Is a Civil Religion Really Civil? (Sumblog 10)

This is a good depiction of the opposite, so the idea that Religion and Governing need to be completely separate. There is no intersecting the two. This is very similar to the Political Philosophy Version in its ideals that religion does not have the impact on government that government could potentially have on religion. 

An interesting idea we talked about this past week in class was the difference between the Political Philosophy version and Sociology of Religion version of how civil religions can affect a society. I thought it was interesting seeing the connection between the two, because really, at least for American history, drawing the line between the two is very difficult to do. I think that for American history the political philosophy and the sociological philosophy of how religion made an impact are very connected. Many times, religion was used to create a reason to have religion and also a reason why not to have a religion. Interestingly enough, we have embedded religious beliefs as a whole so strongly into our society, our politics and our governmental structure. Separating these ideas is difficult to do because we really do have to look at how religious belief impact that society, but not from a lens of how we currently view things, but how they viewed everything back then. For example, we can’t look at a governmental structure that had a single religious belief back in the 1600’s and we can’t look at it from the lens of our current national government system because they aren’t even comparable. We need to look at the religiosity, government, and political system through the lends of that time period to see if they have any intersections and how those intersections affect each aspect of those different systems.

What I think is interesting is trying to separate these different aspects from each other. I don’t think that America has ever been a pure political ideology like how the Political Philosophy Version portrays civil religion. On the flip side, you can’t look purely at how religions affect a society because there are  a bunch of different intersections of that society that get impacted by religion, however that also impact religion. These impacts could be the difference, for example, between religious beliefs being integrated so strongly into a governmental structure that the government needs to seek solace and advice from religious leaders before making decisions. Some countries have this, others don’t. For those countries that don’t, they all have variations in which that countries constituencies have been decided to integrate their voice or the diversity of their voice, by now declaring the whole country run by religion in various degrees of activity.

This photo shows an interesting intersection of how
people view religion and Politics . 

Should Or Should We Not Have Religious Diversity (Sumblog 9)

It is really interesting to think about the role that religion plays on a person’s national identity. I think in the US, we aren’t necessarily a Christian nation, however, I don’t think that overall we’re very nationalistic either. When you ask a person where they’re from, they say a state, or an ethnicity they have. None of them say the country they’re from. However if you were to ask a person from a different country where they’re from they’d generally say they’re country name. For example, I asked my friend Samer what his nationality was, and he said Tunisian, I asked where he’s from and he said Tunisia, I asked what his ethnicity was and he followed that with Tunisian. He is representing his country. His ethnicity, nationality and country he lives in are all the same. I think the issue with America is that we are Irish-Americans, Swedish-Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and any other ethnicity-American. We still hold on to our previous national identity, and just attach our current national identity to it. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, I actually think it’s a great thing. The issue here is that because we don’t have one national identity-we don’t all say we’re Americans- we have to cling to other ways that we can all nationally connect. Living in the same geographic-location isn’t necessarily enough, it takes something else to connect us. That’s why I think some people in America want to make it a Christian Country, so that there is something to bond everyone together. The issue there is, for those that do not follow Christianity, or are a denomination or other branch off it that isn’t widely accepted-what do they do? Move? Pretend like the life they have here is worth it to change who they are? I don’t think that’s fair for one group of supposed “majority” to yet again squash the perceived “minority” because they want to have unity amongst themselves. I think a better system to stand behind would be a system that viewed individual needs as national needs. That looked at the humanistic life we live, and tried to make it better for each individual and more accepting. I don’t think religion has a place in our regulation for individuals anymore because of how much religious diversity we have. Trying to change it back to the original isn’t going to fix the problems we have now. I honestly think it will only make those problems worse, and divide the nation even more.

This is a wall in Sacramento, California that shows differnt religious faiths through art. It shows that we are accepting to an extent of other religions. There's hope for us to be completely accepting, we just have to go on the right path to get there.

http://americanturban.com/2012/12/28/the-growth-of-americas-religious-diversity-showed-in-2012/