Instigator / Pro
6
1493
rating
6
debates
33.33%
won
Topic
#4906
Separate Church and State
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 1 vote and with 1 point ahead, the winner is...
Mall
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 20,000
- Voting period
- Two weeks
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
7
1476
rating
336
debates
40.77%
won
Description
As the title summarizes well, the church should have no influence in the government.
Round 1
Unfortunately due to a time crunch, I will have a highly (extremely highly) abridged first argument. Sorry to Mall and our readers.
The church should have no mingling in the state for multiple reasons. (Three reasons that I can make in my little time)
1. It protects the religions
If the state becomes involved in religious matters, it will certainly create a bias from the government for one or another religion. We do not want the state to do that unless we were trying to retrogress society and create division.
2. Religion cannot be forced upon people
The state creates laws in manner to the real world; The church creates laws in manner to the spiritual world. Never should the state be making spiritual laws, as by doing so forces people to effectively follow the beliefs of another religion.
3. It keeps things germane.
In relation to the point above, if the state focuses only on making laws that will effect the economy and other real world events, that helps things go much more quickly.
Again, apologies for this lackluster introduction, but more is to come. Best of luck to Mall.
Separate church and state.
This is a pre-formed presentation.
The opposing side did not define the terms in the description.
I'll grant whichever they provide in the first round granted it's clear.
But at first glance the church should not have influence over government because secular influence would outweigh. This means anything outside the tenets and conduct that a church would choose WHATEVER that is.
Once more without defining it exactly, the church can be anything meaning just as secular as the actual secular world so that there's no difference kind of like the scripture mentions about wheat and tares.
Anyway, any government is a reflection of its people. Whatever or wherever the people aim to go is what is reflected in the laws on a dominating scale. A denominating one or a democratic, elective majority.
With that being said, in an environment where the majority of civilization if not all, majority of society if not all, this would include government has the foundations, principles, methods of church, whatever they are, would obviously influence government.
I guess they call it theocracy. But the expression is "the church having influence over government".
Well what church? Which church? From where at ?
Given it's just a church that as just as secular like the levayen church, probably wouldn't be any difference of an influence. The opposing side is arguing for separation but you can have a church's influence that actually serves no difference.
Give that some thought.
So a government should be influenced by a church that makes it up. I'm talking about congress, legislature and everything else.
What ought to be unpacked in this debate is the meaning of church, the extent of it and the extent of religion.
Round 2
It is my fault for not providing a definition in the description or my first round. I suppose it would be due to my rush (which, unfortunately, has continued).
Therefore, this round will be dedicated to a definition:
The state: The governing body of a nation
The church: Any religious institution. Not necessarily Christian.
As for:
"Once more without defining it exactly, the church can be anything meaning just as secular as the actual secular world."
I would have hoped it be held self evident that this is not what 'church' means.
The decisions of the government should not be made with the wants of a high deity of any kind in mind.
"The church: Any religious institution. Not necessarily Christian."
"I would have hoped it be held self evident that this is not what 'church' means."
Well let's look at what you said. "Any religious institution".
So let's keep unpacking that. What is meant by "religious"?
See, details, details, details. If I may be granted the initiative, let's say it means a host of beliefs.
Did you not know the secular world has their own host of beliefs?
Some of which are connected to atheists whom are very worldly or much like the world see. There are those that have formed or founded a church organization. So the term church, religion, beliefs can be extrapolated to fit many different avenues.
People in government can be atheists, can have many beliefs and views of their own.
So when we're talking about separation of church and state, if we look at things at a more in depth level, it's just one church set of views versus another.
But I guess it depends on how we're using all these terms .
"The decisions of the government should not be made with the wants of a high deity of any kind in mind."
Case and point. This is your belief, is it not?
Who or what should have the authority that you believe in would want things decided for the rest of us based on their or its wants?
Either way you go with this, it leads back to people being in the equation as well as their beliefs.
Round 3
"So let's keep unpacking that. What is meant by "religious" "
.....................
My bad! "religious" means in this scenario when a group of bears get together to all hibernate together. How silly of me to have forgotten define this. This reminds me that I forgot to show my calculus teacher my work for what 1+1 is! Thank you for the reminder.
"Did you not know the secular world has their own host of beliefs?"
Religious beliefs. Atheism is not a religion.
Who or what should have the authority that you believe in would want things decided for the rest of us based on their or its wants?
That would not be the subject of this debate.
I guess you're conceding. You're not answering my questions at least not in a non-jovial sense.
I just asked you what YOU MEAN when YOU use the term religious.
All this means is all my points stand unrefuted. I was expecting better than this.
I didn't say atheism is a religion so it's a pointless statement to make.
So I'm going to summarize basically what I said or have been saying. You can try to refute it and redeem your position.
In summary starting with the debate description. Separation of church and state is that the church should have no influence in the government.
Who or what is the church? That's the first big super big question. Very important and every detail of its definition has to be unpacked for full clarity.
I don't know if we'll find out in this exchange. I asked about the word "religious" and it appears that it was shunned away.
