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