[lbo-talk] You do realize, I hope, that religous expression isn't going anywhere...don't you?

[Carl Remick]

>From: Jeffrey Fisher <jeff.jfisher at gmail.com>
>
>On 5/10/05, Carl Remick <carlremick at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
>here is where things get tricky, in my view. pointless squabbling is
>by definition pointless. what squabbling is pointless is still an open
>question. i would say, however, that we "waste" time and resources
>worrying about unknowable things precisely because things are so rough
>and many of the unknowable things matter an awful lot to us, even if
>we eventually decide to more or less let go of them.
>
>bracketing that, however, i still see the same problem here with
>oversimplifying the relationship between politics and religion. i
>would prefer to go back to what you said above and have as our
>criterion or filter that no public policy arguments can be grounded in
>religious doctrine. that is still ambiguous (why do the things that
>matter to us matter to us? maybe those are grounded in religion), but
>it does not make the mistake (as it seems to me) of drawing this
>public/private distinction and placing religion on the private side.
>if this distinction is spurious (and i think it is), then it gets us
>nowhere at all to try to solve the religion and politics problem by
>making religion "private".

Anything that can be done to minimize the role of religion in politics is 
all to the good.  Disputes driven by material concerns can be grubby and 
rancorous, but ultimately they lend themselves to negotiated settlements 
where each side gains something.  Religious disputes, however, tend to be 
zero-sum games where you either win or lose.  This breeds vicious 
antagonisms with often lethal results.

I say put public professions of religion where they belong:  in the Middle 
Ages.

Carl