WHAT IS A RELIGION?

As the sign says...”God” may be the best.....but who knows for sure....

Republican Presidential candidate Ben Carson was asked recently by an interviewer whether he would vote for a muslim for President…Carson replied, “No, I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.” He went further to say that “Islam is not consistent with the Constitution….

This set off a series of backlash comments from all sources saying that “there should be no religious litmus test”, etc.. Carson took a beating, by everyone who didn’t agree with him already…the liberal media jumped on this and virtually all political candidates were quick to denounce Carson…it was politically dangerous to agree with Carson.

Some cited the Constitution, that says “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”.

In digesting this issue I ask the question:.....what is, in fact, a religion.

The dictionary says this:

re·li·gion

1. the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or god’s

2. a particular system of faith and worship.

3. a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.

I find it puzzling....

that we place religious beliefs above all other beliefs…why are religious beliefs distinguished as being more valid than other beliefs? If we make them more important than other beliefs then it would appear to me that we are not following the Constitution...we are taking sides.....We are saying that some important beliefs (the ones that mention God or a supreme being) are more sanctimonious....more deserving of respect and deference. Buddhism is a religion, yet it believes in no God or supreme being...so where does that put us?

The last definition of religion as supplied by google was: “a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance”

I think that ANY belief system that a person has…or any membership in any club or group, religious or otherwise, that a person ascribes to…is highly relevant in determining if an individual is equipped to be President of the U.S..

So, it is not o.k. to exclude a muslim from being President just because he believes in Islam? Can Ben Carson exclude Democrats? and if so, why is that not considered offensive...? Because he doesn’t believe in Democrat ideology. What if a candidate is a communist? Why should it be o.k. to exclude them? People shed a lot of blood to introduce and uphold communism....it is a fierce ideology…and religion is an ideology as well..it should be no more worthy of respect (by the the United States as an institution) than anything else…if it is then this country Is rewarding religious views over non religious views. They are being declared more important ….that is wrong.

What about a person who is a Nazi…surely no one would accept a Nazi as a worthy candidate…but I can assure you that it was a widely and deeply held belief just over a half century ago....

Would you vote for a Scientologist for President…How about someone from the Taliban? They certainly consider themselves to be religious, the most pious of all. How about a Nihilist...or someone who is from a religion that feels that the earth is coming to an end in 2 years? How about someone who is in line with a culture that believes in female genital mutilation...? What if the interviewer had asked Carson if he believes that a former felon should be allowed to be President, or a former I.V. drug user? Is it o.k. to punish someone for having committed a felony and serving their time...? Can’t a person reform?

Jimmy Carter recently disavowed his membership as a Southern Baptist after 80 years because he said he couldn’t square himself with it’s sexist interpretation of the Bible…would Carter vote for a Southern Baptist?...I don‘t know for sure but he has every right to not vote for someone based on his strongly held views on that Ideology..

Warron Jeffs is a former Mormon who started his own branch of Mormonism that has thousand of followers...even after Jeffs was prosecuted for having sex with children on dozens of occasions in front of the Congregation (as an offering to God). Jeffs is in jail for life for numerous cases of child rape...yet he still runs his church of over 5,000 from his prison cell. Who decides if he has a good or bad view of religion?…Jim Jones had a congregation and he was a self described “man of God” before he instructed his followers to poison themselves...

Is it just that your belief system has to be based on a doctrine that is hundreds or thousands of years old? Lots and lots of uncivilized and perverse notions were in style centuries and centuries ago....

Since when can the courts, or anyone, tell us which belief systems are legitimate, or worthy of special protection? It is completely un-American and un-Constitutional to anoint “good” beliefs and “bad” ones...If a person’s belief systems violate another person’s civil rights, or harms them...then that is a violation of the law...but short of that metric...we should not have an institutional bias....and that should be quite obvious.

Would a person who believes that abortion is murder vote for someone who believes in abortion rights?….? Of course not….It is a disqualifier….and that person has every right to not vote for pro-choice candidates.

As a human being I can disqualify any person I want…based on any ideological reason I want…especially if I feel that a certain ideology is so dangerous or insulting to civil rights, or women’s rights, or individual freedoms, that it is bad for our society...

I don’t have problems with people....just certain ideologies....

To disqualify someone based on skin color or ethnicity crosses the line with me, as it should…that is excluding someone, not for their belief system, their ideology…but simply because they were born with a certain color of skin or in a different region of the world….

If we give religion a more sanctimonious place in our society than a non theistic belief system..then that would appear to me to clearly contradict the Constitution…which has a neutral stand on religion…it neither supports, or opposes it….so why would we allow a woman who grants marriage licenses to fail to live up to her sworn obligation to uphold the law, or to even give her special dispensation? What if she had a strong belief that handicapped people shouldn’t get married...? Suppose she said it was a ”deeply held belief”. If someone disobeyed the law due to the fact that they didn’t feel that black people should be served in their restaurant for deeply held personal beliefs…(even religious ones) they would be universally excoriated…as well they should be….but why does the government allow people to hide behind religion..religion is a very arbitrary term that is granted no legal protection ....…

Belief systems are belief systems…and if they don’t violate the law or violate another person’s civil rights then the government, in my opinion, has no right to rank them.....

Ben Carson, and anybody else, can exclude any person he or she wants based on his/her disapproval of any ideology or belief system he chooses...I am sure he has dozens of litmus tests...as do all of us....it’s hypocritical and disingenuous of us to suggest otherwise.

Food for Thought...

my opinions...