In the west, should religion, whatever version, dictate how we vote.?

Answer 1

Under no circumstances. Voting should be done on the basis of logic applied to evidence.

Answer 2

Yes. Because no matter what your beliefs, theist or not, you as an individual, have a say in a democratic society and your beliefs are a part of you.

Maybe dictate is too strong a word but the word influence would work. If you're impressed with a candidate that believes in keeping church and state separate, your beliefs will play big part in that and affect your decision on election day. If, on the other hand, you like a candidate that thinks prayer should be allowed in school, you have a different set of beliefs but it will affect your decision in the same way.

You can't separate a person from their religious beliefs any more than you can separate them from their sexual preferences, feelings toward those of other races, lifestyle or political agenda. Any of those things may have some impact on your choice of candidate and they are dictated, as least in part, by your religious beliefs.

Answer 3

No.

The franchise to vote is given to an individual personally to exercise on the basis of his/her own judgement. A personal evaluation of the policies and personalities of the candidates.

Would you really want people voting who were influenced by the idiotic TV evangelists (yes, I know some are anyway), or the despotic mullahs, or a Pope who is influenced by values that are centuries out of date? Pagans? Satanists? Aetherians?

It's bad enough now when some people accept the tripe uttered by some frankly despicable politicians. That a bunch of irrational people controlling a religion should have any influence over politics (yes, I know some do) is frightening.

Answer 4

Matters of the state in a modern world should have nothing to do with superstitions or pander in any way to a belief system. It is the root of all manner of problems.

The only way for societies to advance and flourish with less suffering is for everyone to constantly re-evaluate their choices for an ever changing world - most organised religion seems at odds with this process, therefore its influence on voting is rarely anything but negative.

Answer 5

People should vote their conscience. I don't think religion should dictate TO people how they should vote. My faith shapes my values, but that doesn't mean I would only vote for someone of the same faith/religion. I can also respect someone who may have different values but is a good politician.

Answer 6

What difference does it make whether we are in the west, east, north or south? We should vote using whatever qualities of character that we have to determine who we should vote for. To vote for the best person who can do the best job for whatever the office they are running.

Answer 7

Depends if you want a theocratic government - you vote for who you want that's the point of democracy. Me I vote the man / lady who applies modern ideas to modern problems -

others are entiled to vote for a party that wants terror suspects and accused witches to be tried by duncking.

BTW The insane are not allowed to vote
So you have to ask if people who persists and declare their beleif in False Knoweldge as truth should also be allowed to vote / stand for election.

Alfred Korzybski believed that sanity was tied to the structural fit or lack of it between our reactions to the world and what is actually going on in the world.
"A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness." Given that science continually seeks to adjust its theories structurally to fit the facts, i.e., adjusts its maps to fit the territory, the key to understanding sanity would be found in the study of the methods of science (and the study of structure as revealed by science).

I would suggest that those with a fixed mental map that never adjusts and they just KNOW that it's right without any evidence other than dogma are insane.

In his book, The Sane Society, published in 1955, psychologist Erich Fromm proposed that, not just individuals, but entire societies "may be lacking in sanity". Fromm argued that one of the most deceptive features of social life involves consensual validation

It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas or feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing is further from the truth... Just as there is a 'Folie à deux' there is a 'folie à millions.' The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane. (in: Fromm, The Sane Society, Routledge, 1955, pp.14-15)

So you may vote on religious grounds but I think you'd be mad.
Then again all you ever get from politicians is spin, lies, decete - ergo, anybody that believes that they're gonna get what they voted for is mad.

Answer 8

No... No^2

Answer 9

We should vote according to an educated understanding of the situations and the issues.

We should select our religious and philosophical positions according to an educated understanding of the world and the human situation.

They both spring from the same source, but one should not automatically dictate the other.

Answer 10

I believe that it is the natural process of making moral choices to examine a person's faith system and those of the candidates and choose that candidate which supports those values. There has to be some process for coming to a decision about which candidate to vote for. After all, if nothing is right or wrong, hence moral value, than does it matter whose in office?