Remember when you were young you were told that there are 3 things that you should not really discuss at a party:
Sex
Religion
Politics
I was reading an editorial in USA Today titled: Religion as a Political Weapon. Sounds kind of dangerous, but I read it anyway because I am extremely curious about this particular subject.
The whole concept of religion and politics makes me extremely uneasy. I personally do not believe that they should be mixed. I definitely do not believe that any one's religious views should play a role in who would should be the leader of our country.
Mitt Romney is going to give a speech today to try and explain his Mormonism. He will most likely cite reference to when John F. Kennedy came under fire for being a Catholic. Kennedy believed that he was a candidate running for the office of the President of the United States first and being a Catholic was somewhere down the line.
Let me first say - I am always shocked when one political candidate feels the need to quote from a previous political candidate who could not have been MORE different in ideology to make his/her point.
What does Mitt Romney and John F. Kennedy have in common besides being males, running for president and having religious backgrounds that we question?
Nothing!!!!
Religion and Politics is a personal pet peeve of mine. I do not like to discuss it for a number of reasons:
- It almost always pisses me off.
- I don't have a strong religious background to go toe to toe with a zealot, so I just keep my mouth shut.
- I don't believe that one's personal faith, unless it has to do with the destruction of the earth and world domination, should not be a main reason for voting for the person to lead this country.
I have met atheists and agnostics who I thought had more compassion and understanding than some fundamental Christians I know. I have met some people of faith, (not always Christian) who I would put my complete trust in while someone with no faith at all would scare the living shit out of me.
People are people. Good and bad all mixed up in the same body. We have free will - or we are supposed to, until the government decides we don't. We make good decisions and we make really baaaaad decisions all the time.
We are human. We are not perfect.
Mitt Romney is not my candidate of choice, but I don't think he should have to explain himself. His faith is just that: HIS FAITH. Look at everything else he has done as a public servant and that should tell you how to vote for him. Either you agree with his ideology, or you don't.
5 comments:
Fundamentalists are the scariest people on the planet. I can understand an aetheist's point of view easier than a biblical literalist's point of view.
And I agree, religion and politics should remain separate.
i'm always frightened by people who take literally what a couple of kings decided upon 600 AFTER christ was long dead.
they had their political views and came together to decide what would support their politics and put exactly those stories into the bible.
today, billions of people take the same book (I know it has changed over the years with every translation made, and not for the better) word by word.
scary.
What bothers me most about religion and religious zealots is that it / they tend to take parts of whatever doctrine they follow and apply it stridently, as they see fit to justify, excuse their own actions. A little bit of this part, a taste of that part--dismissing some of the other parts, in an ala carte manner of following The Word.
Many I've run across who position themselves as Christians have turned out to be the meanest, most hypo & hyper critical people I've met.
Folks that use religious doctrine to absolve themselves from responsibility for their actions are the most frightening to me. Oh and the ones that use doctrine to absolve themselves from rational thought.
I agree. Fundamentalist Christian zealots can be the cruellest and most ignorant people around. That said, I do think it's important to know whether a candidate is a fundamentalist idiot. I'd like to know if someone is stupid enough to take the Bible literally. I don't want someone like that making major policy decisions.
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