towards a secular america — OZONE Asylum, home of the Mad Scientists

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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	Sorry, been busy with finals! [quote]To say that these similiarites make one group the other is silly. It is an attempt to force as many things as possible into as small a hole as possible under the same label, in order to avoid having to think seriously about the vast differences between them.[/quote] It's probably a good thing I posted what I did here, because my final paper for pol. sci covered the topic. I gave that statement some though, and came to a few conclusions. First, after reading more on the topic, that it's important to force the label while acknowledging the differences, even categorizing the label with adjectives (Protestant, secular, state, etc). Second, that demonizing the label and everything it touches is irresponsible and a knee-jerk reaction. :) Firstly, that it [i]does[/i] exist. From "The Civil Religion Dimension, Is It There?" (1976), and a few other papers, was prompted my response. Since the authors identified attributes such as "presidential authority, flag is sacred, gov't supported morality" as increasing with the civil religiosity of the subjects, but actual (institutional) religion decreased with it. So my misreading partly prompted concern. However I [i]do[/i] think some concern should exist. Although America seems to mediate it well. It seems circuitous, though. That we need such a system to prompt faith in democracy and that democracy rides upon it (a general conclusion i found). What I'm getting at, then, is how we perceive our democracy in America: do we [i]need[/i] the "civil religion" to sustain it, and why exactly shouldn't democracy flourish according to its own merits, not those we say it has? Maybe we are inextricably bound to religion? -- For the record, I'm bad at political science, because I keep trying to approach it like I would lit/english, a subject I love and cherish. Which isn't acceptable, because it's a science, unfortunately, and you can't make up new definitions and axioms and systems to work under. [small](Edited by [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/user/4153]cfb[/url] on 12-17-2006 23:36)[/small] Loading...
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