Whats wrong with a theocracy?

[devoutchristian]

He was wrong, which isn’t the same as lying.

You’re saying that secularism was not repeatedly condemned by popes?

 

[Lawrence178]

Comparison to Iran is just plain unfair. There have been Catholic theocracies in the past and they weren’t near as bad. For instance, the Papal States were actually more tolerant of Jews than pretty much any other major European powers (and I realize their treatment there was still horrid by our standards, but I am talking about in that time period).

To say that a Catholic theocracy would be a carbon copy of a Sunni one is plainly dishonest.

That said, I don’t support theocracy.

Give me an actual dogmatic source. Encyclicals aren’t dogmatic, and just because a particular pope opposed something doesn’t make it a heresy. If that were the case then Catholicism would have contradicted itself over and over, and it would comsequently be false. Honorius would be one example of the many.

Encyclicals are authoritative and should not be dismissed. You disrespect our Popes and their authority by so lightly shrugging this off.

 

[jimmy]

Comparison to Iran is just plain unfair. There have been Catholic theocracies in the past and they weren’t near as bad. For instance, the Papal States were actually more tolerant of Jews than pretty much any other major European powers (and I realize their treatment there was still horrid by our standards, but I am talking about in that time period).

To say that a Catholic theocracy would be a carbon copy of a Sunni one is plainly dishonest.

That said, I don’t support theocracy.

Encyclicals are authoritative and should not be dismissed. You disrespect our Popes and their authority by so lightly shrugging this off.

There has never been a catholic theocracy that was just. If you want to see how a Christian theocracy looks, look at Rome from constantine until its fall. Look how those who disagreed on theology were treated. And many of those who were percieved as heretics, and consequently persecuted by the empire, it turns out weren’t really heretics.

So the pope speaks and everyone is supposed to bow in acquiescence? It doesn’t even matter if it is an infallible statement? Fallibility is treated as infallibility? The pope was wrong, that is all there is to it.

 

[Lawrence178]

There has never been a catholic theocracy that was just. If you want to see how a Christian theocracy looks, look at Rome from constantine until its fall. Look how those who disagreed on theology were treated. And many of those who were percieved as heretics, and consequently persecuted by the empire, it turns out weren’t really heretics.

So the pope speaks and everyone is supposed to bow in acquiescence? It doesn’t even matter if it is an infallible statement? Fallibility is treated as infallibility? The pope was wrong, that is all there is to it.

?!?!?

Constantine did not even come close to making Rome a theocracy! He simply stopped slaughtering Christians. It wasn’t until the reign of Emperor Theodosius that Christianity was adopted as the state religion, and even then, to say that itself constitutes a theocracy is just ludicrous. By that logic, several South American states in the modern day are “theocracies.”

An actual theocracy would be something like the Prince-Bishoprics of the Holy Roman Empire. Or the Papal States. Neither were horrible. There wasn’t much economic development in the Papal States, for example, but one can hardly say that it wasn’t a huge patron of the arts.

And yes, just because the Pope isn’t speaking infallibly doesn’t mean we should just ignore him because we want to. What a horrible thing to say.

 

[DaveBj]

I have not had time to read the whole thread, so if I am repeating what someone else has already said, I apologize.

We do not currently have a functioning theocracy on Earth. We have societies where individuals or groups are telling their subjects what their particular deity has told them to do, but that’s not a theocracy; that’s a mullocracy, or some other kind of -ocracy. In a true theocracy, there is direct access to the Theos who is supposed to be running things, and when the Theos answers a question or gives a command, there is no doubt who has just spoken.

 

[jimmy]

?!?!?

Constantine did not even come close to making Rome a theocracy! He simply stopped slaughtering Christians. It wasn’t until the reign of Emperor Theodosius that Christianity was adopted as the state religion, and even then, to say that itself constitutes a theocracy is just ludicrous. By that logic, several South American states in the modern day are “theocracies.”

An actual theocracy would be something like the Prince-Bishoprics of the Holy Roman Empire. Or the Papal States. Neither were horrible. There wasn’t much economic development in the Papal States, for example, but one can hardly say that it wasn’t a huge patron of the arts.

And yes, just because the Pope isn’t speaking infallibly doesn’t mean we should just ignore him because we want to. What a horrible thing to say.

Yes Theodosius, and also Justinian made it more strictly a theocracy. Read about it. Do you know the relationship between Rome and the discussions of Monophysitism and nestorianism? It wasn’t exactly a peaceful situation. And no, it wasn’t simply toleration that Constantine brought about. That was the effect of the edict of Milan, but it wasn’t the limit of the change in the relation between church and state. Constantine participated and presided at councils. The eventual situation was that the empire enforced the doctrinal decisions of the councils.

