Also Peter Thiel.
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?
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.
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 take a religious oath (Bible optional) or you can make a non-religious affirmation.
Big man really soft with those lightning bolts these days
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.
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.
This is how you end up with religious persecution and pogroms.
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.
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
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.
It’s not too crazy of a concept but is absolutely not what separation of church and state means. It’s crazy that you think this is what it means.
You can’t have the majority forcing their religion onto the minority. That’s the exact reason we have separation of church and state. To protect the people who will never win an election.
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 PLURIBUS 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.
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
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.
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 don’t trust those who prefers afterlife to rule my life
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.
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.
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?
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 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.
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.
Okay sure one part is you get to vote on who/which party you want, but that wasn’t what I was arguing about.
-
vote is not to get what you want, it is to kick out the bad person, replace them.
-
getting active in politics is what you do to actually change something.
Both these are subdued or erased in dictatorships, but not in functional democracies.
-
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
Main-charactering. Obviously it has to happen during their lifetime because otherwise it would mean they’re just as unimportant as the rest of us.
Which is ironic because Vance is basically that NPC whose dialog everyone skips all the time because it’s so poorly written.
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.
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
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.
deleted by creator
I don’t want to hear anyone ever again try to tell me that women can’t be good leaders because they are too emotional or delusional. Look at this weirdo.
But he’s not being “emotional”. Just, y’ know, an everyday fucking psycho
There are definitely times we have all seen him get his feelings hurt.
According to the Bible, there will be some sort of ultimate showdown between good and evil when the world ends. “Good” is preordained to win. Therefore, some religious nuts think that by helping the world to end, they’re helping fulfill god’s plan.
In my opinion, they’re just giving themselves license to be cruel, hateful bastards.
I don’t know the motivation of nuts who don’t claim to follow the Bible, but I suspect the previous sentence still applies.
Don’t have to preserve the environment for future generations either if you think you’re getting raptured out of it.
Exactly
Doesn’t the Bible also say that there’s nothing you can do to bring the end times around faster?
So why not do objectively good things until then, instead?
Maybe it’s one of gods tests, and he wants to see if you’re a good person even in the face of inevitability.
I can’t with these religious people.
I find it interesting that humans need to “fulfill gods plan”. Clearly that god is not all powerful or it would not need a plan, it would just do as it pleases. That’s what being a god is. And this is why religion is so stupid, it’s all made up and most of it is violence, suppression, repression, discrimination, hate & ignorance.
Rarely is there “love” or compassion coming from a religion.
“we don’t have time to help people now, we are saving their souls!!1!”
Sigh
I feel like God left specific rules you cannot break, according to God. How do you convince yourself to do evil in God’s name I don’t know.
When you tell yourself “It’s for the greater good”, you can make yourself do anything - especially when you believe in a god that allows war, and sits idly by while children die of cancer and starvation. You’re already doing a lot of mental gymnastics, so it just becomes one more trick.
But murica are the badys
they’re helping fulfill god’s plan.
Weird that an all-powerful god needs so much help…
Because they are in death cults, fantasizing about death.
And they’re too chicken to zero themselves.
Evangelicals are fucking nuts
He is just playing to the base. This weasel will say anything and turn on a dime if it suits his purposes. Remember what he said about Trump before he became vice president…
how can you be evangelical and not think that Trump is the antichrist in that story
Because they’re all really really really stupid?
I’m pretty sure most of them do. It’s what they want. They think they’re going to get spirited away to paradise and get to watch all the people they hate suffer through armageddon.
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.
Ahhhh I see you’re familiar with Leroy 69:69. Great Bible verse.
The unknown is scary. Prophecy fills in that anxiety. Religion, especially the Abrahamic religion, is for the spiritually lazy. The jewish God (YHWH, God, Allah) is a usurper, a thief, and dominator of the material. We’re all spiritual beings and we don’t need lesser gods to connect with each other within this universe. I know it sounds kinda cheesy, but loving kindness should be our spiritual path in this material world.
A Gnostic in the wild?
Not quite. I prefer the word “source” than “monad”. I try to practice buddhist-like non-dualism in my meditations.
You sound like my kind of people.
Hard agree with you on this. YHWH was just a god of war and thunder before the other gods of the Judean pantheon got dropped. YHWH is violent, mean, needlessly cruel, and seems to genuinely relish in death and destruction. Death and destruction is pretty much the only tool YHWH knows how to use for the entire OT, and employs a “chosen people” to simply go about doing YHWH’s killing for him. I have no idea where all the “love and peace” stuff is supposed to come from, it’s a total 180 from YHWH’s entire existence up to Jesus being some grassroots radical hippie. Who is, let’s recall, killed in a needless cruel and terrible way because that’s what suits YHWH’s needs. No other reason.
