Why Are Religious Beliefs Off Limits? Lawrence Krauss - HP

[edhopper]

One might think that the religious beliefs of political candidates should remain off limits in public discourse. I don't think so, at least not when candidates wear their religion on their sleeves.

Candidates should have the right to keep their religious views private, but in the current climate essentially none of them actually do so. Rick Santorum has gone so far as to argue that John Kennedy's strict confirmation of the separation of church and state, which many consider one of the pillars of American democracy, should be discarded. In this case, it is all the more important to explore his theological views.

More generally, should we not be able to question whether the beliefs of the religion publicly espoused by a candidate may reflect on candidate's judgment and their ability to distinguish sense from nonsense? Why is it acceptable to dissect Newt Gingrich's fanciful plans for making the Moon a 51st state but not his implicit suggestion that Pope John Paul II was responsible, via divine intervention, for the fall of communism?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-m-krauss/election-2012-religion_b_1320886.html?ref=science

[dkf]

1. Religion is based on faith not reason. What of it can you reason with anyway?

Coming from an agnostic/atheist pov, its all nonsense.

That's why I personally take other peoples faith at face value. Live and let live is my credo.

[edhopper]

2. But his point is

these politicians want to use there faith to decide what we as a nation should do. And yet in the mainstream there seems to be a barrier from questioning the tenets of another's faith.
Santorium does not believe you can live and let live. Since he wants to impose restrictions on many areas of life. And all this is based on his belief. So why hold those beliefs sacrosanct.

[stopbush]

3. Would your live-and-let-live policy apply to a person running for president

who said he wanted to institute Sharia Law in this country? How about a candidate who wanted to enact the laws of the Old Testament?

That is exactly what guys like Santorum want to do with their fundamentalist Catholicism. If you think that Xian religious beliefs are benign, you're mistaken. They are just as anti-human, anti-women and anti-reason as any other religious beliefs.

Krauss' point is simple: why should beliefs that have no basis in reality be allowed to stand without question just because they are religious beliefs? What if those beliefs were in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy? If Santorum were out there advocating that the Tooth Fairy was real, you would consider him nuts. But he's out there advocating that a guy came back from the dead, and you feel that's a live-and-let-live situation. Why? It's just as bonkers as belief in the Tooth Fairy.

The only difference is that nobody tries to get laws enacted based on their belief in the Tooth Fairy, when guys like Santorum want to enact laws based on their beliefs that are just as fantastic - and childish - as belief in the Tooth Fairy, ie: the belief that Jesus came back from the dead, and that a make-believe dogma that has arisen around that belief should stand as the foundation for laws enacted in the USA.

[dkf]

6. Should a person just judge on the merits of what is proposed and not where it comes from?

[Silent3]

4. We can point out that lack of reason...

...and, in the context of the OP, we certainly can and should ask candidates why their unreasoned positions should have one damned thing to do with government policy.

That's why I personally take other peoples faith at face value.

What do these blandly diplomatic words even mean? If a person says homosexuality is a sin, what's the "face value" of that? If one person believes in a triune God, and another a unitarian God, what are the "face values" of those positions?

Is your concept of "face value" nothing more than the pointless redundancy, "The face value of Alice believing X is that Alice believes X"?

[deacon_sephiroth]

5. get em LK! n/t

[skepticscott]

7. If someone is a candidate for public office, NOTHING

that may affect or reflect on their behavior, their policies or their decision making is off limits. If you don't like that, tough. Find another job that doesn't involve taking control over my life and my money.

[cleanhippie]

8. Because people don't like it when they are forced to face reality.

Why do you think you have gotten ZERO responses from believers in this thread?

[cbayer]

9. Perhaps because I already posted this 5 days ago.

[cleanhippie]

10. And the same silence is to be found there, too.

And no one is surprised.

[edhopper]

11. I did not see that

sorry for the repost.

[cbayer]

12. Not a problem at all. I thought it was an interesting article, but

it didn't attract much attention when I posted it either, lol.