Also Peter Thiel.
Death cult!
The best time to leave was a while ago. The next best time to leave is now.
Its the only way to get to heaven without waiting for the end of your natural life.
This is exactly why there needs to be a separation between church and state. How can you trust someone to run the country, when all their decisions are grounded in magical thinking?
Umm… we have that. What we lack is law enforcement.
Don’t you have to swear on the bible?
No, it specifically says you do not because of separation of church and state, you can swear on the constitution or a take out menu, whatever you want
You can swear on anything you want.
In the UK you can even make an affirmation if you are not religious or your religion forbids you from taking an oath. This as brought in originally for the Quakers but anyone who objects to Christian oaths has this option.
When I did jury service I took the secular route, though I wouldn’t have strongly objected to swearing the traditional oath either. I quite like the idea God is personally nosing into the daily business of HM Courts and Tribunals, although judging by the backlog he abandoned the justice system long ago.
Separation of church and state is different from separation of state and religious laymen. The majority of the population are religious so excluding them would be worse democratically than excluding women. What’s actually meant by separation of church and state is that people working in the church (priests, Bishops, popes) shouldn’t meddle with the running of the state. Nothing to do with religious laymen.
I have no problem with people having religious beliefs…in private. But, as far as I’m concerned, as soon as those religious beliefs start dictating your policy priorities…you have lost your ability to make objective decisions on behalf of the rest of us. That goes equally for “laymen” as well as “professionals”.
This case is a perfect example. Anyone openly saying that they’re just going to “follow their faith”, even if it leads us all to total destruction, needs to be removed from office. Yesterday. I wouldn’t even trust that person to drive a city bus, let alone guide policy for the entire population.
I agree that if a religious laymen uses religion to make bad policies then he shouldn’t be in office. However democracy is supposed to represent the people and if the people want to elect a religious nutjob then that’s a failure of the people, not the democratic system. You can’t make a law that says religious people can’t run for office as that would be extremely undemocratic and go against religious freedom.
You can’t make a law that says religious people can’t run for office…but you can make a law that says they can’t make policy based on their religious beliefs.
That’s what the 1st amendment is supposed to prevent.
I’m not American so correct me if I’m wrong. But wasn’t the first amendment about disallowing the government from establishing or favoring a specific religious establishment. Meaning it would be illegal to say make a law that favors or teaches baptism in school at the expense of another Christian flavor. What I understand of the history behind freedom of religion in the US was that people were sick of the UK mandating the very specific theology of the Anglican church and instead wanting a system where people were allowed to practice any flavor of Christianity that they wanted. From this it would be no problem being a religious person in office but it would not be okay for that person to give benefits or favor to their specific church while in office.
Not making policy based on religious belief would be impossible however. One’s religion would impact one’s entire morality and value system. So one could say we should enact policy X because the bible says so. But one couldn’t say we should enact policy X because the southern baptist Convention just made a ruling that policy X should be enacted and now we have to make a law that matches that ruling.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
It is as you said…primarily as a freedom to practice whatever religion you want…but this also effectively prohibits any government official from enacting any policy or legislation that promotes their own religious beliefs over any other, since it may conflict with the free practice of someone else’s religion.
In essence, it prevents the state from getting involved in religious matters altogether.
prohibits any government official from enacting any policy or legislation that promotes their own religious beliefs over any other, since it may conflict with the free practice of someone else’s religion.
Okay, so Christianity says we can’t kill people. But jihadism exists in Islam. Then the law must allow killing by Islamists to avoid being based on Christian beliefs and restricting jihadists’ practice?
But I could in theory promote a secular policy based on my theoretical religious belief. Say I want to lower barriers to immigration and as motivation I quote the parable of the good Samaritan saying that even foreigners should be treated as ones neighbour. Now in doing this I’m letting my religious belief affect my policy making. However I’m not inhibiting anyone else’s free practice of religion since this is secular policy.
Man either you’re trolling (propaganda spreading) or you’re so dense it’s worthless to try to explain anything to you.
Separation of church and state isn’t that hard a concept. Even a child can understand it.
