Separation of Church and State: Good or Bad?

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AngryAtheist8 said:
Wrong.

The Popes ruled the Papal States in what is now Italy.
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Oh man, regular Ghengiz Khans. Why didn’t they just rule over Antarctica while they were at it.

In any event, there is a longstanding debate as to whether it was absolutely necessary to control some slice of the temporal holdings, in order to ensure that the Church would not be completely broken over the wheel and enlisted into the state’s service as the formerly strong Russian Orthodox Church was under Peter the Great.

To be able to control a small territory during this period was equivalent to ensuring that some ‘liberties’ would be guaranteed to the Church, even if its stated aim was spiritual rather than temporal jurisdiction.
 
JSSebastianoP said:
I love this paragraph (and everything else you’ve said). I would just like to make one minor revision that Nazism, while “teamed-up” with fascism was actually an off-shoot of Marxism.
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Do you have anything to back up this extraordinary claim?
 
Fledgling said:
I would not like the Government implementing Islam, Paganism or any other Heathen religion into law.

I’m sure folks of other faiths wouldn’t like Government implementing doctrine of Christianity in to law either.

There is no way to make everybody from all walks of life and all faiths happy without “Separation of Church and State”.

In a perfect world it would be different but unfortunately ,while the Earth is perfect in Creation, we are far from perfect inhabitants.
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But you wouldn’t like it if it implemented some abnormal, misguided… but secular… ideology, would you?

Ultimately, policy will be defined by some ideology–so why not Christian?

Naturally, it will not be perfectly Christian. It might be very, very imperfectly Christian–and its failure in implementing this might… like Francoist Spain’s failure… prove to be more of a liability for the practice of Christianity, in the long run.

So, therein lies the conundrum. 🤷
 
We do not worship JPII. The Church is not JPII’s invention. JPII was a servant of the Lord, not the author of His truth. Catholic history is much older than the reign of JPII and if you believe the Church was wrong for all those centuries, I must warn you to be careful for that is a heresy; the Church cannot teach error.

If the Church cannot teach error, then there was nothing wrong with the teachings in
Vatican II.
 
AngryAtheist8 said:
We do not worship JPII. The Church is not JPII’s invention. JPII was a servant of the Lord, not the author of His truth. Catholic history is much older than the reign of JPII and if you believe the Church was wrong for all those centuries, I must warn you to be careful for that is a heresy; the Church cannot teach error.

If the Church cannot teach error, then there was nothing wrong with the teachings in
Vatican II.
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I’d reckon so.
 
The relationship for comparison between southern slaves and peasants is again, erroneous and without foundation.

QUOTE]

No it isn’t.

Serfs (peasants) were tied to the land (they couldn’t move, or even travel without permission) and required to till the land and give a percentage of their crops to the local lord. They were also required to obey the local lord and had no power to remove or replace a bad one.

Sounds like servitude to me.
 
If by separate you mean “government should not affect religion”, then yes.

But if you mean “religion should not affect government”… in some ways yes, in some ways no.

Religion, economy, and anything else worth anything to anyone will always affect politics. And conversely, politics and many other things shouldn’t - but still sometimes do - have an affect on religion. It’s impossible to completely separate the Church from the State. And the two shouldn’t be completely separated, ever. Part of the will of the People includes their religious beliefs.

But I do not support wars started for political reasons under the disguise of religion. “Holy” wars are truly disgusting. I despise excommunication used solely or mainly to oust a political enemy and torture to eradicate non-believers. (Although if a group is particularly hostile to human life - including their own - I might.

And perish the idea of the State “allowing” certain religions to exist under certain pretences, taxing them through the nose, deciding where their congregations shall meet, choosing their clerics, writing their homilies, and so forth… this is the sort of thing that’s going on in China. It is truly evil.
 
AngryAtheist8 said:
The relationship for comparison between southern slaves and peasants is again, erroneous and without foundation.

QUOTE]

No it isn’t.

Serfs (peasants) were tied to the land (they couldn’t move, or even travel without permission) and required to till the land and give a percentage of their crops to the local lord. They were also required to obey the local lord and had no power to remove or replace a bad one.

Sounds like servitude to me.
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This is a broad, sweeping statement made without reference to the peasants in any one place. Local customs differed significantly.

The trans-Atlantic slave trade–and its accompanying American slavery–was both proto-modern and proto-industrial. It has few comparisons in human history, and pointing to the peasantry of Medieval Europe–a demographic that varied widely, and preceded the Emancipation Declaration by over half a millennium–and calling it comparable is just plain stupid.

Did it occur to you that when the “great protestant british empire was internationally advocating the abolition of slavery” its former daughter state–America–had an extremely large sector of its industry tied up in agriculture that depended on enslaved persons? And that, while advocating these high-minded principles, its colonies across the face of the world remained outposts of inequality and racialism?
 
AngryAtheist8 said:
Do you have anything to back up this extraordinary claim?
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There is nothing extraordinary about the connection between Marxism (really just plain old ‘socialism’ will do) and Nazism.

