JEFF EISENBERG: “Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, ‘I am not the kind of person I want to be.’ It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.” – Frank Herbert, DUNE
TOM GRIMES: A number of years ago, the Catholic Church forbade the clergy to run for political office… I think that was a wise decision.
Politics + Religion is a formula for Might makes Right.
Politics without Religion … becomes its own Religion.
Religion & Politics are better when Church and State are separate.
JEFF SEXTON: One cannot rule coherently and justly without relation to metaphysics. So in that sense, there can be no politics fully separated from religion. It is only a question of whose religion is dominant.
In that sense, every government is a theocracy whether it goes by that label or not.
For either a government acknowledges a god — i.e., a spiritual and vertical authority higher than itself, and to which it must remain aligned — or it sees itself as God, the highest possible authority.
History shows that the latter is orders of magnitude more murderous and tyrannical than the former.
TOM GRIMES: Sometimes it’s just about filling in potholes and keeping trains running on time.
(a text thread on June 9, 2024 at 9:08AM. The wizard and I were witnesses. – Indy Beagle)