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Nekromanda — Stamp: So stay out of politics, right?
Published: 2013-01-04 06:36:09 +0000 UTC; Views: 1055; Favourites: 30; Downloads: 2
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Was reading some religious literature today and came across a section that talks about God's kingdom, where they quoted John 18:36:Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
They go on to explain:
"No matter what country they live in, Jesus' true followers are subjects of his heavenly Kingdom and thus maintain strict neutrality in the world's political affairs. They take no part in its conflicts... ... worshippers do not interfere with what others choose to do about joining a political party, running for office, or voting. And while God's true worshippers are neutral regarding politics, they are law-abiding. Why? Because God's Word commands them to "be in subjection" to the governmental "superior authorities." (Romans 13:1)."
So basically, in order to do what Jesus says, technically you're supposed to be neutral in politics. At least, that's what I'm gathering from this.
What are your thoughts? If you're a Christian, is this part of the bible supposed to be taken literally? If not, how do you tell what is supposed to be taken literally or not?
I might not reply to all comments, but I do try to read every one!
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Comments: 24
Perhaps not literally, as we can all have our own way of interpreting the bible, but I would personally call myself neutral in certain politics like elections or abortion, mostly since I don't know what to believe within some topics.
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There's also the whole "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and Render unto God what is God's (Matthew 22:22)" thing...
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Don't know how I Know that
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Haha, no, I don't think so.
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Aren't Christians supposed to be ascetics, like Sadhus? If you follow Jesus' words, you have to essentially abandon everything and everyone and live for God alone.
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I'm sure there's some loophole, possibly involving Jesus fulfilling some prophecy or something, that is used to avoid all that. Kind of how like Christians don't HAVE to be circumcised, or HAVE to eat shrimp (but gays, they're not allowed!).
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There's always a loophole. No matter how specific something is stated, Christians are going to find an excuse to dismiss it. People will find any excuse to avoid following the words of their gods and prophets when a quote doesn't suit their interests.
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It also talks in the bible about God helping good kings, and helping armies win battles.
Kings and armies aren't of the realm of heaven either, but they had God's favor just as well.
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first off , how did you know i was in the mood to flex my philosophical muscles? At any rate i think if this neutrality is practiced in politics then it also extends to civil issues such as; gay rights , gun control, abortion and the death penalty since these are highly political subjects.
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If you read the whole chapter of Romans 13, it's nothing more than Paul instructing the Roman Christians (who were persecuted throughout the empire at the time) to focus more on fulfilling the law of God, and to continue being citizens of Rome while remaining Christian; he does not say "stay out of politics for good". These instructions were meant to encourage Christians to live anywhere in the world in order to spread God's Word and such despite the local laws, not to say "Stay quiet and let the non-Christians handle it".
If that were so, then Catholics and other Christians would have done wrong to fight against the Nazi regime in WW2, and Christians in restrictive countries would have to allow themselves to be killed for worshiping God instead of fighting for their rights.
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Well, no. Thats not accurate, in fact, the very 1st verse of Romans 13 reads: "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God."
It says exactly that; that politics is irrelevant, and that anyone in a position of power is only there because God allows or encourages it.
Also, the bit about Nazi's is kind of a moot point regarding Christianity, seeing as the 3rd Reich was a Christian theocratic empire.
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Actually, Hitler and the rest of the Nazis were anti-religious. This person here explains it well: [link] And a blog here lists various quotes with sources showing quotes of Hitler and his anti-Christian agenda. He was not atheist, but his religion was Nazism.
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1. [link] [link] No they werent, far from it.
2. Using the "No true Scottsman" approach doesnt help. He believed, and just because Hitler acted in ways you dont like in no way negates what he said, wrote, and displayed before and after his rise to power.
3. The Bible itself says all sins are forgiven by belief: Acts 16:20-35, 1 John 1:1-10.
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1 and 2: You kinda missed the point that Hitler said one thing to appease the people, but believed another. Thanks.
