America is overdosing on religion: How the presidential election got taken over...

[trotsky]

(headline cont'd) ...by theocrats and zealots

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/21/america_is_overdosing_on_religion_how_the_presidential_election_got_taken_over_by_theocrats_and_zealots/

Although someday I’d like to run for my local school board, I doubt I ever will. The single biggest factor holding me back (in my own mind) is the fact that I’m an outspoken atheist. I’m not only “out of the closet”; I’ve also written quite a lot that can be mined for nuggets to discredit me as a human being. No matter what the Constitution says, there remains a powerful, de facto religious test for public office, and it has bubbled up to the surface this election far worse than usual in the form of breathtaking religious pandering and bigotry. The establishment in both the Republican and Democratic parties, it seems, is hell bent on wringing the last bit of religious exploitation out of an angry, unruly electorate.

The presidential race is overflowing with offensive religious nonsense. Donald Trump is making fumbling overtures to the religious right, and condemning a billion Muslims solely because of their religion. Ted Cruz is playing to the most regressive form of Christianity, all but declaring non-Christians anti-American. Hillary Clinton won’t stop waxing poetic about prayer, and, although an understandable strategy, Bernie Sanders has tied himself into knots to infuse humanism with as much religion as possible. And yet, even the faithful should be offended at the central role religion has taken in this presidential election.

...

Candidates during this election cycle have been desperately trying to out-Jesus one another—on the right and the left. Large minorities of the Democratic Party are atheists, agnostics or no religion in particular. Yet our party can’t be bothered to even try to speak to us. The “me-too” religiosity is stark, ugly and endless.

...

By now, most people are aware of the Pew Study of Religion in America, which shows how we are a diverse country of all faiths and no faiths. Millennial voters are much less likely to belong to organized religion. Non-affiliated people (often called “nones”) are 22 percent of America. Even if you include only atheists and agnostics, we are seven percent of the electorate, outnumbering Jews, Mormons and Hindus combined, yet we are not worth even a casual pander. Every time a candidate trumps his or her faith or insinuates the supremacy of religion over non-faith, they divide and insult us. To divide a population by religious belief is to perpetuate the hate and suspicion that has burned heretics, caused forced conversions and launched pointless wars.

[DetlefK]

1. The preferential treatment of religion never ceases to amaze me.

One would think that an institution that old and that dominant would have some basis, some credentials, some references...

Instead, there is nothing to prove religious claims. Neither in scientific evidence nor in philosophy.
And the credentials of religion don't look that swell as well, taking into account all the horrible things that were justified by religion.
And the only reference religion can give as to why we should listen to religion is the material itself has produced.

Imagine a person like this applying for a job:
Has no documents to back up his self-aggrandizing claims. Has done bad things. When asked for references, he stresses that the only person you need to talk to is him himself.

And yet, despite being merely a hollow and comforting self-delusion, religion keeps being treated as an authority, simply because it has always been treated as an authority. "The way things are supposed to be."




What I would REALLY like to happen is to have a court take a legal stance on religion. Any stance, just to kickstart the discussion:
"If a religious law says one thing and secular law says another thing, which trumps?"
"Why do I have the religious freedom to treat homosexuals like shit but not the religious freedom to take unbelievers as slaves?"
"Why are some religious laws and customs okay and others are not? Which religious laws and customs trump secular law and which don't? Who makes that decision and what guidelines are used to determine the value of a religious law?"




Just the other day, a scammer was arrested: People would pay him to have his employees praying for their well-being. The attorney-general was outraged that he had taken advantage of the religious beliefs of others. But how was this in any way different from what churches are doing day in day out?

A few months ago, I read an article by a female pastor how she had attended a Mega-Church. She described how she had made a scene there and then and openly denounced the disgusting and greedy money-grubbers during service... only to end her article with a plea to not denounce these scamming and manipulative Mega-Churches as un-christian. What they are doing is horrible and wrong, but thou shalt not call them out on it because they are Christians.

[Cartoonist]

2. I want my pander

Even if you include only atheists and agnostics, we are seven percent of the electorate, outnumbering Jews, Mormons and Hindus combined, yet we are not worth even a casual pander.

Until this happens, America is a Christian theocracy.

[Angry Dragon]

3. I think it is time for all of them to produce this god they

claim to obey
They claim they do what their god tells them to do then I say produce this so called advisor

[Arugula Latte]

8. Oh, I'm sure Jesus will be along aaaany day now.

He's just running a bit late, by, you know, only several centuries...

[Angry Dragon]

9. good to know

[rug]

4. Fuck Ron Paul.

Salon’s Edwin Lyngar

It takes a certain mindset to seriously consider Trump a theocrat.

[struggle4progress]

5. Lyngar is searching hard for a club that will have him as a member

[rug]

6. Looks like he's found at least 13.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. He doesn't call Trump a 'theocrat' at all - I guess you didn't read it

The people he calls theocrats are Franklin Graham and Ted Cruz.

What he actually calls Trump is "a heathen if ever there were one". He laughs at Trump's attempts to pander to the Christian right.

And if you want to know Lyngar's current politics:

I volunteered to be the Bernie Sanders precinct captain at my caucus location in Reno. Our precinct ended up as a tie of 4 delegates each for Clinton and Sanders. Because of the tie, the final delegate was assigned (as is Nevada tradition) by drawing cards. It so happened that my daughter was standing with my wife in the Hillary Clinton group, and my son was with me caucusing for Bernie. With one of my kids on each side of the divide, they were selected to draw. My son outdrew my daughter by a six of clubs to a five of spades, giving Bernie the delegate. Even when the process works, it’s an anachronism better suited to the Wild West than reality, and our precinct was far more organized than most. We were out far sooner than many other precincts in the city.

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/01/the_final_delegate_was_assigned_by_drawing_cards_inside_the_absurd_headscratching_mess_of_the_nevada_caucus/

His recent Salon articles: http://www.salon.com/writer/edwin_lyngar/

Perhaps he did used to support Ron Paul, but there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents, etc. I'd have thought you would be glad to see a strong Democrat linked to on DU. Or does his atheism override that, so that it required 'oppo research' to smear him?

[rug]

10. The most cynical theocrat is one who doesn't believe any of it.

But is still a theocrat.

I remember what I was doing in 2008. Pardon my skepticism.

Fuck Ron Paul. And his delegates.