But u: sHoUlD wE BAN rEligious pEoPle??!!!
Common grow up, it’s actually a cool place here if you do want to discuss.
The original comment said: " How can you trust someone to run the country, when all their decisions are grounded in magical thinking?"
This in regards to the need to have a separation of church and state on a post about JD Vance being religiously motivated in the decisions he’s making. I interpret this as the person seeing the existence of JD Vance as a failure of “separation of church and state” and that this separation needs to become stronger. However JD Vance is not part of the clergy. He’s simply a religious layman. No church is running this government and therefore the current separation of church and state doesn’t apply.
So then my question to you is, how would you by law prevent another JD Vance from being elected, for the explicit reason that he uses religion to make decisions, without banning religious people from political office ?
I can’t find a good solution to this without making thought crime a thing. A religious person would be unable to see certain issues without some kind of perspective from their religion.
Holy fuck do you think separation of church and state only means that we can’t have the equivalent of the Holy Roman Emperor? Like You actually think the first amendment is about stopping the church from running the government?
That’s not democracy, that’s demagogy and ochlocracy.
I don’t trust those who prefers afterlife to rule my life
I see what you’re saying. You can’t exclude everyone from every religion from running for office.
Are you sure? I think maybe we should try that and see how it goes.
FUCKING LIES!
Separation of church and state is different from separation of state and religious laymen.
Fucking lies!. And it’s a bald faced lie that results in “In God We Trust” on our money.
There is either a separation or there is not. There is no in between. It is binary and that’s the end of it. Anyone who attempts to negotiate an in-between is a FUCKING LIAR
E PLERIBUS UNUM
And if you have a problem with that, then you have a problem with democracy
*E Pluribus Unum
And I agree, LIES!! But christians are hypocrites.
It’s not a lie. That’s how the very inventor of the term “separation of church and state” defined it and how it has been used for hundreds of years after. Roger Williams, who first used the term, was a puritan, later baptist, pastor. What you’re describing would be an innovation and expansion of what separation of church and state means. It seems what you really want is a separation between religion and state. That is a totally different issue. In the future it would be advantageous for you to be clear on that and explicitly say that it’s religion, not just church, that you want to exclude from the state.
I’m curious though. Which people would you want to exclude from the government. Church goers are obvious. But what about the “spiritual but not religious” people? Or people who believe in ghosts but not god? What about natives who believe their native religions? The non god believing buddhist? Who would define if someone is religious enough to be disallowed from running for office? Whoever that person was, that person would get immense power.
It’s not a lie.
lol, nice try, fuck bag. That bullshit doesn’t work here anymore.
I’m fine with you insulting me. However I’m still interested to learn where you would draw the line between the non religious and the religious in your proposed ban of religious people in political office.
Noone advocated for banning religious people. We want to prevent religious policy
If I’m fine with having religious laymen in government and you’re also fine with having religious laymen in government then I’m not sure on what we disagree.
Simple definition: anyone that believes in anything not falsable, nor empirically and scientifically demonstrable.
Am I understanding you correct that you think no person with religious beliefs should be allowed to hold office?
E pluribus unum
As long as none of the pluribus hold any religious belief?
Am I understanding you correct
No
Do you want to help me understand you or are you just trolling?
You feing learning so you can keep proselytizing; you are the troll you accuse others of being.
Also no
The down votes on this are insane to me. He just gave the original definition of the separation of church and state.
Every elected representative should only be bound by existing laws and their own conscience. That means that if someone chooses to listen to sky daddy or the flying spaghetti monster while in elected office, that’s up to them. It sucks, but you can’t have a democracy in which you tell people what the basis for their decisions must be. If the people elect an Astrologer to office that person should be free to base their decisions on the movement of Jupiter through Sagittarius or whatever.
Democracy is designed to empower the statistical average will of the people. Not produce “best” (by whatever measure) outcomes for the country. Just what people want.
Wow you think That is what democracy is?
Like vote to benefit yourself? It explains the state of some places in the world rn but that’s wild if you come from a democratic country.
No. Democracy is definitionally “Vote what you want to vote for.”
