DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post

**Ifroham4** · 11-16-2005, 01:31 PM

my experience is that religion complicates this problem rather than alleviating it, because the nature of religion is to be absolutist, not to compromise.

If you mean abstractly, I suppose. If you point to something specific, maybe not.

A religious person is someone who lives by the ideals of the faith and incorporates the rituals and tenets into his/her life so that they inform his/her daily decisions. In part that's true. It's also about ethics and justice, compassion and mercy.

The failure of religion in peacemaking is because religion is most comfortable when it deals in absolutes, in good and evil, right and wrong.
Religion's failure in 'peacemaking' is about the disconnect between religion and statecraft, not the particular failures of religion to address moral issues. Absolutes, in least in Judaism don't really exist, though I'm not sure what you mean by that.

I read that "All men are created Equal" and yet that absolute statement really doesn't mean what it says it means. Similarly I hear very devout religious people tell me absolute statements about the sanctity of life while they are chanting outside the State Prison, for the expedited execution of someone. And yet at the same time that person is being executed, the law is clearly secular, legal, and entirely democratically applied. In other words religion may play a part in politics but it's only a supporting role.

The affairs of state of necessity require compromise and cannot function effectively in absolutes. Therefore religious leaders most often make poor statesmen. Not necessarily. People pour their faith into the vessel of their own choosing. Non religious leaders don't necessarily have a claim on 'faithless' leadership either. I think you would find a leader who abjectly denied the human spirit, the human desire for a spiritual life would be horribly intolerant and brutal, severe. For my money I'd rather have someone who understood Talmud, a rational Buddhist or a heavily armed Quaker running things than someone who merely knows every word ever written by Machiavelli, Tallyrand and Caesar.

11-16-2005, 01:31 PM	#6
Ifroham4 Join Date Apr 2007 Posts 5,196 Senior Member	my experience is that religion complicates this problem rather than alleviating it, because the nature of religion is to be absolutist, not to compromise. If you mean abstractly, I suppose. If you point to something specific, maybe not. A religious person is someone who lives by the ideals of the faith and incorporates the rituals and tenets into his/her life so that they inform his/her daily decisions. In part that's true. It's also about ethics and justice, compassion and mercy. The failure of religion in peacemaking is because religion is most comfortable when it deals in absolutes, in good and evil, right and wrong. Religion's failure in 'peacemaking' is about the disconnect between religion and statecraft, not the particular failures of religion to address moral issues. Absolutes, in least in Judaism don't really exist, though I'm not sure what you mean by that. I read that "All men are created Equal" and yet that absolute statement really doesn't mean what it says it means. Similarly I hear very devout religious people tell me absolute statements about the sanctity of life while they are chanting outside the State Prison, for the expedited execution of someone. And yet at the same time that person is being executed, the law is clearly secular, legal, and entirely democratically applied. In other words religion may play a part in politics but it's only a supporting role. The affairs of state of necessity require compromise and cannot function effectively in absolutes. Therefore religious leaders most often make poor statesmen. Not necessarily. People pour their faith into the vessel of their own choosing. Non religious leaders don't necessarily have a claim on 'faithless' leadership either. I think you would find a leader who abjectly denied the human spirit, the human desire for a spiritual life would be horribly intolerant and brutal, severe. For my money I'd rather have someone who understood Talmud, a rational Buddhist or a heavily armed Quaker running things than someone who merely knows every word ever written by Machiavelli, Tallyrand and Caesar.
	Quote