Politicians' Fidelity To Denominational Teachings Is Test of Sincerity

Fred,
I still find the phrase "Not collecting stamps is not a hobby" rather....ummm confusing. Can't find such like phrases other languages I know besides my mother tongue. It is sort of a redundant statement. A phrase, "All cucumbers are vegetables, but not all vegetables are cucumbers" makes more logical sense to me.

Anyway, thanks for the English lesson. I leave you the satisfaction of having the last word on this as a native speaker of English who may know what he is talking about in his mother tongue. I still haven't got a clue.

You're really nice. Sorry to have teased you on the atheistic doctrine. I didn't realize not having a doctrine is a very important article of non-faith for atheists. And I will let it go.

Best regards Fred

Jihadist

Talking about semantics, brush up your logic: "Delusional" is a negative adjective, no? The statement therefore, being in the negative, cannot be attributed to a doctrine. It can only be attributed to the negation of a doctrine.
Again: Not collecting stamps is not a hobby.

Your "prestidigitation" is a grammatical, not even a logical one.

Fred,
Lighten up. It is just semantics.

Another go about the atheistic doctrine to get you going: "Believers of God are delusional".
And that is stating something in the affirmative, no?

The text of Al Qur'an is musical if read out loud. That is where the phrase, "There is no God but God" came from. Addictive and seductive, is it not, like a drug :)

And the world accuse Muslims of having no sense of humour.

Jihadist:

"There is no God" cannot possibly be a doctrine. A doctrine would have to state just something in the affirmative.

And your joke about the similarity between what Islam says ("There is no God but God") is a "musical" rather than a logical analogy.

FRED,
There is an atheistic doctrine.

"There is no God".

Just a slight edition of the Islamic doctrine -

"There is no God, but God" :)

There is no such thing as an atheistic doctrine.
As another contributor to this discussion said: Not collecting stamps is not a hobby.

BA'AL,
Shhhh, don't tell anyone we agree on this! LOL
I don't think I would have used the same word choice as the author did, but since we do live in a country that does have a large percentage of the population with religious faith, it is only natural that you take their faith into account. If Starhawk were to run for office where I live I would not discount her simply because she is a Wiccan for that is part of who she is, I'm more intersted in her political stands. But since this whole site is a discussion (or mindless rants) about faith of you are going to get 'faith' centered essays. I'm just impressed that they have as many people volunteering their time to subject themselves to this abuse.... er write their essays.

To Stevens-Arroyo:

And as a faithful Lutheran, such a president should stick to Luther's word in order not to be "hypocritical":

„The Jews are such a desperate, evil, poisoinous thing, that for 1400 years they have been our pain, pestilence and calamity and they still are. In short, we have real devils in them... one should burn their schools and synagogues to honour our Lord and all Christianity, so that God will see that we are Christians... destroy their homes as well.“

As an outsider, I am stunned and speechless at such a climax of stupidity of a "professor" who is allowed to spread such dangerous rubbish. If it were only silly - ok. But is venom.

bill l

The Catholic church supported the Inquisition and they forced Gallileo to repent. The writings of Aquinas, one of the 33 Doctors of the Church, defend the burning of apostates and heretics. So good luck with your denominational purity. I for one would have a bit of an issue with the whole papal infallibility thing, but that's just me.

elohist

Oh I get it. Stevens-Arroyo says that one who is not a purely orthodox devotee of a sect is a hypocrite. There is no chance anytime soon that we will fail to hear about the religious views of a candidate -- I am nothing if not realistic. But what is at issue here is the idea that one who rejects, say, the Catholic dogma on the use of condoms is not qualified to be President of the US. That absurd position seems to be what the Stevens-Arroyo test requires. Read what he writes again -- the title of the essay is "Politicians' Fidelity To Denominational Teachings Is Test of Sincerity".

I frankly prefer that my leaders think a bit more freely than the Taliban, which is the logical extension of the Stevens-Arroyo position -- which requires Catholics to support the Inquisition, the banning of every birth control method that has any effectiveness, and a host of other medieval world views.

And, Mr. Stevens-Arroyo, if I were a Catholic, which fortunately I am not, I would pass your test (the Nazis had a test for the "Gesinnung", the convictions, of people) only if I remained loyal to such superstitious, murderous rubbish.

Bill L.

The catholic church to this day has a special administrative who is concerned with exorcism. In Germany, a couple of years ago, the catholic clergy tortured an epileptic girl (a student, Anneliese Michel) to death trying to pull the "evil spirit" out of her. They clergy was later convicted.

So, Bill L., unfortunately you will have to go to hell unless you repent a possible disbelief in such a murderous practice.

