Should the USA and Europe become secularised?

Should the nations of Europe and the North Americas make an absolute separation from religion in the sense that it devalues the role played by religious leaders in the life of a country? So that its politicians should be people who recognise no god as having existence and therefore would pave the way toward an absolute dissolution of organised religion by insisting that state schools pay no hommage to any god

 

the way the topic post is stated is somewhat self contradictory. to demand athiesm is no more a seperation of church and state then to demand one or another flavour of theism. rather it is reality that needs to be recognized. reality that belief is by deffinician speculative. speculation that neither requires nor rules out any possibility.

i absolutely aggree that no one of any age under any circumstances should be required to pay omage to ANYTHING not freely choosen in their own hearts.

no one should ever be REQUIRED to pray, nor for that matter pledge alligence, to anything! but rather likewise, no one ought equaly ever to be required not to.

it is, in short, no more the bussiness of the state to disoulve belief then it is to embrase it. idealy neither should in any way influence the other, save whatever influence either may have upon the common will. no tax free churches. no use of bibles, korans, et c. to conduct everyday bussiness in congress or the court room. but certainly no turning churches and temples into musiums through eminent domain either.

you've got to understand that attempting to repress beliefs, however onerous their influence has sometimes been, can only create martyrs and the alure of forbidden fruit. the best way to deal with the errors and shortcommings of the influence of beliefs is to not give them more press and air time then they deserve.

ALLOW to pass and be no more what will, and likewise to remain what will also. but definately keep arbitrary assumptions out of the priorities that create the kind of world we all have to live in.

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I vote no cause there are some things that should remain, such as the main religion getting their major holidays as public holidays, or in Christian countries for example, the town decorating a christmas tree in the town center or whatever.

 

i said yes, i dont believe that they should require only athiest as leaders but religion & god in general should never be mentioned at all, in any connection with campains or political decisions
too often, or almost entirely religios extremists (wich includes almost all religous peoples) vote entirely based onthe religios beliefs of the candidates
in fact i believe if anyone ever tookthe time to study it i'm sure theywould find that in every case, the candidate who mentins god the most often in debatfes & campains receives about 98% of the votes from traditionaly religouse districts
ithinkit should be illegal for them to ever mention or be questioned about theyre beliefs.. to ever campain throughchurches..seeekthe endorsement of or endorse any religouse organizations publicize theyre affiliations with any religouse group or in any way make it publicaly known what theyre personal religios beliefs are
this waythey are free to believe anything they want, like we all should be but it also allows people to only vote based on how they stand on specific issues
isnt it funnythat some may say no, religion does belong in politics yet theyre the 1st to condemn other countries who mix religion & politics as evil if theyre religions differ?
iraq is fucked up because its run by religous freaks who believe in alah soare bent on destruction, but usa is ritouse because its run by religous freaks bent ondestruction that believe in jesus? its the age old struggle..my god can beat up your god
aditionaly, religion has no place in the schools or in connection with any other state cobntrolled thing..courts, mints.. or anything
religion &accepted religios views cannot dictate the facts we teach outr children, your free to take themto church & teach them to disbelieve that cavemen existed & let them decide themselves, but toteachin the schools that evolution is a myth negates any real science ..printing in god we trust on moneyonly creates the myththat all americans believe in god therefore trust the government to follow some misguided religous ly motivated path.. & inthe courts, this is thye biggest laughing point..swearring on a bible is hilarius tome..since 3/4 or more of the people swearing onthis bible..like it has the power tokeep them honnest..dont believe init to begin with..i swear to lie onthe book of lies..thats what that says to me..
ofcourse the opposite is alsotrue &the state should have noinfluence at all in whatyou choose to believe...includding funding for any organizations that proclaim any connection with any beliefs

the seperation should be absolute..yes.. but that does not in any way meanthat all politioons should havbe no beliefs

sorrythat this is fuzzy outt of fucus thinkig alittle,its 6 am & i need tosleeep
yea that goes for the typo's too
but ihope if your as braindeadd as i am you can make some sence out of it

 

Yes AND no.

Yes, because really, it IS completely separate. There is no God in the court room. There is no god in government. Not so's you'd notice. It mostly seems to be run by the OTHER GUY. So "separating" church and state would be, if nothing else, a very HONEST move...

No, because if the "state" were run more along the lines of TRUE Christianity (not the usual fake kind), then there would be things like HUMANITY and COMPASSION and KINDNESS within the system which most of us detest to greater or lesser degrees.

And THAT, Watson, is what's wrong with the world today.

