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The issue of religion and politics has been an embroiled battle since governments were first enstated. One of the reasons the Pilgrims came to America in the first place was to escape religious persecution. The Inquisition saw the Catholic Church use its political powers to remove any persons opposed to the Church. History has a huge amount of instances where a religion was able to get a political foothold and to use this power to annihilate other religions. This is what led to the drafters of the Constitution to include the First Amendment which says that the US government cannot officially recognize a religion nor prohibit any religion. This is where the idea of the separation of church and state stems from and receives its basic support. But should we have this separation so explicitly? A conversation came up among my friends over whether or not religion should be completely separated from politics. The main point being that religion defines a basic ethical system that should be used to base laws and practices put forth by the government. I think that this idea has the right intentions, but I do not think that its application would either be needed nor properly carried out. First off, why do we need a religion to define our morals? Can we not as individuals, separated from our religious beliefs, develop our own ethical viewpoints and integrate those ideas into law? That is why we have representatives in legislative branch of the national government. It allows us to communicate to our representatives in the House of Representatives and the Senate to vote on laws according to our beliefs. It is as if it is being suggested that without religion ethics is either lacking or non-existent. I would have to beg to differ on that point. Most people would agree that there is such a thing as universal ethics that all people would agree to if they were of sane mind. This would include the damning of murder, rape, theft and other acts along these lines. Most religions agree with this. So if practically everyone agrees with these ideas independently of religion, why do we need a religion to tell us this? We don't. But what if a certain religion was practiced by a majority of the people in a nation, like Christianity in America? I would have to reply that it means nothing. Once again, the viewpoints of the majority of the people can still be taken independently without having direct religious influences in the government. This also guarantees that rights that some people view as basic are not trampled upon by the majority religion. The other issue deals with defining what the majority religion believes collectively. Christianity, with its various denominations, is hard to pigeonhole into what its main beliefs are. Is it the Ten Commandments? Not necessarily. There are assuredly many people who don't fully agree with the Ten Commandments, let alone with the order of importance. So even if we could agree that a government should base its beliefs on a specific religion it would be very hard to agree on what that religion believed in. The most dangerous problem, though, is that if a specific religion was allowed to make governmental decisions is the overstepping of boundaries. The Catholic Church did more than they should have during the Inquisition. Going around, herding up people who they believed to go against the Church, torturing them until they confessed, and then killing them is not exactly something that I think should be allowed to happen. But that could possibly happen if a religion was allowed to have direct influence over the government. This is partially why there was such a huge anti-Catholic movement in the US for such a long time; Americans worried of Catholics getting political positions and using their political clout to do things that the Pope told them to do. But even if we don't take things to the extreme, like the Inquisition, there are still small details that add up. Take prostitution. It is illegal in practically all of the US. Yet what is wrong with it? Prostitutes are essentially selling a service. It could be said that it is no worse than a massage. And yet it is illegal. Why? It is a "sin". According to who? The Christian faith for one thing. If there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it, then why is it illegal? Christian groups organized and pushed their political clout around until prostitution was made illegal. Same with polygamy. What is it of our business if someone wants to marry more than one person? It really isn't our business, but since it goes against Christian doctrine it has been made illegal in the United States. This is where the real issue comes into view. Perhaps a majority of the people do think that prostitution and polygamy are "sinful" and thus should be made illegal. Laws that make things considered sinful illegal is fundamentally wrong. Why? It revokes people's basic rights to choose whether or not they want to commit those supposed sins. I do not need the Christian church protecting my soul from sin. I can do that on my own, thank you; my free will can handle the responsibility. Alexis de Tocqueville noted in his grand opus Democracy in America that one of the side-effects of democracy is the tyranny of the majority. This is when the majority of the people overstep their power and implement their strength to hinder the rights of others. De Tocqueville also realized that with religion performing such an important part in people's life that religious groups could sway the government in certain directions and abuse its majority status. That has happened here. It could be much worse, and the US government has done a superb job to keep the tyranny of the majority in check; it just has not done a perfect job. I think there is a lesson to be learned here. When people exercise their political influence they should in such a manner as to not push for laws that hinder upon others. Everyone should take a careful view of what they are voting for and make sure that it is fundamental in a humanitarian, and not religious, way that it be passed. Do you like prostitution? No. Should I use my political influence to keep others from it? No since it is not something that is universally wrong; it is religiously or personally wrong. People need to step back and make sure that the beliefs they are exerting upon others is an ethical one that basic and absolutely need to be protected and are not personal or religious in any way. If that were done a lot of unjust laws would not be on the books as they are now. |