Add blog post on Religion & Politics.

Signed-off-by: Nicolás Ortega Froysa <nicolas@ortegas.org>

blog/posts/0159-religion-and-politics.cfg

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+filename = 2024-02-15-religion-and-politics.html
+title = Religion & Politics
+description = An essay on the relationship between religion & politics, and how one's religious values may be legitimate in political conversation.
+created = 2024-02-15
+updated = 2024-02-15

blog/posts/0159-religion-and-politics.html

@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+<p>Religion &amp; politics, aside from being the two topics you are never
+supposed to discuss in polite company, are also considered by modern standards
+to be two realms that should never mix. That is to say, your religion should
+never influence your politics and (to a lesser extent) <i>vice versa</i>.
+However this view does not seem to hold up neither in theory nor in practice
+except by adopting either a very limited and superficial understanding of
+religion or a position of a purely economic role for the State (and in this
+latter case, not even so).</p>
+
+<p>To start in the general, we must focus on what both religion &amp; politics
+are. Religion, although many people have many definitions for it, I believe it
+may be concisely defined as rendering unto a greater being their due. One may
+ask what is inherently due to such a being, but the answer is that evidently
+humanity has always rendered homage to that which it considers to be greatest,
+whether this be pagan deities, God, or more recently with one's own identity. In
+one manner or another there is some entity which we consider to be worthy of
+praise, worship, and respect to a greater degree than any other. This, in turn,
+will generally come accompanied by a philosophy which explains why this entity
+ought to be praised, worshipped, and respected above all other beings, and
+evidently such a philosophy will also end up having repercussions on how, then,
+we ought to view other beings in accordance to how each being relates ultimately
+to this greatest one.</p>
+
+<p>Politics, on the other hand, is the art of public policy; defining and
+enforcing the rules by which we live together in a society. Some of these
+policies are defined somewhat arbitrarily, in that it is simply used for the
+convenience of having a common standard. An example would be the case of a
+policy describing which side of the road to drive on (the left or the right), as
+it ultimately does not matter so long as we all abide it to avoid collision.
+These we can refer to as conventions. But other policies are defined not by
+arbitrary or simply pragmatic judgement, but rather by moral or ethical
+imperative such that the absence of such a policy or of its enforcement would be
+permission to injustice. An example of this would be the prohibition of murder,
+without which the injustice of murder would go unpunished. This we can refer to
+as law. It is the latter of these two concepts which will be important for this
+discussion. Furthermore, law, because it is not something arbitrary, will
+necessarily be based on some value or principle which in turn proceeds from some
+philosophy or worldview.</p>
+
+<p>When considering these two definitions, although there may certainly be
+manners in which one should not affect the other, it should be evident that
+there are also a great many ways in which these two coincide and influence one
+another, and more importantly how religion influences one's politics. For if one
+simply considers religion to be a set of customary cultural rituals with no
+further significance other than perhaps the sentimental then certainly such
+religion (if we can call it that) will hardly influence one's politics. But true
+religion which is defined by adherence to something greater and additionally
+provides us with an understanding of the world and how entities relate and ought
+to relate to one another, such religion will inevitably provide us with values,
+values which we are obliged to bring to the political sphere since it is not
+merely a matter of customs but of truth and of justice.</p>
+
+<p>For this reason it is absurd for the modern secularist to claim that we ought
+not to vote or enact policy in accordance to our religion, for then in
+accordance to what are we supposed to vote and enact policy? It would be one
+thing if we were speaking of certain ceremonial customs which it would not make
+sense to impose upon those pertaining to another religion: precisely those
+superficial elements of any religion which comprise its outward manifestations.
+However, in regards to those matters which are not merely superficial
+manifestations of piety, but substantial matters of ethics it is indeed unjustly
+discriminatory and undemocratic to say that they ought not to be enacted as
+policy on the basis of being proposed by a religious people. For at the core of
+this argument lies either a tactical attempt to invalidate the religious
+person's opinion (conveniently only applied when said religious person disagrees
+with them) or an ignorant view that all ethical values of the religious person
+(or at least those where disagreement is found) are merely the product of
+arbitrary and groundless superstition. In either case the objective is to avoid
+having to argue over the reasons for the disagreement: because the position is
+influenced by the proponent's religious beliefs it therefore <i>ipso facto</i>
+is not to be considered or in any way be taken seriously.</p>
+
+<p>The fear, of course, when speaking of this subject is that certain
+<em>moral</em> values that one does not agree with shall be imposed upon the
+whole of society, even if one does not agree with said beliefs. Yet although
+this fear can sometimes be reasonable there remains the fact that all law is
+ultimately an imposition of moral values on society, and a there will always be
+a segment of society that does not agree with those laws or believes their own
+breaking of the laws to be the exception. The question with law and moral values
+is not whether everyone can agree to them but whether they are true and
+reasonable. Therefore it is to be expected that all persons in a society will
+advocate policy in accordance to their values and we must accept or reject them
+on the basis of truth. It is to be expected that vegans will encourage policy
+which restricts or even bans our access to animal products; I would disagree
+with such policy not because it is an imposition of belief, but because the
+vegan attribution of personhood to animals is wrong. Similarly as a Catholic I
+will encourage policy which seeks to restrict or even ban abortion, not out of
+some fideistic imposition of values, but because of the truth that abortion is
+murder. And therefore, just as I would argue with the vegan's worldview to
+ensure that I have access to animal product, so too would I expect a similar
+discussion to be had on the issue of abortion.</p>