Can a democracy be religious?

Can a democracy be religious? Canada

Can a democracy be religious? Portugal

No, not really.

A system with heavy religious influence is a kind of theocracy.

There are theocracies with democratic systems within, like Iran.

The church has always tried to align with and take over the state, a kind of "return to the old days" when the clerics conferred "divine right" upon kings, basically anointing the king with the blessing of heaven.

I always thought it was odd how the emporer of Japan was mocked because his people thought he was descended from heaven. That's really no different than how Europeans thought of their kings a couple hundred years ago - as selected by divinity.

All the English swords and sorcery nonsense is just wishing for the old days when people believed that kings weren't really human, but more like holy beings.

A democracy can be religious. A democracy can also force black people to the back of the bus, to force them to use black s only restrooms, and to, with no exceptions, use the white people's water fountains.

Yes, that evil crap was democracy. A white majority crapping on the black minority.

It was the constitutional republic, enforced by Kennedy, that ended the tyranny of the majority, aka democratic rule.

Democracy is the rule of the majority, which we ALL know leads to oppression of the minority by the majority.

Why ANYONE would suggest that a majority has a right to oppress a minority is beyond my understanding. But again and again I see people championing the rule of the mob over those too weak to protect themselves form the majority.

And we see this also in religious matters. Thanks to Democrats mostly but also Republicans.

Neither has the balls to admit it.

Maybe that is why so many of you of you damned hell bound fools keep voting for such evils to continue.

PP do you have a button that inserts these far-right wacko talking points into your posts? I think I've read that argument before, and agree with it, but it has nothing to do with this topic.

The problem with a state religion is that, if the religion demands exclusive membership within it, and espouses that it is the only religion, and also that their God is the only God, it's incompatible with having multiple religions or multiple gods.

Examples:

Commandment one: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'

"10According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. 11For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

"Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

and on and on...

Iran has a democracy, with multiple religions, but the fact that a religion controls the state means that non-Shia Muslims, Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Bahai and others are second class. Likewise, in the Sunni states, the Shia are second class, along with Jews, Christians, etc.

I think some European states have state religions. England has its church. Wikipedia has an article on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_religion

Anyone pushing for a state religion is going against the tide of history.

commandment one???

Who's commandment are you talking about? The commandment of Moses, who is a self admitted devil worshiper, exodus 19 Verse 5.

Why would you presume that the god of Moses, is the God of Jesus and Abraham and the prophets??? Certainly not by anything written in the Bible.

Follow Moses and his choice of gods, and you are damned, for all eternity.

The Bible makes that more than obvious. But only if you have eyes that see and ears that hear, and are one of the flock.

Are you claiming the 56 Muslim nations can never be a democracy?

Thats Islamophobic

To Prion Party:

You are totally nuts. I don't understand what you're talking about. It's a good example why a democracy cannot have a state religion.

To Deppen:

Yes, that's my opinion. You cannot have democracies that empower one religion over others.

You are being Islamophobic. There is nothing that prevents Muslim states governed under Sharia law from being democracies.

I said that Iran has a democracy within.

The problem is, the theocracy has final say on things. They may hold back on making decisions, like our supreme court does, but they still have the power.

Iran may very well be one of the least democratic nations in the old today. Whose worse? North Korea? maybe Myanmar?

Americans are forced by DEMOCRATIC rule to finance the Zionist's blood soaked crusade in Palestine.

In our constitutional republic, the evil anti Christian political class would never be allowed to force the real Christians to treat our Palestinian neighbors as we would NOT have our Palestinian neighbors treat us.

But in the un constitutional Democracy that the anti American democracy lovers (both Democrats and Republiturds) have forced onto us all, the DC scum DO use US public taxes to supply the evil murderous thieving Zionist crusaders with the means to destroy our Palestinian neighbors.

maybe you do NOT mind the blood of your Palestinian neighbors staining your hands. Clearly the politicians (both democrap and republiturd) you elect into public office don't mind the blood of Palestinians staining their hands or YOUR hands.

In a democracy, the 51 % majority WOULD have a right to force us all to pay for the Zionist's blood soaked crusade. In a constitutional republic, even less that 1% would have the right to tell the 99% to shut the hell up, Palestine is NOT yours to be giving to YOUR Zionist friends or YOUR Zionist's friend's evil choice of gods (notice lower case), and you certainly have NO business forcing American tax payers to finnace YOUR choice of god's promises to your choice of gods, chosen people.

If I am wrong anywhere (ANYWHERE!!!) in my post, please feel free to point it out. But if ALL you can respond with is attacking a bunch of rubbish that I am not a part of in any way, then we can assume that your are either Nobody, deppen Renaldo or any of the other phony posters still allowed to post at LA IMC.

You're ignoring the kingdoms of Thailand and Saudi Arabia, two of our allies. There's also the UAE, Jordan, and Dominica. They're various monarchies and a theocracy.

Iran has elections, and the results last time were 51% for Rohani. The others split the remainder of the vote - showing why 2 parties are likely to be more sucessful than more.

BTW, the old system in pre-IRI Iran was a monarchical dictatorship, which the US was propping up.

So, with the unfortunate rise of a theocracy in Iran, it also ushered in an era of democracy of sorts. It was more democratic than the government we were supporting.

Well, it looks like there isn't any body who can point out that I am wrong about anything I have posted.

Yippy, once again, I have been right. Wow, this must be like the 5000 th time I have been right and no body can point out anywhere that I am wrong about anything I have posted, other than my crappy spelling of course..

Maybe I should explain it more plainly.

If you have an official state religion, and political power for religions, you end up with a theocracy. It may contain a democratic system, but it's still a theocracy. Iran is like that. You have a variety of religions in Iran, but it's Shia Islam that has the political authority over the government.

If you have a secular democracy, then you have real democracy, because no religion has greater power than another, in theory.

In a secular democracy, you often end up with coalitions of religious organizations based, not on religion, but on different ideological factors within each religion.

For example, the Civil Rights movement united different religions and sects that had an anti-racist, equal-rights outlook. So there were alliances of Jewish and Christian and Muslim organizations that were opposed to Christian organizations that had a racist ideology.

Likewise, today, there are coalitions of conservative religious sects against coalitions of liberal religious sects, particularly over issues pertaining to LGBT rights to marriage.

These efforts to inject more religion into the US government, which have been going on for around a hundred years, and making inroads, is a kind of "coup" against the secular forces that are trying to keep government neutral in religious affairs. These religious fanatics are trying to create a system that is anathema to our enlightenment and rationalist heritage, and are harmful to our multicultural society.