I offered mine for compensatory basis sake. I'm saying the word "religious" means a host of beliefs.
So with that being said, there's no separation of government, state and beliefs as there's no separation of beliefs from people in government of a state or many states whom you can also call church folks or are involved in a church.
Just by causality, what should be is based on its cause. A government of people for the people are influenced or influence others based on beliefs that reflect in the law.
Now the opposing side can reject this , challenging it with counter points, questions and so forth particularly about what they perceive as secularism which would be non-church like institutions that actually can be parallel demonstrably.
Round 4
Forfeited
I do encourage the opposing side to take some more time to gather stronger counter points.
So far I'm detecting facetiousness that is really a sign of conceding.
So just to break it down simply, when people talk about this topic, they tend to have an established standard for what and who the church is.
The opposing side appears to have a shallow depiction of the church.
With the shallow depiction, I can demonstrate that the church can incorporate many things that negates exclusiveness.
Many believe and teach today that the church which was a sanctified, exclusive area was a light unto the world.
Now to this modern day, it's the reverse. You'll find much of the world in the church.
In the conduct, in the dress, in the music and everything.
This is not for criticism. I'm pointing out that established organizations referenced as the church, a church, have their beliefs.
Do we deny that people in government like in a church that have beliefs?
This is what the opposing side has to seriously address, challenge and counter. No time for facetiousness but argue intelligently with reasoning and understanding.
The opposing side has the challenge of arguing beliefs that supercede another and why. Such as those in government over anywhere else.
The government is also an elected group by people referred to as citizens with their own beliefs that vote in people to fulfill.
So either scenario, you're dealing with the same concept.
By the way, if you say what about a deity? A deity is anything you believe in, submit to, put as the ruler, idol, put as yourself, material, etc.
Money is a biggg deity to a mass of folks.
So I yield on that.
Round 5
Forfeited
Case is pretty much closed. The opposing side may not be prepared at this moment to argue.
Many things were communicated back and forth and the exchange may have suffered from a lack of sincere clarity from the opposing side so I want to summarize where I stand .
The reality is there is no such thing as a separation of church and state whether it has been realized for what the essence of it is or not .
Being that it is the reality like the reality of you getting hit with water, you should be wet, church (a sect of religious tenets or beliefs or beliefs of conduct) should have influence over government.
That is the essence. A sect of religious tenets or beliefs or beliefs of conduct. Every walk of life everywhere in a civilization, order or governing has a conduct and way of order to do things and or establish things.
This is what laws are setup for and through the government in which they've been passed through.
Just about everywhere has some sort of rules or laws you can think of or regulated procedure.
When it comes to society, we just take a vote on them so it becomes more democratic. That's all that makes a situation comfortable with the majority. It's a democracy as opposed to a theocracy or socialist control that may cause discomfort in an obligation of some sort to people's lives.
When people think of religion or any church tenet, they may think of something dogmatic and based on a lot of feelings versus justification, reasoning, logic and things concerning the laws of the land.
Due to the meaning of church not being thoroughly flushed out in this debate from the opposing side, we couldn't explore where an argument's validity regarding the meaning of church begins and ends.
So it leaves me with much of my points regarding what constitutes church unchallenged and unrefuted.
But back to the comfort element. When you have democracy, when everyone just about can get a vote, they get that control. They get a voice. They have a voice that can be heard. Their cries can't be shut out by small government or by a dogma that they don't BELIEVE in but voice THEIR OWN BELIEF, ok.
So that means we still have beliefs on the table and they vote accordingly to what they believe as much as anybody. Your vote for one candidate you believe in I don't believe in. You may even preach to me dogmatically why you feel about one candidate over the other and whatnot.
Notice how far we can take this to an extent that regardless, we have a situation of governance, rules, control and order from some sort of belief system.
That's what we have. We've always had that. This is why it's important to break down the meaning of church because as I've displayed, it can incorporate a many things in validity.
We have and have had a governance on the basis of a belief system (church if you will, whatever).
The opposing side failed to do this but could of even elaborated maybe the so called Christian Church as the separation of.
That or Catholic Church so called or NOI I guess.
The opposing side could of went into those sectors arguing based on cultish, exclusive views as opposed to general beliefs that conflate more so.
We could of been arguing a particular church for separation where the opposing side could of had stronger points such as a small minority reigning over the majority. But the states at least is a nation of democracy so that can't be. Isn't the U.S.A., a big part of it Christian or set with Christian values?
So a lot more could have been unpacked here in this debate but the opposing side wasn't prepared.
"It is my fault for not providing a definition in the description or my first round. I suppose it would be due to my rush (which, unfortunately, has continued)."
Allot more time for yourself to allot your full potential for arguing.
The bottomline considering all definitions as given be it no matter how unsubstantial I reiterate the following:
We have and have had a governance on the basis of a belief system (church ).
Should there be a separation of that?
Changing from one belief system to another isn't separation. In terms of this debate, changing from church to church.
So not only there shouldn't be a separation but it can't be done. Something that can't be done shouldn't be reality like a person that can't fly, they should not be in air flapping their arms.
