Debatable Debating

Join

Santorum wants to impose 'Judeo-Christian Sharia'

Replies

  • CindiBryce
    CindiBryce Posts: 438
    Frightening indeed. There should be a separation of church and state.

    Anyway, I doubt he'll win the Republican primary. Romney has been the most consistent candidate.
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
    The scariest thing is not Santorum himself (scary as that is). It's that there are at least 30,000 people in Iowa alone who find him an acceptable candidate for POTUS.

    IMO, there shouldn't be 30,000 people in the entire world who even find him an acceptable human being.
  • poisongirl6485
    poisongirl6485 Posts: 1,487 Member
    The scariest thing is not Santorum himself (scary as that is). It's that there are at least 30,000 people in Iowa alone who find him an acceptable candidate for POTUS.

    IMO, there shouldn't be 30,000 people in the entire world who even find him an acceptable human being.

    Living on the Nebraska/Iowa border, I'm not surprised that they voted for him.
  • BrettPGH
    BrettPGH Posts: 4,716 Member
    Being from Pennsylvania I have to apologize for this idiot. Trust me we're not proud of him. We ran him out of town on a rail when some of the things he said and did came to light.

    It's shocking to me the support he's finding. He spent the entire time hovering around 1% of the vote. Suddenly he's 8 votes away from Romney.

    But he spent nearly 100 days campaigning in Iowa. He won't be able to do that in all the other states. And many other states won't have as much of an audience interested in the message he wants to send.

    Don't get it twisted, he's not a stupid man. He's well versed in foreign policy. And he's even done a lot of good that would surprise you, work to combat AIDS in Africa for example.

    But his entire political philosophy gets filtered through his religious beliefs. Those are paramount to him. He's made statements that he has no problem legislating morality and social issues. If Rick thinks God wants x he will have no problem making it a law of the land.

    I'd fear for this nation if he won.
  • castadiva
    castadiva Posts: 2,016 Member
    That truly is scary. As some of you will know, I identify myself as a Christian, albeit a liberal, humanist Christian, and as far as I am concerned, this sort of position is nonsensical and (hopefully!) untenable. I will never, but never, understand why/how US politics gets so embroiled with religion - can anyone explain? I live in a country where the separation of church and state is not constitutional, in fact there is a national church, and religion has little, if any, bearing on politics - we certainly don't get candidates declaring their position on abortion etc!
  • Bahet
    Bahet Posts: 1,254 Member
    That truly is scary. As some of you will know, I identify myself as a Christian, albeit a liberal, humanist Christian, and as far as I am concerned, this sort of position is nonsensical and (hopefully!) untenable. I will never, but never, understand why/how US politics gets so embroiled with religion - can anyone explain? I live in a country where the separation of church and state is not constitutional, in fact there is a national church, and religion has little, if any, bearing on politics - we certainly don't get candidates declaring their position on abortion etc!
    It's completely back@ssward. Here you get people running for county clerk who are asked their stance on abortion. It's crazy. For some it's a 1 issue topic even if the person would be able to have absolutely no impact or influence on anything to do with anything even remotely related to abortion. Yet they'd lose votes if they said they were pro choice.
  • castadiva
    castadiva Posts: 2,016 Member
    That truly is scary. As some of you will know, I identify myself as a Christian, albeit a liberal, humanist Christian, and as far as I am concerned, this sort of position is nonsensical and (hopefully!) untenable. I will never, but never, understand why/how US politics gets so embroiled with religion - can anyone explain? I live in a country where the separation of church and state is not constitutional, in fact there is a national church, and religion has little, if any, bearing on politics - we certainly don't get candidates declaring their position on abortion etc!
    It's completely back@ssward. Here you get people running for county clerk who are asked their stance on abortion. It's crazy. For some it's a 1 issue topic even if the person would be able to have absolutely no impact or influence on anything to do with anything even remotely related to abortion. Yet they'd lose votes if they said they were pro choice.

