The New Road

Politics and Religion

If you read this blog on a regular basis you must be aware of the melt-down that occurred in the comments section of my Good week for Bush post. I take full responsibility for that. I should have known better. I learned a lesson as a teenager at Palmetto High School that you don't criticize a man's religion. For twenty years I kept fairly mum about religion until a couple of days ago when I let it rip. I thought it would be different because this time I related it only to myself, but I was wrong. And for that I apologize to anyone who was offended by the content of the conversation.

It's said that you shouldn't talk politics or religion at work. That's for a good reason. Unfortunately the two are becoming intimately linked. Recently I heard a radio host say that there were two types of people in America, those that believed in God and Good and Evill, and those that didn't. And that was in the context of a political discussion. This is a potentially explosive combination because now as we criticize each others politics we can easily slide into a religious debate.

One thing this experience has helped me see is how much my atheism plays a role in my politics, just as a Christian's politics are guided by their faith. I was always of the belief that the lack of a relgion meant that I could address politics without bias, but it turns out that my lack of a religion is in itself a bias. It's like an accent that you don't know you have.