Why religious people should be leftists

[mediumaevum]

I know that in one of my earlier posts, I addressed this issue.
It did stir up controversy, as we are living in different places and with different cultures, hence different definitions.

For starters, I would like to define what I constitute as being a "right"-winger and a "left"-winger:

Right-wingers:

* Wants little to no welfare. If there should be welfare, it must only serve the good of the community, ie. people must work for their benefits at best, at worst it should only
be to ensure that people get bread and circus, so to speak, to avoid revolt.

* Wants the taxes to be high for the poor, low for the rich.

* Wants Tax money to be spend primarily on military and police, secondly on giving financial support for corporations (Corporationism).
Police should have all rights to shoot whoever they want, as long as those they shoot at are not CEO's, presidents or other high-profiled members of society.

* Military and police should primarily protect big business, at all costs, even if it involves breaking citizen rights.
 
* Wants to limit the right to vote for those recieve benefits, some even go further and claim that the right to vote should be restricted to the wealthiest people at best, or at least restricted to those who own their own land property, of a certain size and have their own source of income.

* In monarchies, right wingers want to give more power to the monarch, in republics, the president should have more power.
In monarchies, right wingers want the nobility first, the bourgeoisie second, to hold office in parliament and in ministries.
In republics, right wingers want the CEO's first, the other managers second, to hold office in parliament and in ministries.

In short, right-wing policies is ALL about economics. Every single political decision has its roots founded in economics.

This is why I believe that Left-wingers and religious people should cooporate together against the right-wingers:

Left-wingers:

* Wants a lot of welfare. Welfare should not only be there to protect society, it should be there to protect the individual, for the cause of the individual.
The individual is put first.

* Wants the taxes to be low for the poor, high for the rich.

* Wants tax money to be spend primarily on welfare, only if extremely neccessary, should the tax money be spend on military. Police should ensure public safety
and should not use police brutality.

* Military should be to ensure the national soverignity of the nation and it's people, even if it means poorer diplomatic relationships with dictatorships.
 
* Wants to give everyone the same right to vote, wether they are male, female, poor or rich. Right to vote should only be limited when it comes to citizenship and your residence.

* In monarchies, left wingers want to limit the power of the monarch as much as possible, while strengthing the power of the People's Parliament.
Left wingers want the the poor, the workers and the disabled first, the bourgeoisie second, to hold office in parliament and in ministries.

As you see, ethics play a much larger role when it comes to left-wing policies.
Right wingers are not supposed to be religious. I am not saying left-wingers are supposed to be religious either, what I am saying is that IF you happen to be religious, you ought to be a leftist!

In the Roman Empire, politics wasn't any different from today's politics:

The Romans, although not atheists but pagans, were much closer to Atheism than the Jews or Christians.
The Jews and Christian ideas about giving benefits to the poor and helping the poor and disabled was much more leftist than any of the Roman policies, which was
only about punishing the weak, to benfit the strong.

The current western policies of cutting welfare and increasing the punishments, has its roots in the ancient Roman Empire.
The welfare state is a Jewish-Christian invention, from which Karl Marx and the hippies later claimed their own.

[Plu]

Errrrr. From "religious people should be leftwingers" (which is true) it does not follow in any way that "atheists should be rightwingers".

Your thread title has no support in your actual post.

[GrinningYMIR]

I'm in the center, always have been

Just a personal thing, I nitpick ideas from both sides to support

[mediumaevum]

Errrrr. From "religious people should be leftwingers" (which is true) it does not follow in any way that "atheists should be rightwingers".

Your thread title has no support in your actual post.

I edited my thread title then.

[mediumaevum]

I'm in the center, always have been

Just a personal thing, I nitpick ideas from both sides to support

That makes you an agnostic?

[Hijiri Byakuren]

I'm in the center, always have been

Just a personal thing, I nitpick ideas from both sides to support

That makes you an agnostic?

No, it means he's in the center.

[Plu]

Errrrr. From "religious people should be leftwingers" (which is true) it does not follow in any way that "atheists should be rightwingers".

Your thread title has no support in your actual post.

I edited my thread title then.

This makes more sense, yes :)

[mykcob4]

If you follow the tenets of almost if not all religions you would have to say that the OP is correct. However the fact is that religion and the relgious are inherit;y hypocritical and almost always are right-wing to the extreme.

[Hydra009]

In short, right-wing policies is ALL about economics.

//http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_conservative

This is why I believe that Left-wingers and religious people should cooperate together against the right-wingers:

That's typically the stance of the Religious Left, which I have mixed feelings about but generally support.  These are nominally religious people who fight the good fight for secular government (which incidentally protects religious minorities), social justice (a position more consistent with their holy books than the conservative ill treatment the poor and even rationalization of the situation), and a less warmongering foreign policy stance (again, a position more in line with Christianity, though the Bible has its share of pro-violence passages).

The Romans, although not atheists but pagans, were much closer to Atheism than the Jews or Christians.

:-k

Gonna have to disagree with you there.  You either believe in one or more gods or you don't.  The Romans believed in many gods, while Jews and Christians believed in one (or three).  There are no degrees of atheism - there's no gradation between theism and atheism - it's a binary opposition.  Your argument is tantamount to saying that fish-eaters are more like vegans than beef-eaters.

The Jews and Christian ideas about giving benefits to the poor and helping the poor and disabled was much more leftist than any of the Roman policies, which was
only about punishing the weak, to benfit the strong.

