Does religion belong in politics

[Stattick]

Which itself is a weird idea, to me. Considering only your immortal soul has any worth in this life, what happens to your body whenever you've gone up or down hardly seems to matter.

Well, the Catholics had weird ideas about the sanctity of bodies, and bodies needing to be unmolested and laying in Holy Ground so that you wouldn't have to spend eternity in Purgatory and such. Maybe they still have those ideas... I'm not sure. But I always figured that it was just a racket to get people to fork over a bit of coin not only for the Last Rites and a Proper Christian Funeral, but also to be laid in Holy Ground when you were buried or encrypted.

[Rozel]

Considering the country was founded by those that were self governed by religion, it is unlikely that it will ever not be a part of elections. As we have to admit that religious sections are a very large and vast part of the voters. Targeting sympathizers is the basis for running an election campaign in the first place.

So, while I don't like it and feel it shouldn't belong in politics, it will always be there. If used as nothing but a means of securing votes.

[Ironwolf85]

Well, the Catholics had weird ideas about the sanctity of bodies, and bodies needing to be unmolested and laying in Holy Ground so that you wouldn't have to spend eternity in Purgatory and such. Maybe they still have those ideas... I'm not sure. But I always figured that it was just a racket to get people to fork over a bit of coin not only for the Last Rites and a Proper Christian Funeral, but also to be laid in Holy Ground when you were buried or encrypted.

actually for the longest time most early christans believed that on the day of judgement the dead would rise and be ressurected, then stand before god and be judged, many including myself do believe parts of that, but threy took the dead rising as a more literal thing.
They believed that the souls of the dead would re-inhabit their corpses and rise from their graves, good and evil alike, would then march towards jersulam for judgement.
This is the reason all cathloic and eastern orthodox branches bury their dead facing east towards the holy city. While all the priests are buried facing west so as to face their people and calm them on that day.

Protistants were less concerned with things like that, and with american religious culture being largely protistant in nature, we've stopped caring what direction they face so long as they go into the ground and are treated with respect, as the vast majority of americans do believe in the same way as vanity.

On the issue of stem cells, it is meeting this oppisation because the opponents see it as science using dead featuses.
It's the distubing idea that of "this science is amazing, yet it's research is powered by dead babies" that makes them squrm, go out and protest.
If they could create artifical stem cells resistance would be greatly lessened, of even if they found a way to make animalcells work.

[Stattick]

Sometimes when I spit, my own living cells splatter into the porcelain bowl. When I scratch myself, it's like an Armageddon where tens of thousand of cells are damaged, killed, or dislodged from my skin to go floating through the air, only to die because they have not the means to defend or feed themselves while lying forgotten and unknown in my mattress. I am a nation of tens of trillions, and I'm a despot that regularly kills millions of my own citizens, sometimes just for fun. I scrape away and kill thousands with each bite of nachos. The evil chips keep damaging me as they scrape down my esophagus. In my stomach, partially protected citizens hose the mash down with strong acid, and try not to succumb to the corrosive like their brothers. They don't last long in their position, but I have rank upon rank of their brothers to take their place. Their fate could be worse. The could work further downstream in the sewer, what doctors like to call my intestines. I literally have dedicated specialists that sort food from waste, and spend their entire lives in the churning, bacteria laden waste. Many are scraped free from their home, perhaps by a surviving sharp edge of a nacho chip, only to join the froth and be eaten or killed. Yes, I'm even a cannibal; I have citizens whose sole job is to eat other citizens of my esteemed nation. I have others that eat intruders... yum!

I am a seething mass of sin and horror, a collective being that would scream in pain always, if I could only feel the sensations of all of my cells. But the individuals matter not, only the pilot, the pseudo consciousness that tries to make sense of the world, the faux intelligence that tries to pretend that every action is made for reasons other than pure selfishness. What ignoble creatures we are. Do not try to sway me with arguments that paper thin sheets a few square inches large have human rights and feelings. I shit that much of myself away everyday. Do not try to sell me that a fetus the size of a walnut, a thing that wouldn't have anything approaching human sentience for years, has the rights of an adult. Might as well try to tell me I should be convicted of murder for clipping my fingernails.

[ShadowFox89]

 Stattick, can you stop with the Strawman Atheist argument? It got old five years ago, it's still old now.

[Vanity Evolved]

actually for the longest time most early christans believed that on the day of judgement the dead would rise and be ressurected, then stand before god and be judged, many including myself do believe parts of that, but threy took the dead rising as a more literal thing.
They believed that the souls of the dead would re-inhabit their corpses and rise from their graves, good and evil alike, would then march towards jersulam for judgement.
This is the reason all cathloic and eastern orthodox branches bury their dead facing east towards the holy city. While all the priests are buried facing west so as to face their people and calm them on that day.

Protistants were less concerned with things like that, and with american religious culture being largely protistant in nature, we've stopped caring what direction they face so long as they go into the ground and are treated with respect, as the vast majority of americans do believe in the same way as vanity.

On the issue of stem cells, it is meeting this oppisation because the opponents see it as science using dead featuses.
It's the distubing idea that of "this science is amazing, yet it's research is powered by dead babies" that makes them squrm, go out and protest.
If they could create artifical stem cells resistance would be greatly lessened, of even if they found a way to make animalcells work.

This is the reason they protest; because it's a basic, emotional response. For the same reason that we'll gladly eat hamburgers, then when someone sees a cute little calf wandering around a field eating grass, they switch instantly to 'killing animals is wrong!'

It's the same reason we buy coffins and spend thousands in gestures to the dead. Emotions. And unless you're a truely heartless person, yeah, you're going to most likely feel that way on the surface.

The question I pose is, why is that wrong? Of course, the person who had lost a child will have strong feelings against this, but if you view it in a pragmatic light, it's actually a much nicer option in my opinion. A dead child is dead. There isn't a cure for that. Using stem cells for research and curing people means that someone out there, despite your child not having had a shot at life, could have potentially saved the lives of people across the world. Is this a bad idea to think about? Or do you believe that just putting them in a wooden box in the ground to be eaten by micro-ogangisms and natural processes is a nicer?

But I completely agree, it's a very dicey topic. It's a very emotional one, which is the worst kind of topic; logic and pragmatism is all well and good, but when it comes to gut human emotion, it takes a -lot- to placate that urge, in the fact same way that it's hard to suppress that pounding rush of adrenaline forcing its way through you when you're scared. Highly intelligent animals we may be, but we're still animals.

[Lux12]

I believe religion and politics should be separated as much as possible with regards to how a nation is run. It is a mutual corruption where the faith adopts the predatory elements of government and the government becomes vicious, oppressive, and ruled by dogma. I already think government is inherently tainted, but I think a direct combination is a match made in hell.