    Utterly daft. That's all I can say! Why is it so intertwined, though? With the separation doctrine so ingrained, I'd expect there to be little, if any, overlap.
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
    That truly is scary. As some of you will know, I identify myself as a Christian, albeit a liberal, humanist Christian, and as far as I am concerned, this sort of position is nonsensical and (hopefully!) untenable. I will never, but never, understand why/how US politics gets so embroiled with religion - can anyone explain? I live in a country where the separation of church and state is not constitutional, in fact there is a national church, and religion has little, if any, bearing on politics - we certainly don't get candidates declaring their position on abortion etc!
    It's completely back@ssward. Here you get people running for county clerk who are asked their stance on abortion. It's crazy. For some it's a 1 issue topic even if the person would be able to have absolutely no impact or influence on anything to do with anything even remotely related to abortion. Yet they'd lose votes if they said they were pro choice.

    Utterly daft. That's all I can say! Why is it so intertwined, though? With the separation doctrine so ingrained, I'd expect there to be little, if any, overlap.

    I would say there is some disagreement as to how "ingrained" the "separation doctrine" is in the US. Even at the time the US Constitution was drafted, there was considerable debate about the role that organized religion should play in the "official" workings of the government. It's not like the idea of "separation of church and state" was a consensus position. I'd say it was, at best, a 51-49 accepted idea at the time, and the battle has been waged ever since. Despite the prohibition in the US Constitution against a "religious test" for holding federal office, a state such as Massachusetts required that state office holders subscribe to a christian faith as late as the early 20th century.

    America has always had currents of utopianism and evangelism in it's culture, so while the current American Taliban seems a more extreme example, the ideas are not alien at all to American society.

    Not to mention, as Bill Murray stated in the movie "Stripes" : "Our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world". Sometimes it shows.
  • castadiva
    castadiva Posts: 2,016 Member
    That truly is scary. As some of you will know, I identify myself as a Christian, albeit a liberal, humanist Christian, and as far as I am concerned, this sort of position is nonsensical and (hopefully!) untenable. I will never, but never, understand why/how US politics gets so embroiled with religion - can anyone explain? I live in a country where the separation of church and state is not constitutional, in fact there is a national church, and religion has little, if any, bearing on politics - we certainly don't get candidates declaring their position on abortion etc!
    It's completely back@ssward. Here you get people running for county clerk who are asked their stance on abortion. It's crazy. For some it's a 1 issue topic even if the person would be able to have absolutely no impact or influence on anything to do with anything even remotely related to abortion. Yet they'd lose votes if they said they were pro choice.

    Utterly daft. That's all I can say! Why is it so intertwined, though? With the separation doctrine so ingrained, I'd expect there to be little, if any, overlap.

    I would say there is some disagreement as to how "ingrained" the "separation doctrine" is in the US. Even at the time the US Constitution was drafted, there was considerable debate about the role that organized religion should play in the "official" workings of the government. It's not like the idea of "separation of church and state" was a consensus position. I'd say it was, at best, a 51-49 accepted idea at the time, and the battle has been waged ever since. Despite the prohibition in the US Constitution against a "religious test" for holding federal office, a state such as Massachusetts required that state office holders subscribe to a christian faith as late as the early 20th century.

    America has always had currents of utopianism and evangelism in it's culture, so while the current American Taliban seems a more extreme example, the ideas are not alien at all to American society.

    Not to mention, as Bill Murray stated in the movie "Stripes" : "Our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world". Sometimes it shows.

    Just covered my computer in water courtesy of an ill-timed sip - what a brilliant quote, and an even more fabulous addendum! Thanks for the background - my education in American political history is a bit 'hit-or-miss', so it's very interesting to understand a bit more about where some of these conflicts have sprung from. If Europe were ever to federalise, I imagine there would be similar conflicts between national (read 'state') and federal law, a la Massachussetts. It's also easy to forget that the USA is still a comparatively young country, with a young political system. If I think about it, the English got most of this out of the way during the Civil War/Restoration and the Reformation - I guess if it took us a few hundred years to get religion and politics more-or-less-separate, you guys are allowed a bit longer :wink:
  • dragonbait0126
    dragonbait0126 Posts: 568 Member
    As scary as this is, we don't truly have a seperation of church and state now. Many of our laws are based upon religious beliefs. Romney was asked by a gay veteran if he would allow gay marriage and Romney's response was that God said marriage was between a man and a woman and that is what he believes. So, essentially, he would never agree to this because of his religious beliefs. Many (not everyone, but many) people base their abortion and birth control arguments on their religious beliefs. Same thing goes for the death penalty. We could sit here all day and come up with a list of things included in laws that are based upon religious beliefs. Granted, it's not to the extent that Santorum wants to take it but it already exists.
  • BrettPGH
    BrettPGH Posts: 4,716 Member
    As scary as this is, we don't truly have a seperation of church and state now. Many of our laws are based upon religious beliefs. Romney was asked by a gay veteran if he would allow gay marriage and Romney's response was that God said marriage was between a man and a woman and that is what he believes. So, essentially, he would never agree to this because of his religious beliefs. Many (not everyone, but many) people base their abortion and birth control arguments on their religious beliefs. Same thing goes for the death penalty. We could sit here all day and come up with a list of things included in laws that are based upon religious beliefs. Granted, it's not to the extent that Santorum wants to take it but it already exists.

