Why you should care that Americans still believe in God:

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My OP was not intended to start a political battle. I simply wanted to start a discussion on how huge an effect the believers have on society. This effect IMO is often extremely negative.

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First of all I will say that some may think it is out of place for me to comment on a USA polital matter since I am not a citizen of that country, but others will say it is fair since the USA have definitely got an influence on, if it is not directly meddling in, the politics of my country.

My question is direected at bigdaddydvo, since he has taken on the mantle of defending catholicism, it seems.

I seem to remember that only a few years ago, there was an issue at least debated (if not settled, in the catholic church, as to whether the catholic church should deny communion, if not excommunicate, catholic politicians that did not toe the line of, or were supporting legislation contravening, catholic doctrine - in any case it raises the possibility of interference).

Assuming that if a politician/judge etc. (any secular elected position for that matter) claims to be catholic, like bigdaddydvo, he propably does not do so to gain votes, but really is committed to the church, it seems to me that there is a chance of the USA abrogating it sovereingty to another country (namely the Vatican). How does that sit with a USA citizen catholic, a non-catholic, and the rules about foreign lobbying in the USA?

Any comments?

[BluffTHIS!]

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it seems to me that there is a chance of the USA abrogating it sovereingty to another country (namely the Vatican). How does that sit with a USA citizen catholic, a non-catholic, and the rules about foreign lobbying in the USA?

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The catholic church, headquartered in the Vatican, doesn't give out voting lists to catholics in the pews, but only teaches them values. So why should people of religious faith be singled out for where their values come from, and not atheists or anyone else? And if a catholic officeholder did have a conflict with something that was expected from him in a certain capacity and personal belief wasn't an appropriate way to determine how to act , then he should either recuse himself or get another job. So a catholic shouldn't take a government job where he doles out government money to abortion clinics, or as a hospital obsterician if he is execpected to perform abortions. And this isn't just for americans either. The late King Badouin of Belgium temporarily declared himself unfit to govern rather than sign legislation allowing abortion, with the result it passed through without his signature.

And these types of things don't just come up with catholics whose church happens to technically be headquartered in a sovereign country it runs.

Hiya Bluff

First of all, let me say that I think your previous post, answering Zeejustin, is an excellent, balanced, well formulated, unbiased post. I am serious.

If you don't mind, I would like to add that without denying the value of reading books, as cash my be an issue, having access to the internet is a way to get a lot of information. Personally, coming from an era where newspapers were the way to keep informed. I must say that in the last few years I have only rarely bought a newspaper. However, I do acccess on the net and read most of the following every day:

1. Washington Post (USA)
2. Guardian (UK)
3. Le Monde (in french which I am fluent in).
4. The Christaian Science Monitor (and I am strongly antireligious.. to use bigdaddydvo's words I tolerate them as long as they stay in their lanes
5. Pravda (Russia) unfortunately the latter is only a shadow of what it used to be, and is more akin to The Star or USA Today [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

The first four I read because their excellence in journalism, the latter because I don't want to miss on a different perspective, and sometimes it is like that - the last one I remember dsitinctly was the coverage of Condolea-Rice trip to Eastern Europe (couple of months ago)and the early coverage of the New Orleans catastrophe.

I also subscribe to a few news alerts (national to my country and CNN, in particular.. so that I can start monitoring news in near real-time). All of those are free.

bluffTHIS, I hope you didn't mind the above additional comment.

Now to address to answer your answer to my post. My concern is that a catholic is "bound" to, at least, some dictates of the Pope. The problem I see, is that those doctrinal statements can be promulgated at any time. If not this century (a bit short yet), at least in the last one, there were even additional dogma proclaimed. Should those statement have a political impact, the catholic elected official would be bound by it. Therefore, unless he reneged his catholicism, there is in my opinion definetely extraneous interference in the system. And it happens after the election, which mean that neither the voters, nor the politicians, could be aware of it at the time the vote took place. This is quite wrong, in respect to what the USA system of govenment purports to be, in my opinion!

What do you think?

PS whilst writing this I just got the following alert from CNN (Tornado kills at least 7 people in an Evansville, Indiana, mobile home park, officials say.) ... See how up-to-date it is.

[NotReady]

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and one of the primary reasons for that is that the Republican party would no longer hold the majority.


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You're in the wrong forum.

[RustedCorpse]

I don't want to live in a country that doesn't believe in god. Personally I'm 95% or so there is no god, but frankly I like the idea that the majority of people think there is a god. I mean honestly if the majority didn't think there was some sort of omnipotent being that could hold them accountable I think the social contract would collapse. Crime, murder and the like would be much much more widespread don't you think? If tomorrow everyone woke up and knew 100% there wasn't a god, I think you'd see a lot more underling’s murder bosses, random street arguments break out into full scale murders. I think that a belief system is what keeps a lot of things ticking, I can't imagine everyone stays civil just because of "police" consequences.

[Rockatansky]

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I don't want to live in a country that doesn't believe in god. Personally I'm 95% or so there is no god, but frankly I like the idea that the majority of people think there is a god. I mean honestly if the majority didn't think there was some sort of omnipotent being that could hold them accountable I think the social contract would collapse. Crime, murder and the like would be much much more widespread don't you think? If tomorrow everyone woke up and knew 100% there wasn't a god, I think you'd see a lot more underling’s murder bosses, random street arguments break out into full scale murders. I think that a belief system is what keeps a lot of things ticking, I can't imagine everyone stays civil just because of "police" consequences.

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Personally, I don't think that most people who claim to believe in God actually alter their day-to-day behavior because of their belief. Admittedly, there's no way to proove that this is this case.

[imported_luckyme]

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I mean honestly if the majority didn't think there was some sort of omnipotent being that could hold them accountable I think the social contract would collapse.

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Perhaps you need to have a look over the data in the post "Correlations of Societal Health with Religiosity & Secularism " and that'll set your mind at ease.

luckyme

what are so great about the Dems? (assuming they are in power). Welfare programs dont work. Yeah some of their other stances on social issues are better than repubs. but big government does not help the people it is supposed to help.

[Aytumious]

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what are so great about the Dems? (assuming they are in power). Welfare programs dont work. Yeah some of their other stances on social issues are better than repubs. but big government does not help the people it is supposed to help.

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Don't pretend the Republicans are the party of small government. It may have been true in the past, but it certainly is not true currently.

[The Don]

Zeejustin,

I think that in your quest for knowledge you should examine other political philosophies. There are more than two ideologies, you know. Go to www.politicalcompass.org and see where you stand. I am personally an athiest myself, but I believe that there are far greater problems with the Republicans (or Democrats) being in power than tendencies toward religious dogma.