june gloom on 30/1/2010 at 19:16

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I see there's a correlation between living in the Netherlands and blathering on about things you have no idea about. Possibly having shitty taste in everything, as well.

CCCToad on 30/1/2010 at 21:26

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Well, there's a number of things that are legal in the Netherlands but not in the United States. Certain things.

Gryzemuis on 31/1/2010 at 00:45

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That's not what I meant by "kicking them back into their doghouses".

I want to kick religious influence in politics back. I have no wish to put all religious people into gas-chambers. Is this clear enough for ya ?

I was referring to the separation of State and Church.
That concept has two parts, imho.
1) The right of everyone to follow any religion, and practice it in their own house, their backyard or in their clubhouses.
2) The Church (and religion) should not interfere with the State, with politics, with law-making, or any public business.

It seems that the second part is slowly being forgotten. Of course there will be religious people in politics, in the goverment, etc. That's fine. As long as they don't try to base their politics and new laws on some fairy-tale book that they were brainwashed with in their youths. And that is the case. In the fifties and sixties, people worked very hard to get the old, rigid, fascist, homofobic, rascist. xenophobic, nationalist ideas out of modern society. Old ideas that were for a large part based on religions. The influence of the Pope, the Church, etc, was slowly removed from modern society. But since the eigthies religion is slowly crawling back. All religions.

If you don't believe that, you should ask yourself: if the Iraqi and the Afgan people were mostly Christians, do you still believe the western armies would have marched in cluelessly ? And killed over half a million Christians as collateral damage ?

Do you know this quote by Colin Powell ?

This is about the chances of a muslim kid becoming President of the USA.
But what about an atheist ?
Would an atheist have any chance to ever become President of the USA ?

I think not.
I think the USA is so full of religious bias, that US voters rather elect anyone who has a belief, than anyone who is an atheist. Someone who has a religion, but the wrong religion, is only slightly confused. You can't blame him. But an atheist is someone else. Atheists are just wrong. They must be evil people or something.

I believe the US voters would elect a woman to be President, before they would elect an atheist.
I believe the US voters would elect a muslim to be President, before they would elect an atheist.
Heck, I'm willing to bet the unbelievable: I bet the US voters will elect a black man to be President, before they would elect an atheist !!


PS. I just did a little googling.
Correct me if I'm wrong here.
Besides the President and his cabinet, the USA is run by Congress. Which consists of 100 Senators and 435 members of the House of Representatives. That is 535 people in Congress. Out of those 535, there are 2 Muslims. And (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Stark) 1 atheist.

Do you really believe the US population has less than 0.2% atheists ?
What do you think would happen if US Congress has 1 black man and 1 woman, and for the rest all white men ? Can you imagine the turmoil in the media ? But having only one single non-religious person your congress is ok ?

CCCToad on 31/1/2010 at 00:58

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So Dethtoll is the only one who's allowed to be a smartass?





Congres isn't a good representation of the population any way you measure it: they are also overwhelmingly white, 40+ males with degrees in business or Law. This is particularly true in the senate.

I suspect that much of this is simply due to how American politics revolves primary around labels, whether that label be communist, teabagger, atheist, birther, obamaphile, fascist, etc. Calling yourself Christian simply allows yourself to avoid many of those labels. My thoughts are wandering, but that does lead into one of the only ways congressis demographically representative of America:Most of them profess to be Christian, but the number that participate actively is much smaller. Don't have the actual statistic handy though, that was in a textbook i sold back a few years ago.

Gryzemuis on 31/1/2010 at 01:22

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So basically, all politicians have to conform to the ubiquitous state-religion. Or else they have less, or no, chance of getting elected ?

How is this different from the situation in Afghanistan ?
The Afghans don't like the Taliban. But they like the Western military a lot less. I've heard they say things like: "We don't like the Taliban. But we know how to deal with them. We say we are a muslim, the men wear beards, the women wear veils. And we're fine. At least they don't shoot at us, they don't throw bombs on our villages, they don't stop and search us for no reason, they don't support a corrupt regime and maintain corruption. All we need to do is play as if we are good muslims, and all is fine".
Sounds a lot like what US politicians have to do to survive.