Just like Iran, just like any other theocracy. It's just this time the state religion is Christianity.

That's not to say that all Christian sects are bad, there's certainly a parallel with the Suni/Shiite split in the Muslim world.

Religion gets a pass under the law because it is the law.

While I agree this country has its Christian elements, it isn't like Iran or any other theocracy.

I won't go to prison for publicly criticizing religious or government leaders.

My daughter won't be stoned to death in the village square for going to school.

My father isn't going to behead my sister for getting pregnant as an unmarried teenager and bringing dishonor to our family.

A woman can wear almost anything or nothing and feel good about it.

etc.

Not yet.

Give it a little time.

The direction America is traveling is moving closer to those ends. Not farther away.

HH =)

America is becoming less religious than it has ever been.

What’s up with the bogie man agenda? Live and let live.

The US has in recent decades becoming more and less religious at the same time. That's how polarization works.

thx Roy G ~

I get the comparison. There may be variation in the extremity of the behavior country to country, and we could categorize it by degrees, but the underlying principles are the same.

The "Separation of Church and State" thingy is a joke and everyone knows it. When the majority of your constituency are of a certain religious ilk, democracy becomes endorsement of dogma and the politician becomes what that situation requires--often. Very often.

Sometimes you need to tear gas some people to get your picture taken with a Bible.

How can a nation that has separation of church and state be a theocracy?

The same way “All men are created equal…” is ignored.

elderolddog Wrote:
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> The same way “All men are created equal…” is
> ignored.

Sadly, there's a lot of truth there. "'Equal!', well, except women, blacks, the Irish, the gays, Hispanics, the Chinese, non-Anglo-Saxon whites, Jews, Arabs, anyone who's vaguely brown ... and, what? Totally equal." (eye roll)

Rubicon Wrote:
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> How can a nation that has separation of church and
> state be a theocracy?

Exactly.

Rubicon Wrote:
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> How can a nation that has separation of church and
> state be a theocracy?

Exactly. And try as they might, the brain-damaged religulous crew has yet to fully take power. (I've read most of the Founders available documents. Jefferson's in particular were interesting. Regardless, when the mouth-breather Evangelical crew says "founded as a Christian nation", they could not be more wrong. Unsurprising because they're, well, idiots.)

Exactly. The founding fathers were a diverse group. Some were not religious. They believed in personal freedom though. If a person wanted to practice their religion then they were free to do it as long as it didn’t impinge on the rights of others.

No, it's not as bad as Iran. But in the current state of affairs, there is no way to stop the Christian Nation types from turning it into a very bad thing.

Look at the abortion thing is Texas (and now elsewhere). Look at the impossibility of banning capital punishment. They like to see people suffer, and their justification is that have accepted Jesus. In the evangelical community, accepting Jesus is equivalent to the Mormon Second Anointing. It gives them a free pass to walk all over everybody else.

So be afraid. Be very afraid.

That's kind of my point. Where does it flip pathological? Zionism does not define many Jews, but there is Israel. Some Jews would consider Zionism a cult, like the cult of Trump.

But what to make of Judaism's remarkable legacy. Mosaic dietary laws, for example. In another thread I mentioned that lions suffocate their prey. That’s an unjust oversimplification. Lions compress the carotid artery, as with the sleeper hold that cops can't use anymore, to render their prey unconscious to spare the animal the trauma of death. Who knew lions were kosher? And how did Jews discover what nature instinctively knows? Well, they did it and they made it accessible to the masses. That should say something about Jewish mysticism. If they got that right, what else did they get right?

So I'm all for sane Christianity if it can be found. Mosaic law can't really be fulfilled in Christ because the mechanics of animal consciousness haven't changed. We are fortunate that the meat industry has adopted kosher practices. But before that, when animals were rendered alive, where was so-called Christian enlightenment?

Probably at the North Pole with Santa and his flying reindeer. Working on his list of who's naughty and who's nice, like any other obsessive compulsive older gentleman.

The enlightened master called Jesus by the Greeks is most likely a synthetic character. Practical matters such as Christianity's rejection of kosher law makes a historical Jesus even less likely. Does that make the archetype less real? The physical non-existence of Christ is of no consequence because you are the Christ. The point is not to worship Christ because that's insipid. The point is to be the Christ. Do some sects succeed in getting this across? I think some do. Latter Day Saints aspire to that, but the church has been hijacked by extreme right ideologues. The problem of dissent, AKA opportunities for growth, is solved by excommunication.

America was once the shining city on a hill. Christian churches dotted the landscape and man did not live by bread alone. I would call that our Sunni phase.

But now is the winter of our discontent. Will we love our neighbor or will we eat them?

I think we know the answer, as so expertly told by director Christopher Nolan in "The Dark Knight". Humans find their humanity when they need it. Survival times are coming, no doubt about it. You can't run a modern civilization, with this many people, on a collapsed supply chain. We built it fragile, and there it goes like dominoes.

Where is your God now? I'm afraid we're going to find out.

We will get through this, just like the Irish did with their potatoes, and make sure it never happens again.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2021 02:08AM by bradley.

It's not a 'theocracy' like Iran, or any of the other 5 theocratic (Muslim) countries.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/theocracy-countries

All of those 'theocratic' countries are Muslim Countries.

5 are Sunni

We just lost America's Longest (Most pointless) war against one of them, Afganistan.

Perhaps 'god' is really Allah and he really is in charge of determining history.
How else could a bunch of bronze age cave men, defeat the last two Superpowers of the 20th and 21st Centuries, unless they were empowered by an even greater super power?

Other countries that have been theocracies in the past, China, Tibet and Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theocracy#China

China had a state religion where the emperor was a son of God.
Kind of like North Korea today, which I'd considered a theocracy, where the Dear Leader is worshipped like a God.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/theocracy-countries



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2021 11:31PM by schrodingerscat.

What are you on about now?

Your source does not support your point. It concerns only Mauritania and, in any case, does not say that country is a theocracy. Just because almost all people share a common religion and have instituted some laws that favor that religion does not make it a theocracy.

Moreover your description of Afghanistan has been accurate for about ten years over a history of many thousands. Do you want to flesh that out a bit or are we just to roll our eyes and yawn?

I edited it.

schrodingerscat Wrote:
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> I edited it.


The basis for hopefully living a better life . . .

But isn't the cat both alive and dead?

bradley Wrote:
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> But isn't the cat both alive and dead?


It depends upon whether or not you observe me.

I observe both of you and I see a kinship of sorts. Bravado and criticism are often in bed together.

Elder Berry Wrote:
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> I observe both of you and I see a kinship of
> sorts. Bravado and criticism are often in bed
> together.

ironically

Be the change you want to see at RfM.

It might be said that America worships money, and if so, it is a theocracy.

Funny since The US is the most religious of the most "developed" nations.

Utah is a theocratic empire. It happens all the time when the Utah politicos are in session.

Sometimes weed grows in Zion's garden of Eden.