Comments to a Religious Friend

Well, actually it is a public response to a Religious Friend who believes that Bush is "a man of God" and that all politicians in the future must be judged by their "religious actions" and "faith":

I appreciate your detailed response. I can appreciate many of your comments and am familiar with most of the authors we have discussed, but many years ago I moved further toward agnosticism and skepticism. I have met a few religious republicans and am always troubled by the compartmentalization and contradictions inherent in claiming to be both a religionist and a politican; almost always God becomes a way to bash one's opponents.

I can accept some of your concerns, but I have great reservations about any religious perspective within politics or with religion posing as a political perspective. Some issues which I find incompatible between religious worldviews and political world views are:

(1) The existence of absolutes and the notion that humans can understand and
interpret absolutes, God's will, or ultimate Truth. Required in religions,
not required in politics, and in fact unacceptable as a political perspective because compromise is a political necessity. Political truths are inherently open-ended and subject to empirical testing -- religious truths are not -- they are supposedly the "revealed" truths, doctrines (often unquestionable), or viewed as "eternal and unchanging", do what we say not what we do, etc.

(2) The concept of "faith". True religious faith requires the suspension or abandonment of reason, logic, and empirical evidence, which are the basic requirements of any reasonable politics. Example: "God's will" explains everything (and therefore nothing). Politics cannot explain ultimate purposes, but it does
not have to. Religions claim to explain ultimate purposes, but are usually
incorrect (creation stories, causes of disease, etc.).

(3) To keep this short, my view is that secular philosophy and social science are capable of providing adequate guidelines for human behavior without a superstructure of religious concepts, doctrines, legitimations, or belief in supernatural beings that are used to punish people who do not use them in their political or personal activities.

I am not arguing that science is a substitute for religion or morality, but I am claiming that good science on average provides individuals with the best available knowledge for making important political decisions about governmental policy.

Of course, there may be supernatural beings and a supernatural reality out there, but in the end each individual must take their best guess. For myself, I believe that debating strictly theological issues only muddies the waters and distracts us from the necessary political concerns in the world here and now.