Joining the Blogswarm Against Theocracy

I am posting this in support of the blogswarm against Theocracy. 

I do not think that religion and government can be mixed without the governing individuals making mistakes and people suffering.  Much as a monarchy cannot reliably guard the individual rights of citizens, a theocracy diminishes the individual’s right to do “good” by making “evil” illegal.  People should have more options than sheep.  The first part of this post is the “heavy shit”, then is the “practical shit”.

First: I am a Reverend of the Universal Life Church.  I practise spiritual actions and thinking inside my head every day of the year. Well, I may miss a few minutes here and there, a whole hour on a bad day, but my spirituality is constantly part of life.

I am also 200% behind people believing something.  There *are* health benefits, mental benefits, and social benefits to believing in something.  Comfort in difficult times or times of illness, restoration of hormonal balances and the ability to change one’s biological reactions and interactions happens with belief.

Belief is so basic to our mental interactions and the actual beginning of learning that it cannot be denied - but it also cannot be enforced.  Theocracies seek to not only enforce belief, but a very specific belief.  They deny questions to that belief, they deny the ability for one to fail that is intrinsic to all three major Abrahamic religions, and to Buddhism and other spiritual beliefs.

To use the most popular/well-known example: the God of Judaism is different than the God of Christianity is different than Allah, but they all share the creation story where man was given free will by God/Allah to choose his actions, and a brain to think about those actions and the results.  To try to make a society that forces the everyday man into a course of action that follows “proper thought” and “proper action” through government is making an unsaid statement: that God/Allah was wrong to give free will.

And if you are calling God/Allah wrong, then you are treading some seriously dangerous ground if you are going to accept anything else God/Allah may have for us.

But let’s take another tack.  Spiritualism and Religion, you feel in your heart.  It doesn’t make sense to the brain, really.  And vice versa – things the brain decides make the heart hurt, make it happy, make it mourn, the list goes on.

The mind cannot effectively speak to the heart and the heart shouldn’t try govern the mind.  It has been established by and discussed in 2,000 years of recorded history (the early stuff is harder to see that example in, but it’s there.)  Faith and Government speak two seperate languages.

To introduce any Religion into Government means we take a step backwards in our social evolution.  The benefits of writing and history and learning and everything are thrown in the trash.

The pope was right to stand at the Papal Palace today and remind world leaders war is a wrong in this world.  The pope would be wrong the moment he excommunicated a leader, or attempted to incite a war against a leader for their actions.

And every time the president uses any religious language while speaking on policy or about decisions made in the White House, he has crossed that line between Church and State.  The same goes for a Representative or Senator, or a Justice.

The forefathers of our country differed in their opinions of God – some were naturalists, some were scientifically minded, some had a decidedly Puritanical slant – and each of them agreed their religion didn’t belong in the governing of this country they were creating.

Seperation of Church and State.

Respect their wishes.  Respect their beliefs and the beliefs of the citizens of America, and the rest of the world – keep religion out of politics.

Please.

Skåll!!!