Thread: TED: Sam Harris on science and morality

Also I have to say that this is a bit silly:

Originally Posted by gwahir

your country is essentially a very sophistocated, very powerful theocracy and that is just not on

The politics of nearly ALL countries are, to some degree, influenced by the religious attitudes of whatever portions of the populace hold such attitudes. Yeah, in the US, we have more of a politically active Christian population than do most other "first-world" countries (i.e. Western European countries and Australia), and thus our politics are more influenced by the religious attitudes of this population segment. That's not the same thing as a theocracy, though. A theocracy is a government where clerics or religious leaders control the political process; "control", not "exercise more influence upon it than they do in Belgium or the UK or Australia". To suggest that Christian religious leaders control American politics is frankly absurd, and it betrays the unrealistic view of an outsider who bases their view of American politics on sensationalist caricature and hasn't invested a great deal of effort in actually looking at our system. The political influence of Christian religious leaders in America is a far cry from "control" even if it's greater than in most European countries.

EDIT: Calling America a "theocracy" for this reason is like me calling European governments "fascist" because they typically don't have free-speech protections quite as robust as those we have in the US.

Don't forget that every American wants to be a cowboy and tries to emulate them to the highest degree possible.