The street battles the Brown Shirts participated in were more or less ideological cleansings, akin to the struggle… at one time or another… between the Bolsheviks and the Menshiviks, Trotskyists, and KADET (Social Democratic party) in Russia.

After all, its the National Social Germans Worker’s Party. Two of its chief ideologues, Martin Bormann and Josef Goebbels were “only” socialists and atheists.

The people who tend to believe that Nazism was a right-wing movement, tend to be people who are stupid enough to believe the lip-service paid to ‘traditionalism’ that the Nazis relied on to placate the strong Junker class and bourgeois traditionalists.
 
Originally Posted by Lycorth View Post
America was not founded on a single Christian ideal. Moreover, I am aware that many of America’s earliest shapers were anti-Catholic, and that is a part of my overall point.

American culture is perhaps one of the worst in the world in terms of moral fiber (QUOTE.)

This comment is at best laughable.

Compared to countries like Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, and the Congo the people of the United States and our rulers are shining examples of peace, nobility, and justice. (QUOTE.)

This is demonstrably true. American culture is littered with a great deal of garbage. There is nothing noble about watching nearly naked young ladies while drooling into your beer. A noble, civilized country would not produce movies like Porkies or American Pie or anything with Jay and Silent Bob. The current image projected by the mass media of the United States is one of rampant hedonism.

Women, especially in the West, should be treated as complete persons and not as a collection of body parts. In the last 20 years, virtually every female actress has had a role where she either played a prositute or appeared in some totally immodest situation. If we are to say we respect women then let’s treat them as full human beings, not some teenage sex fantasy that is totally out of control.

Peace,
Ed(QUOTE.)

Ed, you know I am not your greatest fan. But I thought that this kind of commentary was beneath even you.

Are you actually saying that American society, because it encourages women to act immodestly, is worse than nations which encourage men to rape and sexually mutilate women and little girls (such as the Sudan)?

That because of its immodesty American society is worse than Saudi Arabia, which has a legal system where victims of rape can easily be charged with crimes like adultery and fornication, and then executed?
 
AngryAtheist8 said:
Most of these ‘beautiful’ Christian cultures you speak of featured things like slavery, the treatment of women as second class citizens (or worse), and the violent persecution of racial and religious minorities.

But the modern secular West rejects all these things, which for me is a point in its favor.
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It pays lip-service to these things, but truth-be-told, if you’re a ‘brown’ person in a ‘brown’ country, there is absolutely no guarantee that the US won’t bust down your door and shoot your ‘brown’ tush.

Or train some ‘brown’ paramilitaries to have it done for them.

The ‘secular West’ is not in any way a bastion of anti-racism and anti-radicalism. It adopts whatever line suits it for the time being. It is the perverse child of von Clausewitz and von Bismarck.
 
Cat_Herder said:
The Byzantine Empire was also Catholic during the time frame in question and was not poor, illiterate, constantly at war (except against militant Islam), abusive of its people, or plagued with disease.

I thought atheists didn’t believe in myths… :rolleyes:
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For whatever reason, when Americans talk about Medieval Europe we usually just think of Western Europe during that time. Its a blind spot I know.
 
AngryAtheist8 said:
Are you actually saying that American society, because it encourages women to act immodestly, is worse than nations which encourage men to rape and sexually mutilate women and little girls (such as the Sudan)?

That because of its immodesty American society is worse than Saudi Arabia, which has a legal system where victims of rape can easily be charged with crimes like adultery and fornication, and then executed?
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I wouldn’t make that argument (and I don’t think the other poster intended to do so either).

I would however say that American society is worse than that of Saudi Arabia or Sudan if you happen to be an unborn fetus.
 
Cat_Herder said:
Are you going to tell us that abuses of power by atheists in the [Soviet Union](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet Union) have nothing to do with atheism in general?

… Okay, I’ve mentioned Soviet Russia so many times with atheists that I just can’t resist the easy joke anymore.

In America, you herd cats. In Soviet Russia, cat herds YOU! 😉
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Atheism is not an organization.

Moreover its not even a system of beliefs. It is simply a lack of belief in the supernatural.
 
Did it occur to you that when the “great protestant british empire was internationally advocating the abolition of slavery” its former daughter state–America–had an extremely large sector of its industry tied up in agriculture that depended on enslaved persons? And that, while advocating these high-minded principles, its colonies across the face of the world remained outposts of inequality and racialism?

Yes, I am also aware of the fact that the British Empire profited off the international slave trade for a long time prior to turning against it.
 
AngryAtheist8 said:
Did it occur to you that when the “great protestant british empire was internationally advocating the abolition of slavery” its former daughter state–America–had an extremely large sector of its industry tied up in agriculture that depended on enslaved persons? And that, while advocating these high-minded principles, its colonies across the face of the world remained outposts of inequality and racialism?
Yes, I am also aware of the fact that the British Empire profited off the international slave trade for a long time prior to turning against it.
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… and then profited by advocating its abolition. That’s the key point I think that you’re missing.

Why mention it as the champion of anti-slavery, otherwise?
 
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