Sorry for repeating the story of the East Waynesville Baptist Church casting out its devils (Democratic voters). I did it because religion seems to consist mainly of endless iterations of the same dreary sacralized tribal lore, and -- since people of faith are thus apparently slow learners -- I thought it would be useful to point to this cautionary tale again.
>ok, not only is this unnecessarily insulting (which makes one wonder
>whether you're more interested in persuasion or in scoring cheap
>points), it also betrays a complete and utter misunderstanding of
>religion. if religion is fundamentally about assigning the cosmos
>meaning, how can it not affect everything you do if you take it the
>least bit seriously? while i have more issues with fundies where the
>rubber meets the road, i have more trouble in principle with
>quietistic private religion dorks who think that meaning is something
>you keep to yourself.
When religious people join in political debate, they should make their case solely in secular terms. They should explain how their positions stand on their own two feet and make sense for all people in the here and now. They should not invoke the will of God in support of their claims or state that their positions will benefit people in the hereafter. Any public policy worth advocating can be defended in quotidian terms without hauling God into the picture.
One basic problem in this debate is that people misconstrue what religious toleration means in a democratic society. Toleration means that I am willing to *put up with* other people's pious twaddle; I doesn't mean that I respect or in any way endorse their silly presumptuous claims.
If anything, I take the arguments of religion more seriously than the faithful apparently do. As I've said on the list before, I find religions sacrilegious. All religions state that God cannot be embraced by human understanding, yet each faith affirms that it and it alone has detailed intimate understanding of God's nature and intentions. What gross impertinence! In each religion, the devout are not worshipping God at all; they are worshipping their own faith, a human creation. The technical term for that is idolatry.
Human existence is tough enough without wasting time and resources squabbling about unknowable things. People can worship God in their hearts, but they should keep Him/Her/It the hell out of public policy debates.
Carl