We live in the Middle Ages, let's face it.

Up here in northern New England, it's considered bad form, inappropriate, and reprehensible for a political candidate to talk about his religious affiliation and religious beliefs. Any candidate who does talk about them is almost certain to lose more votes than he gains.

There are good reasons for this Yankee disparagement of religion-talk by politicians.

First, political campaigns are supposed to be about public political issues, not theology.

Second, whatever a candidate's religious beliefs or affiliation, knowing them will tell the voter nothing about how the candidate will deal with particular issues, and so that knowledge is irrelevant to an evaluation of his candidacy.

Third, a candidate's mentioning his religious beliefs or affiliation turns the discussion away from public issues and to a debate on the merits of various religions. The candidate is basically saying. "Vote for me, I'm a (for example) Catholic, not one of those (for example) Blue-nosed Protestants."

Instead of debating the best way to fix potholes, the debate becomes "Which ethnic or social group do you identify and feel more comfortable with?" This is not good for politics, as centuries of religious warfare have shown. Not to mention that fixing potholes never gets discussed.

Fourth, just as patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, religiosity is the last refuge of scoundrel politicians.

I'll never vote for any politician who voluntarily starts talking about his religion. Fortunately most of the people in northern New England feel the same way.

Let the clap-trap of political religion-talk stay in the Bible-belt.

Ba'al, you don't understand. As a Catholic I make a vow to God and Church that I will uphold and embrace all the doctrines and teachinds of the Church. If I should publically {or privately for that matter} deny a doctrine of the Church I automatically excommunicate myself because I bring scandle to the Church and sin against God. A Catholic may not hold a position opposed to the morals of the Church and still call themselves Catholic unless they repent.

Why don't you get it Ba'al? The article proposes more freedom and information for voters, so they can choose rationally. If they want someone religious they can vote for them, if they don't, they can vote against them. What's wrong with freedom? If you want to force your one dimensional thinking on everybody else, you're anti-democratic and like the extremists can be safely ignored. By the way, "religious test" in the constitution is about a law prohibiting people from running such as was in force in England at the time. It has nothing to do with information about a candidate or about taking away a person's freedom to practice or not the religious of their choice

Greg,

Thanks for the kind words. I agree with the substance of your last post. Let me add that every politician running for high office has a track record. That means we can and should see if they walk the walk (whatever we think that walk should be). Arguably, we should pay less attention to the talk they talk -- since people are known to lie. A little bit of googling can reveal all sorts of insincerity on the part of several current candidates, and this without introducing religion into the picture.

Fortunately there are always a few who stand up to pretty close scrutiny. I would never want to reject them on religious grounds.

Let's test Mitt Romney's denominational loyalty. Is he loyal to the belief that people of color are that way because of curse of God? Does he believe gays can be *cured* with torturous electroshock therapy? These are the denominational beliefs of the Mormons. Maybe loyalty to these denominational beliefs will make Romney an evil and bigoted President - as if this country needs another in addition to the present one.

What is this nonsense? Religion is this world's greatest enemy - turning rational humans into mindless killers for some imaginary fantasy...when will it end?

Really, not an expert, but as life-long a Southern Baptist, I can tell you that your test won't work for us (as much as some in the national leadership would like it to!). Yes, we go with biblical inerrancy and its status as "God-breathed", but an important facet of our faith is the idea of the preisthood of believers. 2 Baptists can read the Bible and walk away with diferent conclusions on many issues, and even though the national leadership will promote various positions based on the votes of delegates to the national convention, an individual Baptist can disagree. 30 years ago, Baptists were moderate to liberal, but after the surge to the right of the past 15 years, I would guess you'd expect a "sincere" Baptist to be very right of center, even though the last 2 Baptist presidents were Carter and Clinton!

BA'AL
What it becomes is a way to see if the canidate is says what he means and means what he says. If a canidate is a Muslim (I think we have a muslim congressman now) then his votes on social issues should reflect that faith. If an anthiest states certain moral values then his/her votes need to reflect that. Does that make sense? If you ran for office and made claims about your moral fiber I want proof of that fiber in your actions. Because politicans are public figures as soon as they play the 'faith' card they need to walk the walk.

For many people of faith, that faith is a guide book of sorts for how they are to live and act. Can we agree on that? Tom Cruise is a Scientologist and is supposed to live according to those values in his belief system (of which I am pretty ignorant)

Not all politicans play the faith card. Gerald Ford refused to, even though Jimmy Carter was very open about his faith. But Ford's actions speak far louder if you consider his pardon of Nixon.

http://thepoint.breakpoint.org/2007/01/farewell_to_for.html

And thank you for your civil tone, it makes discussions such as this far easier to have and enjoyable to participate in.

