More like LOLatics
I was in an airport yesterday and, despite my best efforts, overheard a clip of a speech Obama was giving somewhere. He was rebutting against some sort of rumor that he was a Muslim, and stating he was brought up as a good and proper Christian of some flavor. At which point the audience cheers. If you’re a politician, have any faith you want. Faith isn’t a bad thing. But it has no place in a political setting. I shouldn’t know what faith a politician follows unless I do some digging and look it up. It’s a firm opinion of mine that faith and religion should not be allowed to be mentioned during a political campaign. Decisions that affect everyone in a city/state/country should never ever ever be brought about with influence from one’s faith or the faith of those it will affect. So electing someone should not have anything to do with their faith or yours. Yelling “Christianity!” in the deep south is like a rock band yelling “Boston!” when playing at the Garden (or whatever bank it is that owns it nowadays). You’re looking to buy votes with your faith. And that’s not cool. It degrades your platform, and (in my humble opinion) makes the voter’s ballot worthless.
I’m going to keep writing people in on my ballots until a candidate comes along who declares he’s an atheist, or never mentions religion at all. I want the decision maker I elect to make decisions based on what is best for the people, as decided by logic. This year my vote is split between Feynman (don’t care if he’s dead, I’d still pick him) or Cthulhu. I really can’t pick. Any feedback on this is appreciated.
PS – I know I’ll get some flak for not picking a real candidate, but I can’t pick among any of them in good conscience. Please do “bring it” though, it should be talked about imo.
Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.
In good conscience?
Does this really trump a candidate’s positions on all other issues? Sure, faith and allegiance or purported allegiance to some view and eschatology might be troubling. But a heck of a lot less troubling than many other world-views. Ultimately, I look at what a candidate’s beliefs are going to translate into in terms of leadership and legislature. A socialist, whose policies are 100% connected to real political action that I disagree with, concerns me a great deal more than someone whose faith is only connected tangentially to any political decisions. In other words, Christianity or Islam informs political decisions, but doesn’t necessarily drive them in all contexts. A view about the proper role of government or entitlements or taxation necessarily DOES drive political decisions.
And that said, a candidate’s own engagement with his faith matters a lot. Romney, who has a fairly crazy sounding faith, goes to great efforts to distance himself from it *politically*. Huckabee, with a far more well known faith, does not. That matters a lot. And, also, I definitely wouldn’t trust a politician whom, in all likelihood, is NOT a real Christian or whatever, but puts on the face and act of one when campaigning. That suggested a devious and overly ambitious character – and that’s worst of all.
Re: In good conscience?
I guess my biggest problem is candidates basically buying votes by expressing their faith to given audiences (bible belt / deep south, etc). It’s going to matter more to them than the actual platform, and they know this. Real (insert faith) or not, that’s still influencing people to make an uninformed vote based on a trivial issue. And I see a lot of this going around. I think it’s deplorable. People already look into so little before voting, all they’re doing is poisoning the process further. This is why I say in more of a hushed way that I’d rather be voting for an atheist candidate, but what I’d really like to see is any mention of faith barred from the campaign. It’s irrelevant to the process in any way I can see and only seems to do bad.