When the pope is wrong, then I will ignore his words. It’s an odd concept for someone to ignore the use of reason out of submission to another man. I could see if it was an infallible statement, but it isn’t.

 

[Lawrence178]

Yes Theodosius, and also Justinian made it more strictly a theocracy. Read about it. Do you know the relationship between Rome and the discussions of Monophysitism and nestorianism? It wasn’t exactly a peaceful situation. And no, it wasn’t simply toleration that Constantine brought about. That was the effect of the edict of Milan, but it wasn’t the limit of the change in the relation between church and state. Constantine participated and presided at councils. The eventual situation was that the empire enforced the doctrinal decisions of the councils.

When the pope is wrong, then I will ignore his words. It’s an odd concept for someone to ignore the use of reason out of submission to another man. I could see if it was an infallible statement, but it isn’t.

You are quite simply ill informed if you think the hereditary Emperor Constantine, who didn’t even convert to Christianity until he was on his death bed, made Rome a theocracy. It is dishonest and you know it.

An example of the theocracy would be where theocrats (bishops, in the case of Catholicism) reign, not hereditary monarchs. It is pretty simple.

So, barring Papal Infallibility (which has been used less than 10 times in history) the Pope is useless unless you agree with him? I see now.

 

[fpt]

The catholic church is in favor the doctrine of the distinction of powers (Caesar and God, the catholicism is not in favor of the Theocracy, per se. Because, the theocracy is the fusion of powers and thus that means the temporal power is in the hands of catholic hierarchy. Catholicism is not like that.), but she disagrees with the doctrine of the separation of powers. That means that the temporal power of State:

does not have to be in the hands of catholic priests, of catholic bishops, of the catholic Pope. Thus, the temporal power of State has to be in the hands of lay persons;

has to respect the natural moral order of human beings, and that the temporal power of State has to respect its own natural moral order, toward the citizens (its limits). The temporal power of State has to respect the natural rights of each human: the ends does not justify the means.

has to respect the liberty of the religion of the Roman catholic church. The temporal power of State should cooperate with the Roman catholic church, as possible.

should tolerate the other “religions” for avoiding the worst, if and only if they respect the natural moral law the humanity, in the catholic perspective; The theory of the tolerance is a rule.

should be deist at the minium, thus the the temporal power should not be atheist. The atheism is, per se, wrong.

should promote the natural goodness, the christian charity, the natrural right of each one, the equity and the equality between citizen.

has to fight the marxism, the communism, the socialism, the nazism, the fascism, the dictorship, the totalitarism, the refusal of the link between faith and reason, the ideologies of the human nature.

**
The details and the subtleties are very important**

Separation of powers: NO NO NO NO
Distinction of powers: YES YES YES YES
Theocraty: NO NO NO NO
Ideologies of the human nature: NO NO NO NO NO
Going against to the natural moral law: NO NO NO NO NO

By the secularism, we need to understand:

The doctrinal ideologie that is refusing the natural moral law seen in the classical and very old view by all societies:** a natural moral law of human beings without link between between Human beings and a Creator.** Per se , the catholic doctrine is fighting against the new intellectual approach concerning the natural moral law, natural law without God, or without a god, only horizontality (human being only for himself, by himself, nothing other than him). Actually, The Roman Church, condemned, has condemned and condemns always the atheism.

The ideologie of the atheism is at the spring of all new political mentalities, of all new juridical mentalities…etc with all corollaries.

That is the deep issue.

In the past, before the XVI century, the natural moral law was always seen with an intellectual approach like in the Antiquity (verticality and horizontality, gods and humans). From this period, a new system of thinking, steps by steps.

 

[seekingtruth64]

What’s wrong with a theocracy?!
Ask yourself, how would you like to be a Catholic in an Islamic theocracy? Not at all, right? Because the government is making laws based on a religion you don’t believe in, right?

Now reverse it…how would you like to be a Muslim, Protestant, Jew, etc in a Catholic theocracy? No matter how much we might believe in Catholicism, you can’t FORCE other people to. You say there would be freedom of religion, but that is completely the antithesis of a theocracy.

 

[Lawrence178]

What’s wrong with a theocracy?!
Ask yourself, how would you like to be a Catholic in an Islamic theocracy? Not at all, right? Because the government is making laws based on a religion you don’t believe in, right?

