Religion does matter in politics!
It is often said in the public square that a person's religion doesn't affect their politics. This is fundamentally wrong. It would only be true of everyone was at least a deist of some sort. Once rational people are brought in it is categorically wrong.
When someone believes in a deity they accept the idea of a "perfect" being. This means there could be a perfect political system, a "right" and "wrong" etc. A rational person understands all political system are flawed and that their is no such thing as absolutely right (outside of mathematics and physics).
This means we the reasonable get shafted since many of the people who are elected have a flawed view of the political system to begin with and they cater to the masses, i.e. the people who think there is a "perfect" solution. So can one have a meaningful political discussion with these believers? I don't think so since they have a axiom that is ridiculous. Agreed?
When someone believes in a deity they accept the idea of a "perfect" being. This means there could be a perfect political system, a "right" and "wrong" etc. A rational person understands all political system are flawed and that their is no such thing as absolutely right (outside of mathematics and physics).
This means we the reasonable get shafted since many of the people who are elected have a flawed view of the political system to begin with and they cater to the masses, i.e. the people who think there is a "perfect" solution. So can one have a meaningful political discussion with these believers? I don't think so since they have a axiom that is ridiculous. Agreed?
posted by Eddie | 12:22 PM
2 Comments:
Aha! I found something we can (mostly) agree on.
But I've a question about this bit: "their is no such thing as absolutely right (outside of mathematics and physics)."
What leads you to say this? Is it that you've not found any "absolutely rights" outside of those two examples? And how do we know even those two things are absolute? Simply because they work? There are political systems that work. There are religions that work. Just because some people can't figure a calculus problem corrrectly doesn't mean the roblem is with calculus.
In other words, I fail to see the logic behind your claim.
Physics is an emperical science. Laws of physics are absolutely true because there is no exception and everything we know is based on them. Conservation of energy, for instance, can't be violated since we then have to see thing sponantiously appearing and disapearing. Mathematics is based on axioms and one can make sucessive logical statements with them to generate new truths.
So when you start with axioms that are testible and absolutely true you can use them to generate absolutely true, self consistant theories.
Human truths are different. There are always exceptions. Working does not mean they are absolutely true. So if you are dealing with ideas that aren't abolutely true you can't define a right/wrong answer. Think of grammer rules. They have exceptions and they change as the people who use the language change.
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