The point of true representative is somewhat undemocratic, but proportional representation may not produce definite winners. With a complex mass, seeking a majority can encourage polarized voting according to such patterns as race, religion, gender, economic status etc. It has also been demonstrated by the amount of funds raised during campaigns, the winner may have an advantage of influence over the population because of its resource. As it was, a minority view (of the rich) won over the majority to carry out unfavourable reforms or major foreign policy. On the other hand, no one may totally agree on a proportional outcome, but most voters would at least have some portion of his/her goals achieved.

In other words, we cannot all be men, or women, or homosexuals, or believers and or atheists. But we can share whatever common objective we may agree with, the common good. Depending on the electoral system, modern elections don't produce winners. They tend to produce those who are able to work with differences and in alliance. It is the difference between multiculture and monoculture.

Professor,

Are you proposing that a "good" candidate should say "I follow the dictates of my religion, right or wrong"?

If so, then just as "Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels" ["My country right or wrong"], then religion becomes the last refuge of political scoundrels.

Is this really what you want?

It is difficult to know a hypocite. Sometimes we find out too late. Jesus Speaks to this in Matthew 7

15Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

16Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

17Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

18A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

19Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

20Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

BGone, please Begone. Your endless tiresome, boring, rambly relevant and rarely that, vapid spamming for your own website is a blot on THIS website. There really needs to be better moderation. And you need to be moderated right off it. You contribute nothing more than distracting noise.

Greg

But implicit in his remarks is the notion that a candidate must be "correct" with respect to all the positions of his or her denomination or he/she is a hypocrite. That is still a religious test. Let's imagine a candidate who grew up Roman Catholic, feels spiritually connected to those rituals, but rejects papal infallibility and is even pro-choice. Would that disqualify this person for office? Professor Arroyo-Stevens seems to view such people with great suspicion.

If Mr. Dodd, for example, is asked the question suggested in the essay above, my hope is that he would reply that his faith is a personal matter and nobody's business but his own, but that he is pro-choice. Mr. Brownback on the other hand, is running on a platform of "bringing God back into our society".

While we are on the subject of Brownback, it bears noting he was co-sponsor of the following bill last year (but straight out of the middle ages):

Senate Bill 520 "Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Supreme Court shall not have jurisdiction to review, by appeal, writ of certiorari, or otherwise, any matter to the extent that relief is sought against an element of Federal, State, or local government, or against an officer of Federal, State, or local government (whether or not acting in official personal capacity), by reason of that element's or officer's acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government."

That is creepy, there is not other word for it. But Mr. Brownback is nothing if not consistent and I would not be surprised if he passed the Stevens-Arroyo test, while Dodd would not.

Sorry, I posted the above comment.

This guy said this:

"Rather than worrying about using or not using the word “God” in a speech, I would want to test a politician’s degree of denominational loyalty."

Wow. There's goes the constitution again.

Why are religious people so verbose and simplistic? Are they really that stupid? Can't we get to the point of the question? I would frame the issue this way:

People who find comfort in any political candidate's religious beliefs are stupid, weak and lazy by nature. Candidates who use their religious beliefs or practice public piety must be recognized as the hypocritical disgrace and insult they truly are to rest of us. Public prayer is not only unconstitutional, it's unAmerican.

Thank you.

BA'Al,
What he was typing is that he wants to see if the faith the canidate 'claims' is the same faith he/she lives. If the two mesh to a large degree then they're for real. If they don't mesh to a large degree then the word hypocrite comes to mind. If they're not honest about their faith then what else are they going to be dishonest about?

Fundamentally, what the Professor is proposing -- a criterion based on denominational loyalty -- is a religious test. It is not a strict test, like "you must believe in Jesus and you can't be a Muslim", but it is still a test.

It is truly appalling (but not surprising given this Panalist's earlier essays) that anyone would actually make such an argument with a straight face.

Also, this guy should be advised to stick to Latino studies and theology, because when he talks about science he is incapable of writing prose that is precise enough to be coherent or to be taken seriously.

A sufficient statement by my candidates would be: "I follow the Eight Commandments" i.e. the non-God commandments plus "I love my neighbor as myself".

What details is Devil in? http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul says Devil is the supernatural being that's worshipped, honored, adored, glorified and His agents collect His fee at chirch.

Have you ever wondered why the gold taken by the Conquistadors isn't returned to Mexico? We know who has it, the Catholic church, Spain, France, Rome... The Conquistadors needed it to pay Devil's fee else all the robbing and killing required to take the gold would have sent them to hell.