Friday, May 23, 2008

Well… for history for the past two weeks I’ve been reading a book titled The Godless Constitution. It’s a good book, has a lot of interesting points, I believe the thesis statement (the Constitution of the US, is, for better or for worse, a paper that makes no mention of God and leaves God out of the state), however, this disturbs me… I’ll tell you why really soon.

First off, one of the guys that really influenced the Founding Fathers of the US is a guy called John Locke (yes, LOST fans, I think I know where they got the name from, lol) anyways… he had some good ideas, but I think he went to far in his theories and didn’t take a moment to think what the full extent of those theories would have led to. Basically he wanted a Godless State, because he had seen what a Godfull (umm… what is the opposite of Godless? :D) State had done to Europe… the dozens of DREADFUL wars of religion (a really nice and bloody one was the Dutch war for Independence…) and so he came to the conclusion that religion + the state = bad. Now… I think I understand him, and I agree with him on one level, but at another level I disagree with him. Here’s why:

I think that Locke has a lot of good ideas. I also understand how he came to his radical ideas seeing what the state of Europe was at the time. BUT I disagree with his statements. I believe that when the government is made completely godless, as Locke seems to want it, then the nation itself will become godless. I’m not sure if Locke wanted this, or didn’t think this would happen (I’m sure for a person living in his time the idea of no religion was impossible to comprehend). And so… we have a problem. To this day the best morals come from holy texts and their religions. All of the religions I have experience (Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam) at some point or another encourage morals. Yes, many of them are, to me, immoral (like Islamic laws dealing with women) but they are there, at some point or another. And so, when we create a secular state, it is necessary to have laws, a state without laws is pointless! And yet, if we do, indeed, create a truly “godless” state then where do our laws come from? Even if we base them off of what the Enlightenment people of the age called “natural law” we are still using Deism, a religion! I find that when we remove God and religion from the state, for better or worse, then we remove any and all reason to obey the state and its law other than the fact that the state is bigger, stronger and smarter than you. In short, you have created the greatest monster one can imagine, a demon of supreme power who forces you to do his bidding, not because he is right, but because he has become your God.

I think this is what has/is happened/ing in the West. We have replaced the religion of Christianity with others, Islam is becoming popular (one of the fastest growing religions in the world!) and then we have Atheism and Science, which contain either no morals (Atheism gives me no morals other than the ones that I myself choose… hmm… not good? Same with Science, really) and Islam, well, I’ve already explained my view of Islam. When we remove God from the government we are admitting that God has no place in the public sector, and thus whatever rules or morals God has given us are pointless and irrelevant! THIS IS A LIE OF SATAN!

Yep… that’s what I say… at the base of Locke’s theory, we end up with the worst type of state imaginable… Communism! (yes… I believe Communism is evil… hard not to considering what Mao, Lenin, and Stalin did!).

However, this gives us a problem… how do we combine religion with politics, which, as I’ve said, don’t mix… wars of religion anyone? Jihad? The Crusades? With a nation that has a good set of morals…

Oh well… I’ll think about… if you can, email me (masterofweirdness at gmail dot com) or post a comment here! If I don’t know you… make sure you tell me it was this blog post that you read! I'll write more on Locke later...


4 comments:

Manwathiel said...

Fascinating post on a fascinating subject, Isaac. I think, for the most part, that I agree with you.
I think that the biggest problem with mixing religion with politics is that not everyone is a member of the same religion, quite obviously. Unless we want to really split up into countries *entirely* composed of Christians, another country *entirely composed of Muslims, etc, combining religion with politics isn't going to work on a large scale... And even if we were to split up there would still be arguments in those groups (a classic example is the warfare between Protestants and Catholics--both people who called themselves "Christians"--throughout history). I also tend to think that many of the times when supposed "Christians" massacred others, that they were not true Christians.
Annnddd...that probably made no sense. Thank you for your post, Isaac.
~Manwathiel

Isaac, the masterofweirdness said...

right... but then we face the problem of the government not being allowed, because they cannot mix politics with religions, of dealing with really messed up religions... ones that tell you go go around and kill everyone you don't like or whatever... how do with deal with these religions and at the same time remain neutral when by speaking against them we have chosen our side... we can't...

Manwathiel said...

I know! Really... Is there a good compromise between mixing religion with politics and no religion in politics? I'm rather inclined to think that there is no solution to the problem... A rather pessimistic view of mine...

Isaac, the masterofweirdness said...

There is a solution... assume that, no matter what, we must follow the beliefs of Christianity. This means that we will (will!) allow other people to believe what they wish so long as they do not comprimise the basic principles of Biblical Law. When they do, they are punished according to the laws of the land, as they should.

of course, what is Christanity, and what are Biblical Laws and etc... that's where we run into another hard part...


Anyways... it is all messed up...