Hi DMB, all,
On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 3:29 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: > > Steve axed: > What other examples of theocracy besides obligatory religious overtures in > Presidential addresses do you see? The attempt to get creationism taught in > science classes is certainly one attempt at theocracy (imposing Christianity > upon nonChristians) through democratic means. Can you suggest some others? > > dmb says: > Oh, there certainly isn't a shortage of example. Took about 5 seconds to find > one: ... > MANDERS: Is there any reason at all for an abortion? > ANGLE: Not in my book. > MANDERS: So, in other words, rape and incest would not be something? > ANGLE: You know, I’m a Christian, and I believe that God has a plan and a > purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of > situations and we need to have a little faith in many things." > > To use Sharon Angle's analogy, being raped by your father is a "lemon > situation" and we ought to make it into a "lemonade situation" by using the > government to force the pregnant woman to bare her rapist's child. Nice, huh? Steve: Like you, I disagree with Angle's view, and I agree that note well that her position is definitely religiously motivated. It is theistic, but I'm not sure that I see anything theocratic here. Isn't theocracy more than merely holding political views influenced by commitments to religious beliefs? If someone believes that we ought to devote a greater proportion of the federal budget to foreign aid on the justification that we are called to such charitable acts by the example of Jesus, is that a version of theocracy? By "theocrat", I suppose I am referring to wanting to rule or to be ruled by God's representatives on earth, endorsing The Divine Right Party. When someone says that they support a particular action because they think it is what is right and are willing to participate in the exchange of reasons in support of their position but there reasons happen to be stated in a religious vocabulary, we aren't necessarily looking at theocracy at work. (Or are we?) On the other hand, when Bush told us that God wants him to be President, tacitly claiming a divine endorsement for _whatever_ he might do, and later justified going to war in Iraq in part because God wanted him to, thats a theocrat. He sought to be viewed as a representative of God on earth, and he subverted democratic means to achieve such theocractic ends. I'm wonderring where to draw the line so that MLK is viewed as committed Christian and committed democrat while Bush is revealled as a sometimes theocrat who undermined democracy. How ought a religious person work within democratic means to promote their conception of the good so as not to be a theocrat? Best, Steve Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
