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FIGHTING A LOSING BATTLE: Removing Religion From Politics

The title of this debate assumes several facts with which I disagree - first of all, religion should play NO role in choosing presidential candidates, let alone an important one.

Second, allowing for some role for religion to be inferred, the question of whether religion "should" be involved in candidacy for our nation's highest office is pure fantasy. With every election the United States strays further from its roots as a country founded with a rational, scientific view of the universe and standing for the principle of separation of church and state. That is, the various tenets of religion, all based purely on faith and therefore on events and concepts that cannot be demonstrated or proven, become increasingly embedded in the fabric of American political life. This phenomenon threatens harm in many forms to the average citizen and only serves to line the pockets of those who profit by expounding fantastical theories used to sway and coerce potential Presidents to support the agendas of religious groups.

As one can gather, I am fundamentally opposed to the pervasiveness of religion generally in society, let alone in politics. In this article, I will not attempt to even summarize the excellent works of Sam Harris ("The End of Faith"), Christopher Hitchens ("God is Not Great") or Richard Dawkins ("The God Delusion"), all of whom make powerful arguments against religion generally and, for the most part, in favor of atheism specifically. Personally, I have reached a point in my life where I am somewhere between a deist and an agnostic, finding the attempts by the various world's religions, all of whom (except perhaps Scientology, aptly founded by a science fiction writer) share more similarities than not in mythologies, histories, dogmas and beliefs, yet each espousing their own "brand" as the correct one to be intellectually deceitful.

The most arrogant and logically deficient aspect of all religions, at least at a fanatical level, is their beliefs, based on unprovable faith, of course, that their view of the world, the afterlife and the supernatural is the correct one and that all other beliefs are wrong and that their adherents will be summarily punished, either on this earth or in the afterlife.

Suffice it to say that when choosing our nation's Commander in Chief, the only rational decisions and factors to be considered must be those based on real considerations, for example the candidate's:

- domestic policy

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