Now reverse it…how would you like to be a Muslim, Protestant, Jew, etc in a Catholic theocracy? No matter how much we might believe in Catholicism, you can’t FORCE other people to. You say there would be freedom of religion, but that is completely the antithesis of a theocracy.

Catholic theocracies have existed before. And as I have said, they are not even remotely comparable to Islamic ones.

Having a theocracy does not mean that you force people to convert, or that other religions would be absolutely illegal. Especially in the Catholic Faith. One of the very few places the Jews were safe in Europe (relatively, anyway) was the Catholic theocracy of the Papal States. There was still a Jewish quarter in Rome after England, France, Spain, and other powers had thrown them out.

You are tearing down a straw man.

 

[Mulligan2]

What’s wrong with a theocracy?!
Ask yourself, how would you like to be a Catholic in an Islamic theocracy? Not at all, right? Because the government is making laws based on a religion you don’t believe in, right?

Now reverse it…how would you like to be a Muslim, Protestant, Jew, etc in a Catholic theocracy? No matter how much we might believe in Catholicism, you can’t FORCE other people to. You say there would be freedom of religion, but that is completely the antithesis of a theocracy.

Exactly!

 

[marymary1975]

The problem with theocracy is that while sounds beautiful and amazing in theory, the practice is very difficult. The idea of a Catholic State is indeed beautiful, however the two big problems are: how is it going to be enforced, WHO is going to enforce it and more importantly, is the person who is going to enforce it actually follow catholic teaching? The probably of the leader of a theocracy to actually follow the religion (unless you are able to bring a saint back from heaven) is close to 0, and if that happens the results are disastrous. just look at Francisco Franco, Rafael Trujillo and Augusto Pinochet. The reason why today most Spaniards are non practicing Catholics is because of Franco. Pinochet was not even catholic but just because he gave benefits to the church and tried to make laws according to the church, the church was unfairly involved on his crimes and accused of supporting a murder. Unfortunately, reality is more complicated and theocracies can really backfire.

 

[TimeEntrance]

However, if given the chance and it could somehow work. I’d love a catholic theocracy, or at least a system where Catholicism was the law. It wouldn’t be that bad would it. There would be no abortion, no euthanasia (at least supported by the govt). Also things like adultery and other sins which aren’t illegal would be made so like bad things on tv. There would also be freedom of religion since Catholics believe in this very much, and really it would be a great system if it could work.

The Papal States had legal prostitution but restricted to certain quarters.

Some things like abortion would be outlawed though. And I think you’re right about more censoring of what would be allowed to air on television. However, as a fan of Mob Wives that’s not a good thing for me.

The biggest draw back–for me–is that I’ll hazard a guess heresy would be outlawed, a judicially backed Inquisition backed with an armed wing of the law, would go Gestapo over an overly sensitive, less imaginative, and overly reactionary element in a population screaming to it that some poor guy or gal is a heretic.

Not that I don’t think the Church should crack down more on some internally pushed heresies. But I just suspect others will over do that to snow ball in every Joe and Jane with a new idea or outlook or interesting story to tell.

Other than that I think you’re right it could work quiet well.

Everything will have some problems. The U.S. is not free of problems. Majority rule (democracy) just means once enough people begin to like orgies or abortion that these things become acceptable.

If you enjoy seeing some citizens filing bankruptcy because they can’t afford to pay the medical bills for treating one of the spouse’s cancer then you probably prefer democracy because it’s a game of who has the biggest gang casting votes or badgering their representatives in the government. A Catholic theocracy making universal health care a constitutional right would be a nightmare.

Overall I prefer democracy more. Because it allows for young women in skimpy bikinis walking down the beaches of Rio de Janiero.

 

[TimeEntrance]

The problem with theocracy is that while sounds beautiful and amazing in theory, the practice is very difficult. The idea of a Catholic State is indeed beautiful, however the two big problems are: how is it going to be enforced, WHO is going to enforce it and more importantly, is the person who is going to enforce it actually follow catholic teaching? The probably of the leader of a theocracy to actually follow the religion (unless you are able to bring a saint back from heaven) is close to 0, and if that happens the results are disastrous. just look at Francisco Franco, Rafael Trujillo and Augusto Pinochet. The reason why today most Spaniards are non practicing Catholics is because of Franco. Pinochet was not even catholic but just because he gave benefits to the church and tried to make laws according to the church, the church was unfairly involved on his crimes and accused of supporting a murder. Unfortunately, reality is more complicated and theocracies can really backfire.

