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Mar 21 2012

What do you get when you mix politics and religion?

Categories:

2012 election, atheism

by Stephen "DarkSyde" Andrew

So goes the old saying, punch line shortly. For now let’s note in recent history, mixing politics and religion has given us everything from the Holocaust to forced state sanctioned rape by high-tech dildos to the 9-11 terror attacks (Hey, those hijackers weren’t atheists). A new poll indicates we can add another item to the growing list: increasing nervousness among the electorate:

(Reuters) — Back in 2001, when Pew first asked the question, just 12 percent of Americans complained that their politicians talked too much about religion. That number has risen steadily ever since and hit a record high in the new poll: 38 percent of Americans, including 24 percent of Republicans, now say their political leaders are overdoing it with their expressions of faith and prayer.

The punch line to what do you get when you mix politics and religion: politics.

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9 comments

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  1. 1
    otrame

    March 21, 2012 at 11:19 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment

    No, what you get is bad politics.

  2. 2
    Crudely Wrott

    March 21, 2012 at 11:25 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment

    Sort of like the same old same old, eh, Steven?

    Every now and again I imagine that we should be used to it by now. Then I get a splinter in my hand or a pebble in my shoe that informs me otherwise.

    *and there are those who will tell me to ignore my body’s senses and become one with mumble*

  3. 3
    starskeptic

    March 21, 2012 at 11:58 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment

    “No, what you get is bad politics”
    —there is no other kind…

  4. 4
    bad Jim

    March 22, 2012 at 2:26 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment

    From Pew itself:

    Slightly more than half of the public (54%) says that churches should keep out of politics, compared with 40% who say religious institutions should express their views on social and political matters… By contrast, between 1996 and 2006 the balance of opinion on this question consistently tilted in the opposite direction.

    This is interesting:

    Independents, by a wide margin (57% to 42%), are more likely than to say that religious conservatives have too much influence over the GOP than that secular liberals have too much sway over the Democratic Party.

  5. 5
    RW Ahrens

    March 22, 2012 at 5:43 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment

    The scary part is that while, yes, 38 percent of Americans now say their political leaders are overdoing it with their expressions of faith and prayer, that means that over 60% (or around that number, if there are some on the fence) APPROVE of that activity!

  6. 6
    richardelguru

    March 22, 2012 at 8:30 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment

    Damn! I got it wrong: I thought the punch line would be ‘religion’

  7. 7
    Stephen "DarkSyde" Andrew

    March 22, 2012 at 1:47 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment

    BTW if anyone is wondering, two dozen comments from yesterday got eated by the intertoobz.

  8. 8
    d cwilson

    March 23, 2012 at 8:00 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment

    Independents, by a wide margin (57% to 42%), are more likely than to say that religious conservatives have too much influence over the GOP than that secular liberals have too much sway over the Democratic Party.

    That’s because secular liberals have no influence over the democratic party.

  9. 9
    Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform

    March 23, 2012 at 8:04 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment

    Starskeptic, all politics may be unpleasant, but some of it is absolutely necessary.

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