Remember the days of "Leave it to Beaver" and "Andy of Mayberry"? Back when kids had TWO parents, and the family ATE together, and went to church together and someone actually CARED about their neighbors... Way-back-when, when there WAS no separation of church and state. I dunno, seems like the human race is missin' sumpthin' any more.

 

I would say its about time. I believe church and state should be forced into the sea
and BTW anyone who harks back to the age when it was all candyfloss and families and church is just wishing they were still a kid. Stand up and deal with today instead of always looking to the past for a crutch to support you. The past is dead forget the past

Its like we are horses in some race somewhere and we have jumped most of the fences - whats the point of thinking about the previous fences ?

 

THe past is what made the present what it is. How do you think you got HERE? You had to go THERE first. Think of it as a building. It won't work without the foundation. We are SUPPOSED to learn from the past. If we don't, we just keep on making the same old mistakes, plus new ones that could have been avoided if we paid attention to where we've already been. If the past is dead then we are doomed to keep on getting it wrong like a bunch of babys who know nothing.

 

My feathers family still believes in Roman Gods…
State religion is brutal interference with personal liberty…

 

How can they say church and state are seperated and start trying to take god out of schools and out of the national anthem when they wont let Rastafarian's smoke or shamans do other psychedelics

 

im an antitheist and i think everything should be secularized religion should be a backwater thing of the past in my opinion

 

yeah if you're an atheist you must be more intelligent that all those stupid religious people, young people too often think that if you say you are an atheist you must be educated, fact of the matter is most of these kids don't even know what arguments support or attack the belief of a God.

 

The OP seems to desire the presecution of religion. If a politician's religious faith is important to that person, he or she should say so.

I want a politician to have some sort of religious affiliation, but I would not vote for a militant atheist, a Moslem, a Protestant fundamentalist, or a Mormon.

A militant atheist would want to tax church property and exclude religion from the public sphere.

I would not trust the loyalty of a Moslem in the War on Terror (although I oppose the War in Iraq).

A Protestant fundamentalist believes that the universe is less than 10,000 years old. Anyone who believes that will believe anything he or she wants to believe, such as the delusions that there is no greenhouse effect, and that tax cuts balance the budget.

Joseph Smith was a religious charletan. Anyone who makes a dispassionate study of Mormonism will conclude that. Mormons, in this regard, are worse than Protestant fundamentalists. After eight years of President Bush we need political leaders who recognize truth even when the truth hurts.

 

If you want to decorate an evergreen tree to celebrate the days starting to get longer after the winter solstice that's fine, you don't have to pretend there's anything Christian about it and you don't need the approval of your town council.

 

Sadly 70% of people support a war between God and the Devil.

Did you all know that the world's greatest thinkers have all been theists?

From Copernicus to Descartes, Newton, Galileo etc etc
And every president of every Western country that I have ever heard of.

Think about it, before you make your ad hominem cynical snipe.

 

I've never seen the point why politicans in the states always have to bring up what religion they are. I have never heard of a politican in Canada say what tpye of church they belong to and have only rarely only heard whether they believe in God. I could care less about there religious ideolligy. Moreso I would be more inclinded to not vote for someone that brought it up, irregardless if they said they were Catholic, Protestant, Jehova Witness, Muslim, Hindu or athesist. It does not belong in politics period IMO.

 

that is dead wrong! most, and, i stress the word MOST of the world's greatest thinkers, have been deists, NOT theists. the theist religions, have been the greatest killing machine in all of human history! the theist religions, have murdered the deists in droves through out history. the deists religions have no blood on their hands like the theists do.

most of my nation (u.s.a.) early political leaders were deists and unitiarians. only a very, very small group of them were theists. the priniciple of seperation of religion and state (secularism), is from deism. the reason for that priniciple, is to advoid the bloodshed that, results from when state and religion are united.

 

The majority of the US will always want a politician who attends a christian church imo. I accept that as fact...so my only hope is the politicians someday actually wonder, What WOULD Jesus do? Health care for all or health care for those who can afford it? etc. etc

 

God should b the center of our lives not vanish from them completely the USA was founded by God fearing men & women who would b SHOCKED 2 c what a mess we have made in the past 250 years!!! our founding fathers gave there lives 4 their religious freedom & urz

 

where do you get your facts, friend? god fearing? no. men AND women? most certainly not. and to say that 'god' should be the CENTER of everyone's life... well... kinda contradictory to 'religious freedom'. what is your notion of this concept? the freedom to choose which denomination to give your check to?

 

religion should be outlawed altogether