Ideally people vote for what they think is best for the country/the world/your peers.
But part of democracy (and a rather important part) is that NOBODY GETS TO TELL ANYBODY WHAT TO VOTE FOR AND WHY (within the legal confines of what allowed political expression is). So yes. A lot of people vote for what they think will be best for them. And people often make fun of people that vote for things that will be bad for them (see the whole leopards eating faces meme culture).
So “voting to benefit one self” can not be a crazy concept to you…
All advertising for elections are about this:
What to for and why
Of course. But I’m obviously not talking about advertisement or debate. I’m talking about coercing votes or decisions. I figure that’s pretty obvious from context.
Which makes a lot of sense when you remember a lot of the North American population hailed from families who had a specific beef with a specific church and state; the role of bishops was one of these many axis of opposition during the conflict in Britain and Ireland.
The English Civil War and its aftermath is barely taught on either side of the Atlantic, yet it’s so important to understanding both countries’ history. The per capita casualty rate was worse than WW1, no wonder people felt rather strongly about religion and in some cases still do
Are you saying it’s fine for elected religious laymen to force religion into our government and onto its people because they’re not church officials?
If a religious layman is motivated by his religion to make policies that you don’t agree with you should not vote for that person. If anyone else agrees with his religiously motivated policies then they should be allowed to vote for that person. I don’t think this is too crazy of a concept. Now if that specific religiously motivated policy happens to be unconstitutional that is a totally different matter.
Mmmm, no that’s what the First Amendment is partially for. The government shall pass no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. I have a right to be a Satanist in peace without yokels shoving their way of life down my throat
If a lawmaker bans satanism or enacts a law that otherwise discriminates against satanists. Then that’s not allowed. But what wouldn’t be a problem would be a religious lawmaker on a totally secular subject. Like the example I gave in another comment how one could in theory loosen immigration restriction by quoting the parable of the good Samaritan. That law would not be religious law, even if the law maker was motivated by his religious belief.
This is how you end up with religious persecution and pogroms.
Is religious persecution and pogroms allowed in the constitution? Also systematically disallowing religious people from office is a form of religious persecution.
Your “contitution” isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
Go read a history book.
https://www.au.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/what-god-has-put-asunder.pdf
Read this, its from James Madison(he was one of your founding fathers).
Also:
https://www.au.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/madisons-memorial.pdf
And from Thomas Jefferson:
https://www.au.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/with-sovereign-reverence.pdf
This is how you end with child rapism being legal in islamic countries, or how you get anti-queer and anti-atheist policies in most places.
I mean, christianism was an apocalyptic cult that though that the world was going to end at around 100 aD
They are almost 2000 years late with their gran finale.
Shithole country.
If you say the things these people say, but in Arabic, they are indistinguishable from bin laden, Khomeini, KSM, and all the other religious extremists that the US fears.
You know… this might be in bad taste perhaps. But maybe… taking what these dipshits say, translating it to Arabic and overlaying it on a photo of the aforementioned, then putting it on Facebook, but be like “Can you believe what they’re saying…” or “Not in my country!” or something. Once it’s big enough, it’ll come out naturally that Bin Laden didn’t say it, the quote is some MAGA member saying it… idk, I think it might at least reach a few people once the messages are reframed/re-contextualized.
The gotcha style of persuasion doesn’t really work in terms of getting people to reconsider their stance. It doesn’t change people’s opinion because it’s a cheap and obvious gimmick. Feels good for you and people who already are aligned, basically the perfect example of an ideological circle jerk.
While it’s hard to change some ones mind if they aren’t open to change, it’s also easy to turn people away from your cause if they see you aren’t being genuine.
You give far too much faith on the general population’s ability or willingness to actually read (and for the social media sites willingness to allow it to spread)
I’ve certainly seen this type of deliberate misinformation spreading before. People making fake stories to see how far/fast they spread.
It was a big thing a few years back to post a Mao quote over Nixon’s face, usually with more comedic intent than any actual message
Because they are in death cults, fantasizing about death.
And they’re too chicken to zero themselves.