3: Sins are forgiven by genuine belief and acceptance of Jesus, not to mention to love him and to spread his message of love and charity. To love Jesus means to love everyone else and care for them as Jesus did. Simple belief with no good works is considered dead or weak, and good works without faith is seen as useless for the individual. Likewise, being saved by grace/faith is seen as wasted if you keep sinning. You can read that in Galatians 5:13-26, Ephesians 2:1-10, Romans 6:1-2, 1 John 1:6-7, James 2:14-26, etc.
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Can you prove Hitler believed things other than what he said? His actions and connections to various churches, his connections to the RCC (including inviting Bishops who supported his regime to the gas chambers), his baptism and religious upbringing arent indicative of different beliefs. If you can show something that demonstrates otherwise I'd like to see it.
Well, I guess the Bible contradicts itself, in the passages I linked in my last reply, it said that good works are always either weak, or practically negligent compared to faith. Also, Galatians 5:13-26 doesnt quite say what you think. Neither does Ephesians 2:1-10, in fact it contradicts that statement in verse 8: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.". I think you should read 1 John 1:5-10, because that contradicts you too in verse 8-10: "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us."
It only says what you claim when you ignore the verses that say otherwise.
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Sadly, this message seems to have been lost. Especially in the way of interfering with human rights. It's truly sad, because I do believe there are many good Christians out there, but those few are shadowed by the many voices that scream out their hatred with louder voices, because those who are truly practicing their dogma to the letter are not speaking up, and thus they are getting a bad name in spite of it not being their fault. Truthfully though, it's such a sticky subject. I believe religion should be kept out of politics, but the human race is so engulfed in religion. Our morals, and points of view, rather we want them to be or not are affected by religious belief (even if it's not their own belief). The idea of right and wrong is such a controversial issue, because what's right for one society is seen as wrong to another, and a vice versa. So keeping political beliefs out of politics is truly a difficult issue to tackle, because even non-theists have a tendency towards holding theistic ideals. Ideas of right and wrong, beliefs of this and that, and they might not even realize it. And when religion is SO ingrained into our society like it is, it's hard for many people to even realize that their beliefs do stem from a religious background.
And then how do we decide what is religion and what is not? For example, 'Do good.' This seems a really easy thing to say, and seems not to have any religious connotation, but then, who decides what's good? Who decides what's bad? Is it good to steal? What circumstances makes it good? And who gets to make this judgement? How can that be made universal? Is it good to kill someone because they wronged you? Or because they wronged someone else? What is good and what is bad? Moral reasoning becomes much more difficult when dogma and creed is taken out, because creed has played a major role in the laws (as unjust as many of them are) formation.
Then there is another question, without religion, will all the problems we see in politics really be solved? A person doesn't need religion to be a greedy corporate snob, or to think that sex between two men is evil. Granted the latter is often brought on by religion, there are plenty of non-religious individuals I've met who are opposed to gay rights because "biologically it doesn't work" - of course I counter that the prostate is within penis reach and thus works the same with the female anatomy, but that is hardly a concern to many people who look at science and also use it to justify why sodomy is 'bad.' Another example is often brought up in Dystopian novels, where religion is void, and the world becomes run on the idea of procreation and money. Sex isn't based on love, because there is no scientific proof of love, rather science says love is an illusion created on endorphines released from the brain into the body. Some could argue that love is a very religious ideal.
Of course, there is always looking at societies such as Sweden, where religion is "theoretically" put on the back burner, and human rights are put first, but will taking religion out of politics really make society more like Sweden, or will we be looking more at V for Vendetta? And when does something become a religion? When a mass of people start believing in the same thing, when does it move away from non-theistic to theistic?
Of course I am not advocating for religion to be with politics, however, I think that in our current time and place in the world, it would be unrealistic to actually remove it. And I wonder if it would really do much good. There are still greedy, corrupt men and women who are non-theistic who have their voices in politics, often overshadowing other voices. Of course the same is true that there are often good, caring, and compassionate religious individuals in politics who have made amazing leaps and bounds for human rights in the last ten years.
So in conclusion, I guess what I'm saying, is that it's a truly sticky issue, this one of politics and religion. Because in the end, men and women on this earth are making the choices, and humanity has a tendency for greed and corruption over love and benevolence. Our history has shown us this. So I do not believe there really is one right answer to this quandary.