Outside the Vatican there is no Catholic theocracy (though I’d prefer to live in Vatican City than the City of Detroit) and yet the Catholic Church still found itself in the headlines, in courts, and criticized and accused by the public of exposing innocent children to predatory pedophiles. Some might suggest this is the reason many recently have left the Catholic Church.

Staying out of political offices is not going to protect the Church from public scrutiny.

I know every child in the U.S. is indoctrinate (brainwashed) all the way into their adulthood of the “evils” (though few to no specific evils are mentioned, and cliches about power corrupting run amok) of theocracy. Kind of like the Rocky movies (I love the Rocky movies by the way) about Russians.

Or the evils of other nationals not allied with the U.S. and how hard work alone builds muscles and bank accounts. Like this: youtube.com/watch?v=ApmX8Q0vqKI

But if morons in the U.S. can form and run street gangs and biker gangs with laws and garner admiration across the U.S. in fictional television/HBO shows for their honor and good moral codes (not liking and killing pedophiles), then I think disciplined men and women with doctoral degrees in the Catholic Church can operate a functional government that is theocratic.

 

[TimeEntrance]

There has never been a catholic theocracy that was just. If you want to see how a Christian theocracy looks, look at Rome from constantine until its fall. Look how those who disagreed on theology were treated. And many of those who were percieved as heretics, and consequently persecuted by the empire, it turns out weren’t really heretics.

So the pope speaks and everyone is supposed to bow in acquiescence? It doesn’t even matter if it is an infallible statement? Fallibility is treated as infallibility? The pope was wrong, that is all there is to it.

Constantine the Great established the Edit of Milan (freedom of religion basically), and favored Christianity. So, it is interesting you invoke Constantine the Great and the Edit of Milan as causes of persecution.

It was Constantine the Great’s son that made Christianity the official state religion. Before Rome 3 or 4 other kingdoms established Christianity as the official religions of the kingdom, such as ancient Kingdom in what is now Ethiopia. Armenia I believe as well was one.

So, we might look to them as well.

All depends on your sample size and point of reference perhaps. For example, I might contrasts democracy with socialism by comparing Haiti with Cuba. I’d prefer to live in Cuba.

 

[Augustus24]

“Whats wrong with a theocracy?”

Many things. First and foremost, they are massively oppressive. For example, can you name a current or past theocracy that did NOT severely punish dissenters? Catholicism has enjoyed theocratic status in the past, and in these instances, unrepentant dissenters could look forward to all sorts of punishment, including but not limited to a prolonged and painful death. This is the same when protestantism rule the day as in the Church of England, or Lutheran states in Northern Europe. No, its better when the state favors no particular religion, as in the secular USA.

Second, a theocracy cannot be reformed. Since if a person questions the actions of the government, it is tantamount to questioning God.

 

[sw85]

To be clear, our choices aren’t “theocracy” (understood as “rule by clergy”) or secularism; this is a false dichotomy. The position the Church endorses and has always endorsed is establishment, i.e., distinction between church and state but formal recognition of the Church’s truth by the state and a formal support of the state’s legitimacy by the Church.

The US is the world’s best example of a healthy secular state that exists not to demean or oppress religious freedom but rather to uphold it. India is another example.

If you think the US is a “healthy” state, I’m curious by what standard you measure the health of a state. I suspect you are in thrall to rah-rah-Americanism, which is frustrating your ability to think rationally and clearly on this issue, because it seems pretty appallingly clear to me that we are a badly disordered state. Our catastrophic rates of illegitimacy, divorce, abortion, and sexual depravity all confirm this. Even Elegabalus, the legendarily degenerate Emperor and persecutor of Christians, did not elevate his homosexual “marriage” to the status of a legal norm as we are doing today. And I don’t know if you’ve been watching the news lately but respect for the rights of the Church is not exactly something the US has excelled at recently/ever. You realize we lent bombers to the Calles government to help kill the Cristeros, right?

It’s small comfort indeed to think that we’re only slightly more deranged today than the Roman Empire at its worst!

Just in relation to this…This is contrary to the Catholic faith as we cannot forcibly convert people. Salvation must be a free choice.

To enshrine the whole of Catholic Doctrine in the law of a State would cause all sorts of other problems as well.

The Church’s doctrine itself forbids that, so technically, this isn’t accurate. Enshrining Catholic doctrine as it actually does apply to the state would produce pretty much as ideal a society as man’s fallen nature is capable of sustaining.

There has never been a catholic theocracy that was just. If you want to see how a Christian theocracy looks, look at Rome from constantine until its fall. Look how those who disagreed on theology were treated. And many of those who were percieved as heretics, and consequently persecuted by the empire, it turns out weren’t really heretics.