The unknown is scary.
Skill issue tbh
We’re all spiritual beings
Speak for you damn self, my world view has no place for spirituality and the supernatural.
You don’t have a soul/spirit? Do you not have the ability to develop a feeling of connection with anything of this world?
Nobody has a soul. It’s just a comforting thought. If we had souls science would have found it by now.
Soul is a gestalt word that points to various conscious experiences and behaviours. Science still hasn’t been able to find out what consciousness and qualia are. These are things that exist, yet can’t be quantifiable. If you don’t want to use the word “soul”, that’s okay, but to me it’s a beautiful word that sometimes bites off more than it can chew.
I don’t need a soul to understand that everything is connected, and to value a habitable planet. Not knowing exactly how to define consciousness doesn’t imply you or I, or anyone else has a soul. I don’t even find it comforting. In fact, the universe (excluding humans) is a whole lot more interesting without the idea of a soul.
If I wanted to “feel” a connection to the world I’d do drugs, but I’d much rather “understand” things empirically. Ecology is fascinating and important and I don’t need a guru to see how everything is interconnected.
I’m not talking about wishy washy woowoo. I simply mean the connection from the external world to the inner. Even empirical data needs to connect and pass through your “soul/essence” to make any sense of it. You can use different words if you want to, but it’s simply our own personal consciousness and behaviours that interact with existence.
I’m not talking about wishy washy woowoo.
You are though, there is no soul. The concept of such is wishy washy woowoo. Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon of electrochemistry.
Ah, so you’re a soulless electrochemical robot deluding itself of being? I actually like that idea, it would make for some good writing.
Went looking for context, and he just made that connection without prompting. They asked if we were in the end times and he rambled a bit using many words to say “don’t know, but maybe” and basically took credit for hypothetical end times being because of him as if it were a cool outcome…
It’s bad enough when these folks assert their work is “god’s” work, but the “it’d be cool if my work causes the end time” angle is just…
It’s because the context is 2 layers down. FactPostNews is anti-Trump and covering batshit crazy stuff like this. But the interview itself was with an Evangelical podcaster named Bryce Crawford. He directly and specifically asked Vance about the End Times. From an article on the interview and that specific quote:
“What do you think about the end times?” Bryce Crawford asked, referring to the Christian belief that the world as we currently know it will someday end, and that Jesus will return. “Do you think it’s here? Do you think it’s coming?”
Vance replied that he has “always been fascinated” by eschatology and stated that the Antichrist, a figure in Christian lore who will allegedly pose as a Jesus-like figure, may be “walking among us.” The vice president also added that he is “ok” with his actions leading to the end times if that is what happens:
“Do I think that we’re in the end times? I don’t know. And I think that it’s probably bad for me spiritually to focus too much on it because there are like, things that you gotta do. I gotta be good to my wife. I gotta be good to my kids. I have to be as good of a leader as I can for the United States of America. And so, I think that focusing on – while I’m fascinated by it – focusing on it is, too much of it can be very bad. I think that there are like, things about the world that make me feel like not shocked if the Antichrist was walking among us. But again, I try not to focus too much on it…So, I tend to think like, while I wouldn’t be shocked if we are living in the end times, what I’m trying to focus on is doing as much of God’s work as possible right now. And if that leads to the end times, ok. And if that leads to you know, us building a better world that thrives and survives for a very long time after I’m gone, that’s great too.”
Edit: article: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/jd-vance-says-doing-god-223836378.html
Even with context that is pretty alarming for a world leader to be saying.
He’s walking among us alright, and his name is Donald
Such a lame name for an anti-Christ too
As I said, Vance was asked if we were in the end times, not saying that Vance or anything Vance did. Vance’s rambling answer came up with the little part about his actions specifically being responsible without that being suggested.
Like even if he were directly asked if he was causing the end times, that answer would have been batshit crazy, but even worse a prominent thought on that front is “I might be causing the end times, and that would be a decent outcome”.
I don’t understand about what any of that is supposed to “correct” for anti-Trump coverage, the coverage was absolutely accurate. That wasn’t some scenario where the reporting manipulated the context to make him look worse, it was a very accurate reflection of his sentiment. If his answer didn’t have “if that leads to the end times, ok”, then fine ,the answer is just a generic “I don’t know, but I’m doing my best”, but the “leads to the end times” in the context is hard to take any other way than the unstated rest of what he perceives as “God’s work” leading to the end times being prominently in his thoughts.
Because everyone in this life hates them, including their own family.
Death cult!
You know your administration is doing a bad job when you use the end of the world as a selling point.