    We will so long as there are people willing to fight for it. And there are. As witnessed by atheist organizations that oppose nativity displays in public spaces. It's not the best fight and people get all salty about it, but government is no place for religion. Government represents the people and the people have the right to follow any or no religion. It's just too tangled a mess to get mixed up in.

    The idea that "we have laws based on X religion" gets said a lot. Ask people which ones and they get a little vague. Laws against murder and theft are not exclusive to any religious belief, or non-belief. It's simple common decency and every functioning society has had these rules, long before Christianity or Judaism or Islam.

    I can side with conservatives when they want to talk about fiscal responsibility. But since they spend as much if not more time trying to impose their ideas of religious morality on other people I refuse to carry water for them.

    We are not a theocracy. Period.
  • kapeluza
    kapeluza Posts: 3,434 Member
    Frightening indeed. There should be a separation of church and state.

    Anyway, I doubt he'll win the Republican primary. Romney has been the most consistent candidate.

    It's funny you mention that, aren't all these conservative GOP candidates constantly bringing religion into their running topics? Lately it seems like if you aren't religious enough, you are not conservative enough. At least that's what it seems like.
  • TheRoadDog
    TheRoadDog Posts: 11,788 Member
    Doesn't matter. The Republican party is so screwed up right now, they have a snowball's chance in hell of beating Obama.
  • kapeluza
    kapeluza Posts: 3,434 Member
    Doesn't matter. The Republican party is so screwed up right now, they have a snowball's chance in hell of beating Obama.

    Except for the fact that 30,000 morons voted for Santorum during the caucus. If there are 30,000 crazy idiots, I am sure there are more.
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
    Frightening indeed. There should be a separation of church and state.

    Anyway, I doubt he'll win the Republican primary. Romney has been the most consistent candidate.

    It's funny you mention that, aren't all these conservative GOP candidates constantly bringing religion into their running topics? Lately it seems like if you aren't religious enough, you are not conservative enough. At least that's what it seems like.

    I think it's more that if you aren't batsh*t crazy enough, you are not conservative enough. And there is a whole list of people you have to hate and promise violence against. And you must absolutely be scared sh*tless of a woman's vagina.
  • Bahet
    Bahet Posts: 1,254 Member
    Frightening indeed. There should be a separation of church and state.

    Anyway, I doubt he'll win the Republican primary. Romney has been the most consistent candidate.

    It's funny you mention that, aren't all these conservative GOP candidates constantly bringing religion into their running topics? Lately it seems like if you aren't religious enough, you are not conservative enough. At least that's what it seems like.

    I think it's more that if you aren't batsh*t crazy enough, you are not conservative enough. And there is a whole list of people you have to hate and promise violence against. And you must absolutely be scared sh*tless of a woman's vagina.
    And gay people. Don't forget them. They're like the kid who had cooties in grade school. One touch and you can catch teh ghey! *shudder*

    Oh, and you have to promote peace and love by murdering Muslims.
  • _Timmeh_
    _Timmeh_ Posts: 2,096 Member
    Frightening indeed. There should be a separation of church and state.

    Anyway, I doubt he'll win the Republican primary. Romney has been the most consistent candidate.

    It's funny you mention that, aren't all these conservative GOP candidates constantly bringing religion into their running topics? Lately it seems like if you aren't religious enough, you are not conservative enough. At least that's what it seems like.

    More like......If you're not religious enough don't even consider running for president.
This discussion has been closed.

Categories