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Monday, May 5, 2014

Why Religion and Law Mix Like Coke and Grape Soda

They mix, all right, in the sense that they form a solution that doesn't separate if it sits in the back of the fridge for too long.  The problem is the mixture tastes like shit and you'll be looking for a potted plant to dump it into the minute you try to gag down that first sip.  There are three root problems with a theocracy.  Three core issues of why, much like that one friend's off-and-on romance, government and religion can never reconcile without somebody getting fucked, and they're better off acknowledging they aren't made for each other and going their separate ways:

1. Religion and government were designed for incompatible purposes.

Religion was developed with two major purposes: helping people deal with looming mortality, and simplifying observations that made ancient people's heads hurt because we didn't have the technology to explain them yet.  These purposes have gotten corrupted over the years to serve terrible, selfish leaders, but those were the initial reasons we came up with invisible sky-parents.

Government, on the other hand, was designed to maximize the survival of our species by creating a lawful society; that is, rules and norms that encourage fairness and cooperation so that we can better survive shit like harsh winters and bear attacks.

The reason the two purposes are fundamentally incompatible is because people who do not fear mortality any longer have less incentive to cooperate in order to survive.  And people who are happy with overly simple explanations are more likely to ignore the nuances of a situation that lead to fairness and teamwork for the greater good.  In essence, you get people who are afraid of knowledge, but not of death, and this can't end well for anybody.

2. Religion is too fatalistic to function as a basis for ruling society.

This should be obvious, but for anybody not familiar with various religions (because it's not unique to Christianity), lemme 'splain you a thing.  Religions tend to have one of two common fatalistic threads: outright prophecy, or at the very least a simplistically negative view of human nature.  If they aren't predicting doom and gloom (either in apocalypse form or an endless cycle of suffering, death, and rebirth for the individual), they're agreeing that humanity is awful and only their particular beliefs can motivate people to be good.  Occasionally, a combination of both (yes, Pentecostalism, I'm looking at you).

This takes all point and purpose out of governing.  If the world is going to end or we're just going to suffer and kill each other while boning lamp-posts anyway, then what's to be gained by trying to govern ourselves at all?  It's like washing the windows on the Hindenburgh.  None of it's going to matter once everything goes down in a giant fireball because God hates us.

3. Religion declares inequality from the outset, ensuring that fairness is impossible under a theocracy.

The other thing you'll find about virtually all religions is that there is a baseline inequality inherent in the doctrine of each one.  There are those who are "chosen", those who are not, and those who are condemned (with those last two often interchangeable).  When your basis for law has already decreed a certain subset of people as worthy or unworthy from the start, it's impossible for a society based on such doctrine to treat each other fairly.  And fairness is the cornerstone of a successful and functioning society because when things are unfair, the people who are being treated unfairly tend to get pissed off.  And as both history and the modern era have demonstrated, there is only so much they will take before shit gets real.

And this is not even counting the fact that religious people are not a homogeneous hive mind, even within the same religion or the same faction of that religion.  When a government seeks to limit rights rather than grant them for reasons that -- to the people -- do nothing for the public good or are outright insidious, that government isn't going to last long once the people figure out they have their government outnumbered.

This is why the separation of church and state is one of the first laws we ever wrote as a country.  Because our Founding Fathers, coming from England, saw what happens when you weave religion and government together and said "oh hell no, we are not having that shit here." And they thought it was important enough to list it as law right after freedom of speech and the press.

That's right; despite what the Tea Party wants you to think, the U.S. was never intended to be a Christian nation.  It was never intended to be a religious nation of any sort.  Because, as the Founding Fathers believed, religion is a personal matter between the individual and their deity of choice.

Plus, you get way fewer civil wars and shit that way.

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