icedsushi wrote:smutek wrote:No, I can't. Despite the way it may seem I am not unrealistic. I don't expect to see Buddah or Christ running for president, not that either of them would be electable even if they did....
Are you sure you mean that? Even with your genuine, innocent choices. Think about that one a sec. The absolute pinnacle, the ultimate epitomy, personification, of "religious" figures running the govt?
How would the buddhists like it if Christ were in charge? How would the Christians like it if Buddha were in charge? What would would Buddha think if Christ were president? Would they be thought of as "loser" or "winner" by society after the election? Would the other one concede into society or go be a president of another country who had other special interests different than the Christ nation. And vice versa...
Would the nation be further divided into stronger religious groups? How about the Muslims who didn't want to vote for Christ or Buddha because the candidate they wanted wasn't nominated.
Would religious beliefs take a stronger role in differences between people? Would there be riots or killings by people who opposed or didn't want to follow the indisputable/"official"(?) religion of the country? How about those who didn't believe that "president Christ" was actually the "real" Christ and protested against him. The real Christ would be OK with that, and love everybody, but how about everyone else. Would they be offended or attack and try to silence the protesters? Would there be more religious fundamentalists and extremists or less? Would that be a good thing?
Would the first amendment be abolished? Church and state become one?
Are you sure even your top two choices would make good presidents, or could with the purest of the pure in office, could it turn out being the law of unintended circumstances?
No, I didn't for a moment say they were my top two choices, they were only chosen for the sake of the example.
Ok, try to follow what I am saying here.
First a friendly disclaimer: I am not a religious man.
Now.....
Let's use Christ as the example. Let's say Christ were alive and running for office as president. Assume also nobody knows who he is, he's using the alias, say..... Simon Klausinski.
Now, for this example let's take away all of the religious dogma associated with the christ figure and look at him as christ the man, what he stood for, the same as we would look in retrospect upon Martin Luther King or Ghandi, not as a deity but as an influential, remarkable social activist. This is the christ of our example. No religious dogma attached.
We are going to say that based on his overwhelming charisma and skills at public speaking Simon Klausinski has amassed quite a following over his years of activism.
Simon Klausinski, our christ in polaks clothing, is an anti-establishment activist who teaches and spreads a message of non-violent resistance based in the most basic underlying codes of human moral decency. Love thy neighbor, do unto others, peace, equality, fairness, etc. etc.
We are going to also assume, perhaps most importantly, that while he is not perfect, our Simon Klausinski is genuine.
By definition he stands for the exact opposite of what the establishment stands for. It follows that as a result he would be completely unelectable. Could you see him schmoozing up to big pharma, or the insurance lobby, the tobacco industry, the military industrial complex, AIPAC? Could you see him pledging to send troops into Iran?
Don't get confused now, I'm not talking about the Jerry Falwell's of the world, I'm talking about something entirely different. (for this example to work you have to understand that)
He would be constantly slandered by the media or would get little to no air time. He'd be viewed as a threat to establishment figures and would probably be arrested on trumped up charges, terrorism related most likely. He'd probably just be straight out assassinated, like Ghandi and Dr. King were. Actually, like christ was.
Anyway, I'm not looking for a Simon Klausinski, or Christ or Buddha. I think I've made that abundantly clear though......
So that was kind of my rationale behind my selections. Sort of.... basically the point is that if you look at christ in the context of what his life was supposed to have stood for and the events that befell him you'll see that he clearly would not be an electable person. He'd most likely be rendered on a CIA jet and flown to a dungeon in uzbekistan to be water boarded or boiled alive.
Yeah....
I'm supposed to be doing homework man.