Because their religion tells them they can fuck up this world and when it ends, they get into paradise because God will give them a universal Mulligan.
Reality: nothing happens, they become high fat worm food, then high fat worm shit.
They’re deeply closeted gay people and they want to die and go to heaven before they’re found out for being giant pieces of shit.
Now I don’t believe God exists… But every single person right or left who talks about God misunderstands the idea of Omnipotence and omnipresence…
They want to say God loves everyone but hates gay people. They want to say that their ideas are right and everyone else is wrong.
Omnipotence and omnipresence god means he decided to create us all billionaires of years ago and he knew everything we’re all going to do for the entirety of our lives and he still did it.
I don’t believe God exists. Life is pain and no idea of a god will make me feel better.
Evangelicals are fucking nuts
It would be the only concrete proof for them that their religion isn’t a lie. If I was Israeli I don’t think I’d be comfortable with the “support” I get from Evangelical Christians.
It would be the only concrete proof for them that their religion isn’t a lie.
Evangelicals have an entire grab-bag of faith healing and “I saw Angels in my oatmeal” testimonials and apocryphal accounts of magic golden tablets that you can only read inside a man’s hat. FFS, there’s an entire Ark Adventure exhibit in Kentucky. Nevermind the crushing volume of religious artifacts and icons and reliquaries scattered all through Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. No shortage of things religious people can point to as “proof” enough to satisfy themselves.
Modern Millenarianism isn’t just proof, it’s vindication. It’s a final triumphant Fuck You to the heretics, as you’re wisked off into the box seats at the right hand of the Correct Kind Of Jesus to point and laugh at all the infidels who didn’t do the correct religion correctly.
If I was Israeli I don’t think I’d be comfortable with the “support” I get from Evangelical Christians.
Zionists have their own spin on things, wherein they’re proven right and all the goys get humiliated. In their version, the Israelis rule humanity for a thousand years from a Utopian Kingdom occupied by the Correct Jews. And then God showers them with blessings so long as they do the correct number of animal sacrifices on the correctly sanctified big stone table in the correct big stone building using the correct magic words.
Everyone’s thinking they’ve got the magic beans and the other person is being stuck with the dried up milk cow. That’s what keeps the engine turning.
Wow what happened to separation of church and state. Was that one of the foundations that built America and the constitution? If I’m wrong let me know.
The same thing that happened when we decided to not tax churches, or when we put a little prayer on the dollar bill.
Chosen people empires, while based on Moses (Jesus contradictions ignored), were integral to Rome and US (manifest destiny) empires. Chosen people are immune from anti-civilization/human atrocities, but there are 2 approaches. The 1000 years of peace model made famous by Hitler, but the basis of Crusasdes, and neo-liberal naziism of cold war is about converting and administering enemies to chosen people rules based order.
Zionazi capture of US rulership/politics post JFK, started with taking the chosen people Christian/neo-liberal supremacism, and equivocating Zionism into the neo-liberal equivalence.
The 2nd approach to Chosen people anti-human permission, is end times prophecy. Instead of conquest/conversion, pure extermination of every heretic who would not approve of end times mission is “necessary”. Zionaziism is integral in right wing Christofacism, pastor influence, and even has demons like Ted Cruz expressing Israel first chosen people status over American Christians.
End times supremacism is far more dangerous than neo-liberal naziism, because the former justifies perseverence in the face of defeat, which is specifically why JD Vance is expressing the psychosis.
because they think they’ll be the last ones standing, and all the gays, trans, brown people, and other undesirables will be the ones dying.
Yes! Out of all creation, god has chosen you nitwits as the special ones who are exempt from his wrath. 4 billion years of evolution and continental drift have inexorably culminated in producing a handful of rural morons on a single continent who represent the exact set of beliefs and behaviours god was looking for when he created life.
how about you switch out “you” for “those”, so it doesnt feel like your ranting at me like I’m the one that belives that shit.
100% not targeted at you, haha. i was apostrophizing
Oh I know, don’t fret it, just pointing it out mostly cause I dont want to get harassed by someone who just skims posts instead of reading them and thinkin I’m some right wing end of days evangelical from your post, lol