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I’m sure there are plenty of good Christians in the world. It seems like it’s usually the worst who are the noisiest and who draw the most attention. It would be nice if some of the good ones decided that enough was enough – that they could no longer allow the idiots among them to speak for them. But I don’t think that will happen.
Religion is everywhere, that’s true. It does affect people’s decision making, and while I find that particularly worrying in cases of some of the US’s politicians (President Bush, for example, believed that God was telling him to free the middle east), they still have that right to believe what they will. That doesn’t mean that we can’t hold them to a standard, though.
The concepts of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ seem to transcend religion, and they’re understood across cultures all over the world. In general, we seem to understand that it’s not in our best interest as a society to kill each other – that’s something that can be observed without divine revelation. I think that by complicating morality by introducing divine judgement (and even then, which divine judgement? Jehovah’s? Anubis’? Minos’?) we’re cheapening our own reasoning capabilities – saying that we’re just too stupid to create and understand concepts as complex as law and punishment, therefore we must accept the commandments of higher powers which obviously know what’s best for us, since they are higher beings than us lowly creatures.
I do not believe that all the problems we see in politics will be solved without religion. You are entirely correct in that people don’t need religion to be what we have come to call ‘evil’ – we can do that just fine on our own! And it’s that sort of behaviour that, I think, just goes to show that we’re complex creatures that are capable of understanding our man-made concepts of right and wrong. The general sense of morality changes over time as a result of what we as a people do. There was a time when what we term domestic violence now was widely accepted as normal (‘To the moon, Alice!’ – The Honeymooners). We no longer view slavery as acceptable. We are now evolving socially to view homosexuality as not only tolerable, but also completely normal, just as normal as heterosexuality. It changes over time.
When it comes down to it, the founding fathers of America intended for the country to be run with a secular government that didn’t prefer one religion over the others. When politicians argue, for example, against climate change by quoting the Bible and insisting that terrible things won’t happen because God made a promise to Noah after the flood that he wouldn’t, they’re not only embarrassing themselves and those who voted them in, but they’re crossing a line that wasn’t meant to be crossed.
You’re right in that religion is a long ways away from disappearing, though. I’m sure it’ll always be there – it’s exciting to be in a religion. It’s nice to feel like you’re the centre of the world, that the universe (or whatever supreme entity which one might believe made it) would stop everything just for a second to appreciate you, to tend to your needs, regardless of how insignificant we as a people – or even, as a planet – are, in the grand scale of things. People will always yearn for that feeling one can get from believing that they have a personal relationship with some eternal being, and there’s probably nothing we can do to stop that wanting. In the end, so long as people aren’t using their religion’s lore/laws/beliefs to make laws or oppress people, I’m totally fine with people being religious and involved in politics.
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See, if theists actually followed the sensible parts of their vile little holy book, then there'd be no reason to stand up against them.
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Not all theists are Christians though, and many theistic religions do keep themselves out of politics. At least to a point. I definitely agree, however, that religion and politics should be separated entirely! Especially when it comes to the hatred that many religious views fester.
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I find that where there are theists, there generally tends to be some obnoxious little holy book from thebronze ages. I generalized, but not terribly so.
Agreed. Secularism is the only way to guarantee religious tolerance.
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"But we're not supposed to take the bible literally, it is only a guide on how we should live our lives, like a map." Then why do they take Leviticus 18:22- 20:13 literally when the subject of same sex marriage comes up?
"Because if same-sex was allowed it'd lead to the downgrade of society." Just take a look at the societies with a very strong sense of religion, look at how fucked up that shit is? "Well they're not part of the one true religion? Our religion would never do that is it was established by the government." The crusades, the persecution of Catholics and protestants due to king Henry the 8th family were divided by two different religions even though they worshiped the SAME GOD, the persecution, assimilation and extermination of indigenous people. They're pretty much committing the same bullshit, denying human being their right because they're doing something that goes against their "truth". They won't admit that once they were in charge and fucked up some major shit.
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