Do Democrats need to use religion more ?

[kentuck]

Thanks to Buzzflash for a great interview!
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http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/05/02/int05008.html

<snip>
Jim Wallis: The right is very comfortable with the language of faith and values and God and faith. In fact, they think they own it sometimes, or almost own religion or own God.

And then they narrow everything to one or two hot-button social issues, as if abortion and gay marriage are the only two moral values questions. And those are important issues and they need a deeper, wider conversation – kind of a moral discussion on all sides. That’s fine.

But did anybody really suggest or imagine these are the only two moral values issues? I’m an Evangelical Christian and I find 3,000 verses in the Bible on the poor, so fighting poverty is a moral value too, or protecting the environment – protecting God’s creation is a moral value. The ethics of war – whether we go to war, how we go to war, whether we tell the truth about the war – are fundamental moral and religious questions.

So the right wing narrows and restricts, and a broader, deeper conversation would really challenge the agenda of the right which values wealth over work, and favors the rich over the poor, and basically in foreign policy, sees war as a first resort and not a last resort.

....more

[ck4829]

1. Yes

We need to say that 'Religion should not be corrupted by the government'. That will form an argument that no Christian Rightist could refute.

[seabeyond]

2. only to say how religion is being abused and christianity

is not being walked. an honest discussion of the abuse of christianity all around the nation. so many of our children being brainwashed in a huge attempt by the adults preforming and creating youth warror christians. the hate needs to be exposed. right now people are such sheep and cannot see, but there is so much abuse, and so obvious, i am finding it easier to say a little, and it be really clear how we are shaming ourselves in our christianity.

[bryant69]

3. Yep. This is a great point.

We need to make religion mean more than anti-Gay and anti-Abortion. We can't win if we let those be the only issues that matter in a religious sense. I don't think changing our stances on those issues to fit in with conservatives will get us anywhere.

But, by the same token, we shouldn't concede the ground.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[NewJeffCT]

5. I agree with you

I'm an atheist, but I can see the need to speak more about true Christian values - helping the sick, the poor & those that can't help themselves, giving to charity, etc. I see a lot more of that in the Bibles I've looked through than I saw on gay marriage or abortion.

[bunkerbuster1]

4. Is a bear Catholic?

If a pope shits in the woods and nobody's there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Of COURSE we need to organize, via "voter's guides" and suchlike within the more sympathetic Christian denominations (and at mosques and synagogues, of course).

And of COURSE we need to call a CHINO a CHINO and expose these RW rats as the evil anti-Christians that they are.

[ken-in-seattle]

6. perhaps:

But the tendancy to whip out self serving statements that show they are just as ignorant of religion as any wingnut does not help.

The theocrats will denigrate anyone who strays from genesis/leviticus/revalation exclusively.

I think Clark gets it right.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/136/story_13636.html

[Hunter_1253]

7. Religion is used...

to much in politics as so as it is. Democrats need to show that religion is a personal choice for people, and that the government supports your right to practice it all you want. We also support people's right to not practice it, practice non-Christian religions, and frankly not care about religion one way or the other. The Republicans have made religion an issue just so they can polarize people into thinking that if you are a "true Christian", you have to vote republican even if you don't agree with all of their principals (ex. screwing the poor, screwing the elderly, screwing the children, taking jobs away from Americans for more profit, death penalty, wars for oil, wars for the sake of profiteering, etc.) If Democrats, or at least some of the more vocal of us, keep trashing all religion just because some fundy nutjobs keep inciting us, we'll be looked at as completely anti-religious, which truly goes against our collective principle of tolerance for individual choice.

[Toucano]

8. "Use" religion?

Like a tool?

Interesting idea.

Somehow, I don't think so.

We need to stand for our values - justice, equality, truth, strength. To the extent that those values have origins in an individual's faith, they should be free to draw the connection. But the principles stand regardless of faith.

I think that's the message we should be sending.

[JAbuchan08]

9. The way religion is used today in politics is as an issue marker

It's really a parallel language for many ideas that can be understood secularly as well. For example what is "God" - the word is really just a stand in for the mystery of the universe the "whole of everything" that we can never know.
What I've realized is that "christians" can believe and act in virtually any way they please because the language and the philosophy it supports can adapt to virtually any belief system.
It might be intellectual dishonesty, and if it is feel free to pile on me, but I think that using the word "God" to talk about that mystery without neccessarily believing in a bearded Jehovah in the sky would be acceptable and we could move beyond that as well. Jesus as the son of God? Well we're all children of God. Satan as the corruptor of men? Suffering caused by man is the work of Satan whether it is done intentionally through war or unintentionally through lassaiz-faire capitalism.

[peacetalksforall]

10. Before the right wing...everyone in the U.S. was pretty much on an equal

par as far as religion goes. Everyone accepted that everyone had their own religion and everyone pretty much accepted that you don't argue about religion. Yes, there were problems when some wanted to marry someone of another faith - but it was a family thing. Churches and synagoguesa worked around it when they had to.

THEN...fundamentalism got into politics and the problems started.

Some crazily absurd people felt that this country can only have one religion.

There is a painting that (I think) is called The Spirit of Religious Liberty followed by Faith and Hope by E. A. Abbey. It has three angel figures guiding sailing ships across the ocean.

The real un-patriots in this country are the religious fanatics who are forcing their religion down out throats and who are supporting imperialism.

These un-patriots are not letting us practice religion for ourselves.

The un-patriots are those who are being used by the imperialists and the imperialists themselves who are total hypocrites when it comes th their religious rhetoric and their easy path to destruction.

We need to demand that we be allowed to once again practice no organized religion, various forms of Christianity, various form of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Native, and all the others.

We need to put our foot down. We need to fight to protect our freedom of religion. We cannot let politicians use the fundamentalists and v.s. This is our country. Do not let them take us over.

The agendas of these bible quoting and interpreting crazy people mix Bush and God in the same phrase. They are facilitating the acts of barbarism on us and others.

Fight them by demanding we revert to our original religious freedom and get out of the faces of other people on this planet and start living peace.

[Quixote1818]

11. No Question About It

Humans have a deep desire for meaning and a greater good. Republicans have taped into this with religion and used it in an unhealthy way. Democrats need to take this burning desire, tap into it and bring people together. People just want to know that Democrats have a belief system and we are not all completely secular.


Man's Search for Meaning
by Viktor E. Frankl
http://www.geocities.com/~webwinds/frankl/quotes.htm

"There is also purpose in life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man's attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces."


"Logotherapy...considers man as a being whose main concern consists in fulfilling a meaning and in actualizing values, rather than in the mere gratification and satisfaction of drives and instincts." p.164

"What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him." p.166

"What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment." p.171

"We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a value; and (3) by suffering."


On Fulfilling One's Task
"A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."
p.127

"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." p.122