There has never been a perfectly just society in all of history, and that’s still true today. Making the perfect the enemy of the good is not a Catholic attitude to have, it’s the attitude of anarchists.

The point isn’t to make a perfectly just society or a perfect man; that’s the utopian pipe-dream of our modern-day gnostic enemies. The purpose is to make a society that is essentially ordered toward truth, which is a good in itself.

So the pope speaks and everyone is supposed to bow in acquiescence? It doesn’t even matter if it is an infallible statement? Fallibility is treated as infallibility? The pope was wrong, that is all there is to it.

“If it’s not infallible, I don’t have to believe it” is not consistent with Catholicism. Whether or not X is infallible is distinct from whether or not you are obligated to believe X.

We’d do well to remember that secularism has been aggressively promoted by the most vicious persecutors of the Church in recent history – by the French Revolution and its imitators who butchered priests and religious and faithful laity alike by the thousands and millions in service of a Satanic ideal of the utterly autonomous, self-creating, self-actualizing, self-defining superman. If we think we know better than the Popes who had to live through these times, and who had the courage to denounce the excesses of the enemy even as the enemy’s fangs dripped with their own blood… well.

What’s wrong with a theocracy?!
Ask yourself, how would you like to be a Catholic in an Islamic theocracy? Not at all, right? Because the government is making laws based on a religion you don’t believe in, right?

You are making this too subjective/phenomenological. I don’t want the Catholic faith to be established because it’s my faith, I want it to be established because it’s the true faith. If Muslims established Islam in America, I would object to it not on the grounds that it’s establishment but on the grounds that it’s establishment of a false religion.

In other words, “I wouldn’t like it if they did it to me, therefore we shouldn’t do it them” ignores the fact that what they would be doing to us is a qualitatively different thing than we’re countenancing doing here. We’re talking about establishing the true faith. They aren’t. “Oh, but they think they are!” is irrelevant, because they’re wrong. “Oh, but THEY think YOU’RE wrong!” is irrelevant again, because, again, they’re wrong. The truth of the Church is not a matter of perspective, and you’re not allowed to believe it is.

Now reverse it…how would you like to be a Muslim, Protestant, Jew, etc in a Catholic theocracy? No matter how much we might believe in Catholicism, you can’t FORCE other people to. You say there would be freedom of religion, but that is completely the antithesis of a theocracy.

Again, not even theocracy (which is not what the Church advocates) consists in forcing people to become Catholics.

 

[TimeEntrance]

Second, a theocracy cannot be reformed. Since if a person questions the actions of the government, it is tantamount to questioning God.

I’m sure that is true on a certain level. On the other hand I’m sure it’s not entirely true. The Holy Roman Empire eventually settled for Protestant ruled territories with its union.

What reforms do you want to make in a justly run theocracy anyways? Legalize porn and abortion?

I suppose one could argue a justly run theocracy is an oxymoron because it wouldn’t be a theocracy. But that strikes me as something akin to the No true Scotsman logical fallacy.

Personally, I’m afraid of living in a theocracy because it might result in a falsely justified invasion of Iraq or killing over a million Vietnamese in ideological crusade in some Southeast nation that couldn’t hit a nation in the Western hemisphere with a stone, or it might result in a banking, housing, and stock market scandal that literally sends planet earth into a recession, or it might result in a nation incarcerating more of its citizens than any nation on earth. I fear those things that why I prefer living in the democratic republic of the United States.

 

[TimeEntrance]

To be clear, our choices aren’t “theocracy” (understood as “rule by clergy”) or secularism; this is a false dichotomy. The position the Church endorses and has always endorsed is establishment, i.e., distinction between church and state but formal recognition of the Church’s truth by the state and a formal support of the state’s legitimacy by the Church.

Hmm… I didn’t know that. Sounds better to me than theocracy if that means I can keep watching my Mob Wives.

Trailer: New York: vimeo.com/21704465

Trailer: Chicago: youtube.com/watch?v=rVHm304EieU

 

[Lawrence178]

The biggest draw back–for me–is that I’ll hazard a guess heresy would be outlawed, a judicially backed Inquisition backed with an armed wing of the law, would go Gestapo over an overly sensitive, less imaginative, and overly reactionary element in a population screaming to it that some poor guy or gal is a heretic.

I think it would be completely possible that heretics just receive spiritual punishments. A Catholic theocracy wouldn’t necessarily just ban all other religions and heresies, it would just discourage them and encourage the Faith.