Has Religion and Government ever worked to the advantage of the people?

[bleedingheart]

I want to know where the success stories of having religion mixed with politics are.

I can only think of all the very negative examples.

Czarist Russia - Orthodox Church

The Borgias and Italian Duchies of their time.

French...first killing all the protestants then the divine right of inbred morons to rule the masses.


I personally think that our founding fathers/mothers were so much SMARTER than a majority of people today because they lived through and saw the evil wrought by mixing religion and politics....

So tell me ...where are any positive examples where it worked and the people lived in harmony????

[Dookus]

1. Tibet

[CaTeacher]

3. Even though they are maligned in

the western world--I think that societies based on the Muslim religion (such as the current government of Iran) have had a high level of success (in spite of the US doing every thing that we can to ruin everything and derail the dreams of these people).

[bleedingheart]

5. I doubt all the women in modern Iran would agree

however the early muslim governments were rather enlightened.

[CaTeacher]

7. The women in Iran are highly educated,

and work in good positions. Many of them are professionals such as doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, engineers. There is a history of equality of the sexes in the Persian culture--and traditionally Persian women are treated with a great deal of equality within their homes and in the workplace (in education they do better than American women--higher proportions of engineers etc.)

It is true that a strict dress code is currently enforced in public--(I should point out that this dress code is strongly supported by the majority of Iranian women) however no society is perfect. I still think women have it pretty good in the Iranian society. Yes--this is a religious society--but it is NOT the Taliban.

[Lucky Luciano]

2. During the early history of man,

religion was probably a good uniting force so that people would work together and create a society....but these days of course, it has morphed into a parasite after passing through a vestigal phase.

[bleedingheart]

4. I can agree..

early government was a form of religion..."the gods will be pleased if you do this..."

Egypt, Rome..etc but even in those ancient cases there were abuses of power which destabilized the goverments.

[Lucky Luciano]

6. and I agree back at you...

by the time those civilizations matured, religion was more parasitic.

[AngryAmish]

8. RCC and Reconquista era Spain

For the Spanish. Not so good for the Moors.

[DemBones DemBones]

9. Power gives rise to corruption quite frequently, with or without

religion mixing with government.

Mixing atheism with government hasn't worked well, either.

[bleedingheart]

12. but frequently religion has been mixed with government to

control people.

Communism promoted atheism because they didn't want to have competing ideas...in a funny way...a pure communistic society would be a christian ideal...all working for the good of each other...and then we all get milk and cookies...

[DemBones DemBones]

18. Yes, a pure socialism would look very Christian, but socialism hasn't

been any more successful than Christianity in terms of people living up to professed beliefs. It's not the beliefs themselves that are at fault but the people who cheat on the rules they claim to support.

[Djinn]

13. Hey - I agree with DemBones

on a matter of religion (get the smelling salts!) I'm an avowed atheist and have been since I was a kid but the view that "religion has caused most if not all man's problems" is myopic.

If humans had never come up with the concept of religion we would have killed and persecuted each other in much the same ways and numbers. It's about HUMAN nature not teh nature of religion.

Conversely people often point out the "good" religious folks who help others, feed the poor etc however I don't think THIS has anything to do with religion either, without religion the people who exploit and kill would do so anyway, the people who are decent would still be decent.

[bleedingheart]

14. I am not saying that religion is bad, I am specifically looking at

the influence of religion on government.

Generally it hasn't been that good.

That isn't saying that religion hasn't helped people, the early labor movement had a number of religious advisors but they were working among the people as advocates...they wanted their parishoners to do better...it benefitted the churchs as an end result.

However...when the church allies itself with the government...where policy is interwined with theology...there is a problem.. A lot has to do with just the adage "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely"...but clearly our founding fathers felt it was important to separate church and state.

[DemBones DemBones]

16. Heh Heh! That proves we're both intelligent!

I don't believe either religion or atheism will solve all the world's problems and I agree with you that people can be good without religion. Religion can be a help to people but it can also be misused.

At DU, atheists don't need my support much if ever, but I have stood up for atheists and all sorts of different religious believers in real life, including snake handlers and Jehovah's Witnesses.

What is it about human nature that makes people want to pick on others who think or believe differently from them? Some atavistic tribal urge? It's one we need to stamp out before it kills us all.

[rexcat]

10. I think the Spanish Inquisition was a rousing success!

[bleedingheart]

11. for the spanish monarchs it was...and let's thank Isabella and Ferdie

for that grand old institution!

[whistle]

15. Karl Marx said that relgion was the opium of the masses...

<link> http://www.bloodclub.com/web_pages/AK47/opium.htm

THE OPIUM OF THE MASSES

I regard Christianity as the most fatal seductive lie that has yet existed, as the great unholy lie: I draw out the after-growth and sprouting of its ideal from beneath every form of disguise, I reject every compromise position with respect to it—I force a war against it.
(Friedrich Nietzsche) NEW

Why should we believe in a god, that doesn't believe in us?
(Marilyn Manson) NEW

Modern society without religion would be like a crazed maniac without a chainsaw.
(Unknown)

The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind.
(Marqis De Sade)

Civilisation will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest.
(Emile Zola)

I have met a great many people on their way towards God and I wonder why they have chosen to look for him rather than themselves.
(Jeanette Winterson)

Priests, theologians have taken advantage of women - of their gentleness - their love of approbation. They have lived upon their hopes and fears. Like vampires, they have sucked their blood. They have made them responsible for the sins of the world. They have taught them the slave virtues - meekness, humility - implicit obedience. They have fed their minds with mistakes, mysteries and absurdities. They have endeavoured to weaken and shrivel their brains, until to them, there would be no possible connection between evidence and belief - between fact and faith.
(Robert G Ingersoll)

If God's on our side. He'll stop the next war.
(Bob Dylan, With God on Our Side)

A cult is a religion with no political power.
(Tom Wolfe)

More harm has been done to the collective human psyche by religion than by all the fucking and cocksucking since the dawn of time. By the way, many religious people (including the ordained) fuck and suck each other's cocks all the time.
(George Carlin)

<much more>

[PVnRT]

17. In other words

you can't think of anything on your own, so you just post pithy little quotes from other people. Sad, really.

[drhilarius]

19. Up to a point.

Religion, as stated earlier, was an effective tool for organizing groups of people, tribes, into a working society. religion can also be useful after, or in fomenting, a revolution (just look at the Iranians and the coup that replaced the Shah). However, as the society progresses, progress will inevitably clash with dogma, and that is a problem, because the clerics need the dogma to maintain their power. The only recourse then, to continue to progress as a society, is a revolution to remove religion from politics.