It is no wonder that religion and politics keep bumping into each other: both of them want to shape a society.
Some religions--let us leave out names--believe that it is a man's world, and if they get the chance to be in charge of shaping a society, will specify ways to keep men in charge. Some religions have believed in polygamy, and when they had the chance, herded the women into corrals. Other religions think white people are the crown of creation, and when they can, they make sure to wear their crowns.
For the last couple of hundred years, nations have tended to shape their societies by sitting down together and debating what kind of place they would like to be. They write constitutions which specify what values they want to affirm, and try to spell out how that will work. If you are not a member of the local religious group, you will, almost certainly, prefer to write a constitution rather than turn things over to the local holiness society.
They are not the same thing. Religious groups tend to be autocratic. They believe they have an absolute authority for what they want and believe. After all, many religions were formed during the times of kings and kingdoms. Some political groups do that, too, but not usually. Communism thought that they had tapped into something inevitable about history, but for the most part, history has dismantled that claim. Republics and democracies--more recent in history--hammer things out together, keenly aware of competing preferences, but trying to find something that works.
It is astounding, really, how much consensus human beings do find when they sit together to figure things out. It probably ought not to be a surprise: after all, we are all related, with brains that are just variants of each other. So we agree, generally, not to steal, lie, destroy each other's marriages, not to cheat each other, on which side of the road to drive, and not to allow insider-trading.
The problem with religiously-defined societies is that there is not much room for give-and-take. If your favorite god has made it clear that men are the head of the household, and that brown-skinned people are inferior, or that drinking coffee or beer is forbidden, or that your holy bread has to have at least a few molecules of gluten in it, there is not much room for debate. If, not just religious people, but anybody thinks he or she has the absolute truth, the only permissible answers as to whom one can marry, or what to eat, then debate and compromise is not only a waste of time: it is simply wrong. Period! End of debate. Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
In American history, many of our ancestors migrated here precisely because they had been despised and rejected for their religious views, so our founders plainly said that one could be religious if one wished to, but that the state would not, itself, make any religion the official one.
What muddies our thinking is that many religious people, and many non-religious people, too, think of religion as a little secret thing of the heart--something between themselves and whatever they call god--and that politics is something public, social, and legal. But religions do want to shape societies. They do shape societies. They do--if that is their belief--want to set aside holy days, and what to eat and drink, specify whom you can marry, or own, and even declare how old the universe is and whether we all evolved from primitive life forms, or were crafted like clay pots.
But religion is not a little secret place in the heart: it is a declaration of how to be human beings together, what to permit and not permit, and sometimes even whether you can be religious or not, or be killed for not being religious. It is also, often, an affirmation of the goodness of life, of the value of life, and who and how one can righteously be killed.
So maybe your religion, if it were in charge of these United States, would have savage laws regarding abortion, or laws about the use of contraceptives, or food regulations regarding pork or coffee of kava beans. But we have a constitution, and our constitution says that, as a nation, what you need to pay attention to is what it says in the constitution. Other than that, if you want to shave your head oddly, or wear an orange robe, or insist that your priests be more-or-less celibate, go ahead. Just don't think that is what makes us Americans. What makes us Americans is what we scratched our heads about, and scratched down on paper, and said we would be like.
Some religions--let us leave out names--believe that it is a man's world, and if they get the chance to be in charge of shaping a society, will specify ways to keep men in charge. Some religions have believed in polygamy, and when they had the chance, herded the women into corrals. Other religions think white people are the crown of creation, and when they can, they make sure to wear their crowns.
For the last couple of hundred years, nations have tended to shape their societies by sitting down together and debating what kind of place they would like to be. They write constitutions which specify what values they want to affirm, and try to spell out how that will work. If you are not a member of the local religious group, you will, almost certainly, prefer to write a constitution rather than turn things over to the local holiness society.
They are not the same thing. Religious groups tend to be autocratic. They believe they have an absolute authority for what they want and believe. After all, many religions were formed during the times of kings and kingdoms. Some political groups do that, too, but not usually. Communism thought that they had tapped into something inevitable about history, but for the most part, history has dismantled that claim. Republics and democracies--more recent in history--hammer things out together, keenly aware of competing preferences, but trying to find something that works.
It is astounding, really, how much consensus human beings do find when they sit together to figure things out. It probably ought not to be a surprise: after all, we are all related, with brains that are just variants of each other. So we agree, generally, not to steal, lie, destroy each other's marriages, not to cheat each other, on which side of the road to drive, and not to allow insider-trading.
The problem with religiously-defined societies is that there is not much room for give-and-take. If your favorite god has made it clear that men are the head of the household, and that brown-skinned people are inferior, or that drinking coffee or beer is forbidden, or that your holy bread has to have at least a few molecules of gluten in it, there is not much room for debate. If, not just religious people, but anybody thinks he or she has the absolute truth, the only permissible answers as to whom one can marry, or what to eat, then debate and compromise is not only a waste of time: it is simply wrong. Period! End of debate. Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
In American history, many of our ancestors migrated here precisely because they had been despised and rejected for their religious views, so our founders plainly said that one could be religious if one wished to, but that the state would not, itself, make any religion the official one.
What muddies our thinking is that many religious people, and many non-religious people, too, think of religion as a little secret thing of the heart--something between themselves and whatever they call god--and that politics is something public, social, and legal. But religions do want to shape societies. They do shape societies. They do--if that is their belief--want to set aside holy days, and what to eat and drink, specify whom you can marry, or own, and even declare how old the universe is and whether we all evolved from primitive life forms, or were crafted like clay pots.
But religion is not a little secret place in the heart: it is a declaration of how to be human beings together, what to permit and not permit, and sometimes even whether you can be religious or not, or be killed for not being religious. It is also, often, an affirmation of the goodness of life, of the value of life, and who and how one can righteously be killed.
So maybe your religion, if it were in charge of these United States, would have savage laws regarding abortion, or laws about the use of contraceptives, or food regulations regarding pork or coffee of kava beans. But we have a constitution, and our constitution says that, as a nation, what you need to pay attention to is what it says in the constitution. Other than that, if you want to shave your head oddly, or wear an orange robe, or insist that your priests be more-or-less celibate, go ahead. Just don't think that is what makes us Americans. What makes us Americans is what we scratched our heads about, and scratched down on paper, and said we would be like.
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