Saturday, February 11, 2012

Religion as Unconstitutional in Politics

I cannot understand why the Roman Catholic Church is involving itself in politics. It is unrealistic to assume that the entire nation will convert to Catholicism. Furthermore it is unrealistic to assume that all Catholics will be devout and follow all the teachings of the Church. The only mention of religion that I am aware of is that "there shall be no religious test." It seems to me that the task or duty of Christianity is to persuade as many as possible in their hearts to do the right thing but it is NOT the place of Christianity to coerce the general public to do what it considers the right thing. Furthermore, an elected politician should feel free to act in harmony with the will and interests of his/her constituency. So, IF the Church threatens a politician with excommunication for voting against Church teaching then this alone should disqualify Catholics from holding public office. Since it is obvious that after 2000 years the Church has failed to convert the entire world and has failed to persuade 100 per cent of its members to observe all of its teachings then how can the Church become a worldwide political force.
It is difficult for me to understand the current controversy over Catholic organizations and employee health benefits which include birth control. I am under the assumption that a huge number of people in the country are unemployed and have no health coverage and those who are employed with some health coverage receive minimum coverage which does not include things like birth control. IF Catholic organizations are employing Roman Catholics then those devout Catholics should not seek birth control. And if some employees are NOT of the Catholic faith then why be concerned about the morality of their private choices. Is there not some compromise which the government and the Church could arrive at which would satisfy all parties. The government could put in place programs to offer reproductive health care to those in need based perhaps on some sliding scale and Catholic organizations could simply save money on the health care which they offer by omitting reproductive health care. It seems to me that the government has bigger fish to fry in terms of economic and environmental problems and foreign policy than to worry about who marries whom or what they do in bed or how they do it.
I had to Google to find this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Religious_Test_Clause

but it seems to me that Roman Catholics who enter public service are disqualified to serve by this article since they will be pressured by the Church to vote in a certain fashion on certain issues. Furthermore, since the Pope/Magisterium has in theory the ability to enact new dogmatic and doctrinal teachings at any time, therefore one cannot even be certain WHAT the values of a Catholic politician will be since IF Rome proclaims by fiat some new doctrine then the devout politician will feel duty bound as a matter of conscience to obey the Church and ignore the will of the people/constituency.

For many years American political campaigns have focused in part upon the religion of the candidates. Candidates are expected to declare that Jesus is their personal savior and Jesus is the only way to heaven. Is this not in some sense a political test and therefore in violation of the constitution? Eisenhower and Reagan were not religious by nature and merely used religion as a political tool. Eisenhower was not baptized until the week before his first term inauguration simply because Billy Graham discovered that Eisenhower was never baptized. Tell me honestly, which sort of person would you trust more: 1.) someone who only does what is right because they superstitiously believe that if they do not do the right thing they will be eternally tortured in hell but if they DO the right thing they shall spend eternity in the paradise of heaven? OR 2.) an Agnostic or Atheist who does the right things simply because it is the right thing to do and not as a means to some end? The "religious test" which is so obviously in force in American politics GUARANTEES that those elected will be hypocrites who bear false witness to things they do not sincerely believe simply to gain wealth and power. George W. Bush supposedly had a Christian upbringing by his powerful and wealthy family. And yet G.W. went to Yale and joined a demonic secret organization, Skull and Bones, which is so evil that all are sworn to secrecy so that no one will reveal their Satanic ceremonies. So, G.W. proceeds to revel in drunkenness and fornication and ONLY when he is in his 40s, walking along the beach with NONE OTHER THAN BILLY GRAHAM does he have an ALLEGED conversation with Graham about "being right with God" and resolves to address his alcoholism. I say that people with any sort of religious affiliation should be disqualified from holding any public office. Instead look for people who are agnostic and whose life shows someone who behaved decently simply for the sake of being decent and did not don the semblance of decency to deceive the public opinion, meanwhile living a secret, hidden life of degeneracy.
America does not exist in a vacuum but rather in a world filled with many successful stable governments. We should look about and see how some of them address similar problems. Why is it that Europe abhors capital punishment but relegates abortion to a matter of private conscience. Here is one comment from Google Plus to this thread of mine which I reposted there:

Why can't they do like the UK and allow conscientious objection?
There are Government funded family planning clinics that offer advice, contraception and abortion referrals for free.
In a similar situation, UK employers have to offer a pension scheme, but if you don't like their scheme, they can choose from plenty of private schemes out there.


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