I'm no expert on Roman politics, but I'm pretty sure there was more to it than that.

The current western policies of cutting welfare and increasing the punishments, has its roots in the ancient Roman Empire.
The welfare state is a Jewish-Christian invention, from which Karl Marx and the hippies later claimed their own.

Make it stop.

[mediumaevum]

//http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_conservative

Social Conservatism isn't real conservatism. What defines conservatism, according to those conservatives that I have talked with,
is mainly extreme right wing economics and, to a degree, penal law and foreign politics.

Social Conservatism, the Conservatism that has only to do with penal code and foreign politics and religion, has as much to do with conservatism as National Socialism has to do with Socialism.

That's typically the stance of the Religious Left, which I have mixed feelings about but generally support.  These are nominally religious people who fight the good fight for secular government (which incidentally protects religious minorities), social justice (a position more consistent with their holy books than the conservative ill treatment the poor and even rationalization of the situation), and a less warmongering foreign policy stance (again, a position more in line with Christianity, though the Bible has its share of pro-violence passages).

Again, conservatism, religious conservatism or social conservatism, is not real conservatism.
Conservatism is about being rational-minded, following the code of nature (applying Evolution to politics).
European Conservatives are the only actual conservatives in this world. They want to apply Social Darwinism, which is the cornerstone of Conservatism,
and the reason I so much despise conservatism (because of what it involves when we mix Darwin's ideas with politics. Darwin is fine, to explain nature, but he cannot be used to
define what to do with the poor (exterminating them altogether, through mass murder)).

While I am not saying Conservatives want mass-extermination of the poor, they certainly do have some anti-poor, anti-disability laws making it harder for people to be poor or disabled.
I wouldn't be much surprised if the Conservatives People's Party of Denmark one day would make it a criminal act to be handicapped.

Gonna have to disagree with you there.  You either believe in one or more gods or you don't.  The Romans believed in many gods, while Jews and Christians believed in one (or three).  There are no degrees of atheism - there's no gradation between theism and atheism - it's a binary opposition.  Your argument is tantamount to saying that fish-eaters are more like vegans than beef-eaters.

Can we agree that 01 is much closer to 0 than 1010111101?
What I was trying to say is that the Romans had much more emphasis on statemanship, than religion. Religion was only a tool to appease the masses and to keep order, Roman religion served the purposes of the secular issues only. Hence, that is why Christians were persecuted: They did not conform to roman religion, and bring on sacrifices for the pagan gods.

They were not persecuted because the Romans feared the mighty "gods". I am more than 100 % sure when I say that the Roman politicians cared ZERO about religion.
What they cared about was public order, and to keep public order, you needed religion. If they made any sacrifice to any pagan god, it wasn't because they believed in the gods, it was to not stir up revolt.

]I'm no expert on Roman politics, but I'm pretty sure there was more to it than that.

I've read books and watched a lot of high quality documentaries about the roman empire.
It's been one of my special interests.

I can tell you, Roman politics was only about increasing one's own political power.
It isn't any different from today's western politics.

Make it stop.

I am in no way going to support the abolishment of the Welfare state.
Welfare must be protected at any cost.

[frosty]

mediumaevum should try to be intellectually honest for the sake of the debate and state that the reason he does not want Welfare abolished is because he himself receives it. He has posted that himself.

[Shiranu]

I'm in the center, always have been

Just a personal thing, I nitpick ideas from both sides to support

This. I lean pretty decently left on alot of economic and social issues, but if something further right works there is no point in pretending it doesn't and so I incorporate it as best I can. I prefer left-leaning pragmatist though than centralist.

* Military should be to ensure the national soverignity of the nation and it's people, even if it means poorer diplomatic relationships with dictatorships.

Only thing I'll bother mentioning, but why would our national sovereignty be effect by say Gaddafi, Sadam or al Asad? Now if you mean it effects our relationships in terms of us not providing them chemicals, weapons and money then yeah sure, I can agree with that.

[Atheon]

Rightwingerism is closely tied with religious extremism. Look at Christian fundamentalists, Islamic extremists, Orthodox Jews... all on the right. They want theocracy.

However, Christians should be liberals because Jesus taught liberal ideas.
Atheists should be liberals because theocracy is abhorrent to us.

Indeed, everyone should be liberals because peace, freedom and equality are what's best for humanity.

[frosty]

Rightwingerism is closely tied with religious extremism. Look at Christian fundamentalists, Islamic extremists, Orthodox Jews... all on the right. They want theocracy.

However, Christians should be liberals because Jesus taught liberal ideas.
Atheists should be liberals because theocracy is abhorrent to us.

Indeed, everyone should be liberals because peace, freedom and equality are what's best for humanity.

The Bible itself is full of very anti-liberal, blood spilling and pillaging verses. That has been discussed ad-nauseam on this board. Christians seem to be torn these days between viewing Jesus as a spiritual figure with superpowers vs an intellectual philosopher that challenged the tyranny that existed in his time. Perhaps the trouble is in the fact that humans always wish to assign spiritual values to whatever they feel like so as to imply that something is there when it really isn't.

And Shiranu, I get your point, but the entire West is basically back to business as usual with Bashar Al-Assad. The chemical weapons deal was a win-win for Assad, he removes dangerous chemicals from his country that armed groups could get a hold of, and he looks like the legitimate government of Syria that the West has to deal with. The international cooperation regarding getting rid of Syria's chemical weapons is truly amazing.

[Hydra009]

Social Conservatism isn't real conservatism.

Check, please!