No sentence with the word 'God' in it should be used in a political forum.
I support Kant in this viewpoint and oppose Hegel. 'God' belongs to the world of 'metaphysics', not the world of 'grounded epistemology'. The only common meeting ground for The State and The Church should be their common goal of the humanism and compassion of mankind. 'God' should not be a meeting ground. It is the sole territory of religion, and should not be the territory of The State and State Politics...
Politics should be based on our best possible epistemology (i.e., knowledge based first and foremost on observation...and reliable deductions and conclusions and ethical, compassionate values based on reliable observations from reliable, credible people...), not any one person's or group of person's much more abstract, speculative world of metaphysics...which includes all religions...
If a religious person wants to talk to a politician about how we need to better support our war veterans coming home from the war (and/or not send them over there in the first place), then the politician should have open ears. But if a religious person wants a national and/or international platforum on which to assert that 'God has told me this'...or 'God has given me a sign'...or 'The Bible says this...' or 'The Qu'ran says this...' the only thing that has relevance is what the person says after the reference to 'God', or after the Biblical reference or after the Qu'ran reference...and/or after the word 'this'....
There are two parts to why God, religion, and politics should not be connected...
1. Epistemology starts with what we can 'see', not with what we can't see... and;
2. Whenever God, religion, righteousness, and politics get too tightly wound up together,
Bad things generally happen.
Wars start, and/or are exasperated like a grass fire becoming a forest fire...
Politics needs to stay out of religion...except when National and/or International laws are transgressed...
And religion needs to stop quoting God, The Bible, and/or The Qu'ran...
When stepping into politics, law, and/or education...
We should be teaching our young people skepticism, not faith, in what they cannot see...and
In what bears no credible or reliable witness..
The world is an amazing and mystifying Creation...
But that doesn't mean that we know anything about its 'Creator'...
Or whether or not there is, or ever was, one...
Speculate to your heart's content...
But don't bring your abstract metaphysical speculations, mythologies, and/or religions...
Into politics...where laws need to follow...
What we see, interpret, and evaluate...
Here on Earth...
Using our sensory/interpretive/evaluative faculties....
Of observation, logic and reason...
And the more abstract concepts of...
Ethics, fairness, justice, egalitarianism, democracy, transparency, and
Accountability...
That is the 'old ratiional empiricist' in me talking....the Locke, Hume, Diderot, Voltaire, Kant, Korzybski, Rand influence on me...
Hegel's attempted dialectic union between Religion and Politics doesn't work here for me...
Because Religion is based primarily on what you can't see...
And you don't build a government...
Start heresay and gossip...
Talk about Faith...
Or Declare War...
Based upon what you can't see...
Just ask George Bush that...
-- dgb, Sept 11th, 2010,
-- David Gordon Bain
