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towards a secular america

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Your Text: Insert Slimies » Insert UBB Code » Close Last Tag \| All Tags UBB Help	Some ideas that have been swirling around: Many civics educators would maintain they present an objective survey of the American political system. Or German, or whichever country one lives in. However although denominational religion is oftentimes reduced to a research variable and equated to other socio-political factors such as ethnicity, economic status, or gender. However the other and more subtle religion presented is a civil religion. It pervades textbooks, political science classes, and government in general. For example: although an educator might decry government-supported denominational religion, they oftentimes will give credit to American exceptionalism, give overly-due recognition to national holidays, use specific words (e.g. heroic, sacrifice) to refer to American wars and war heroes. or present democracy with a certain reverence that goes beyond definition and application. The totality of these concepts would comprise a civil religion defined by Robert Bellah as: "an institutionalized collection of sacred beliefs about the American nation." It's pretty obvious what these "sacred beliefs" are. The benefits of a civil religion are obvious as well. It would theoretically foster patriotic sentiment and civic piety. Some would argue that political homogeneity (favorable views of politics in general) is contingent to a strong civil religion. Modern civil religion also espouses the ideals of civil rights and liberties. However it is also strong connected to other ideas: free-market economics (Nash, Falwell), on two sides: the extension or retention of civil liberties to unpopular groups (dependent conservative/liberal), legitimation of political leaders (Memorial Day speeches, pomp and circumstance of inauguration day ceremonies, the American eagle, etc), and group homogeneity (American exceptionalism). The problem is how the civil religion is so inexorably intertwined with the American political system. While not a religion [i]per se[/i] it retains many aspects of religion - both good and bad. Therefore in performing the functions of a religion has the vast potential of religion: specifically in the legitimization of action and preserving an identity. Two countries with high civil religiosity (in my approximation) would be Iran and America. In one example we see the civil religion acting to validate totalitarian leadership, anti-Semitic rhetoric, and religious intolerance. In the other we see civil religion acting to validate a liberal democracy, American exceptionalism (the "city on a hill," a "new Jerusalem"), Enlightenment philosophies, but also very conservative ideas such as free-market economics, imperialism, primarily-Republican presidents (Reagan, Nixon - the only studies I could find found high correlations between civil religiosity and voting tendencies), and religious piety. In my opinion, and this was what I wanted to discuss, civil religion should be abolished from American society politics; we need a "wall of separation" between the government and the people to protect against the a transcendent national religion. If groups cannot find homogeneity without national overtones, they should find none. Political leaders should be banned from invoking the symbols of American civil religion (World War II, MLK, etc) in a transcendent manner. For this reason [u]civil religion should be recognized alongside denominational religion for the very reasons a wall of separation exists to separate politics [i]from[/i] denominational religion.[/u] [small](Edited by [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/user/4153]cfb[/url] on 11-02-2006 01:07)[/small] Loading...
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