaa said:
Blinkyrocket said:
jaa said:
Nobody knows what reality is, you can't even prove %100 that I or anyone else besides you even exists and vice versa. Not saying your wrong, that's just what came to my mind. I guess one thing to gleam from that is that believing that this world is real could be a massive distortion of reality, it's only a distorted belief if it's wrong so can you really know?

I agree we can know nothing about the nature of reality with 100% certainty. All we can do is assign probabilities to certain states based on an evaluation of the information we've been exposed to. When I wrote that to believe that the universe works more or less in the way the bible says it works is to believe in a distorted view of reality, all I meant was that it is very likely that statement is true. You have a much better chance of hitting the lottery than the bible being an accurate account of history.
And yet, the lottery is won, or else people wouldn't play it. ;)

Idk, I don't pay attention to politics and it was always my thought that religion didn't play a part in it because of how stupid it is, if they use religion it's just that "using" religion. If governments wanted to use religion they wouldn't use one that they don't like.
 

jaa

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Blinkyrocket said:
And yet, the lottery is won, or else people wouldn't play it. ;)

Idk, I don't pay attention to politics and it was always my thought that religion didn't play a part in it because of how stupid it is, if they use religion it's just that "using" religion. If governments wanted to use religion they wouldn't use one that they don't like.

But if you genuinely believed you would hit the lotto tomorrow, people would be right to think you are delusional.

In the USA, Christians yield enough power that no legit candidate is dumb enough to say they aren't Christian. And policies from abortion to gay marriage to the retributive justice system are affected.
 

pboy

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinners_i ... _Angry_God

you are saying this doctrine isn't true?!?!?!? TO FIRE AND BRIMSTONE WITH YOU!!!!

really though..thats why when Europeans first went into india...they tried to like not talk about it, change the history, snuff it all out...why its not talked about even to this day in school textbooks or anything. They were talking big about being christians and god and all that while at the same time...waging war, enslaving people, doing shady business and under the table mercenary deals, eating a meat heavy diet, hardly bathed, had little harmony or beauty in their society...while india was vegetarian and thousands of years more established and advanced in knowledge and hwo to conduct themselves as a society, didn't wage war, traded fairly, had actual spiritual teachers...which tought personal freedom and there was no rules or anything saying you must do this or follow that, it was full of beauty and harmony, color, the music was on a different level...basically it shamed them and exposed how all their Christian stuff was just a constipated angry effort at gouging and controlling things. Jesus was more like an indian guru than anything later Christians became...like they basically were just a more angry version of Judaism with some perks in it for them to use to scare and control people, had nothing to do with jesus
 

Blinkyrocket

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jaa said:
Blinkyrocket said:
And yet, the lottery is won, or else people wouldn't play it. ;)

Idk, I don't pay attention to politics and it was always my thought that religion didn't play a part in it because of how stupid it is, if they use religion it's just that "using" religion. If governments wanted to use religion they wouldn't use one that they don't like.

But if you genuinely believed you would hit the lotto tomorrow, people would be right to think you are delusional.

In the USA, Christians yield enough power that no legit candidate is dumb enough to say they aren't Christian. And policies from abortion to gay marriage to the retributive justice system are affected.
All things that should likely (have) stay(ed) the same even without christianity, idk why people defend gay marriage, it's one of the reasons I'm leaving America. Controlling reality to fit individual views would be nice, but it just causes things to get worse, so instead I'm just getting the heck out of here.
 

johns74

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jaa said:
I agree we can know nothing about the nature of reality with 100% certainty. All we can do is assign probabilities to certain state

What's the probability that probabilities are part of reality?
 
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