NationStates Jolt Archive

It was brought to my attention that the UN may not be a place for religious topics. What I mean by that is, things that have something to do with religion. Stuff like, Gayrights, Abortion, and so on.

Now if a specific group, religious or otherwise need the UN assistance in a specific matter then fine. However lets leave the Religious stuff to the individual nations to decide for themselfs. The UN doesn't need to be a place for religious battles. It doesn't need to be a place that forced particular few on other nations, weather by popular vote or otherwise. Lets leave the United Nations to the more pressing issues.

What is your opinion?

It is a place for the topics you mention, but it is not a place for the opinions of the church on those topics.

It's not that I think one belief system should be able to impose itself on the world, it's that I don't believe that ANY state should impose religion or laws based on religious precepts on their people - i.e. there should be no theocracies and no state religions - and if necessary, the UN needs to deal with this, e.g. by legalising (as it has already) gay marriages to stop churches imposing their bigoted homophobic views on the law

Here's a thought - what topic ISN'T a religious topic? If you really want to analyze it, every topic potentially can be argued with someone throwing scripture around. No matter what the debate is, someone will find a verse to argue it to 'strengthen' their debate, and someone else will find another verse to contradict the first...lets face it, it's an endless battle.

What I think should be clarified is allowing debates without quoting scripture. This is not church, and if someone is against an issue they should have their OWN valid reasons. Saying something isn't right '...because the Bible says so' is like saying to your child, '...because I said so'


Morse Islands

Gay rights and abortion only have anything to do with religion if people bring religion into it. I don't personally think the church should butt into these issues. They are for the governments of nations to decide, not churches. If the churches don't want to recognize gay marriage, fine, but they shouldn't be allowed to say whether it is legal or not.

Agree completely with Morse Islands and Schweinfurt. The UN is no place for issues concerning actual religion, such as is there a God or not, however moral issues are certainly within the UNs jurisdiction. We do say that murder is wrong don't we? Just because that also happens to be one of the 10 Commandments in teh Judeo-Christian doctrines doesn't mean that it is purely a religious issue.

The only thing I can think to add to what has already been said is that, while I'm not usually swayed by religious arguments, I see nothing inherently wrong with voicing them. If it works for you, go ahead and do it, just be aware that there will probably be objections to using religion to determine international policy.

Unless the question was if religious discussion is banned at NationStates. I don't think it is, but I'm not the authority on the rules.

Gay rights and abortion only have anything to do with religion if people bring religion into it. I don't personally think the church should butt into these issues. They are for the governments of nations to decide, not churches. If the churches don't want to recognize gay marriage, fine, but they shouldn't be allowed to say whether it is legal or not.

Yes. Except for the fact that gay marriages and many other issues are so fundamental that, at least in NS, it'is the UN's place to overrule its member governments as well as the church (as it has already by legalisng gay marriages in all member states)

We need to keep religion where it belongs: In your own head. :lol:

Actually, as long as you don't use it as an excuse to impose hierarchy or something, we don't care if you have religion.

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Kûk‡xenisi n!ok‡x'osi xno-k‡xek‡emi.-The state only exists to serve itself.
"Oppose excessive military spending, yet believe in excessive spending on junk food and plastic surgery to make all your women look like LARDASSES!"-Sino, when I criticized excessive military spending.
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I'm male. Note the pic of attractive women.

I'm sure the UN could spare a little room for church... if we know down the West cubicles and reception because NOONE uses them... and make one of those Post modern churches with a cute twisted piece of metal on top like ... you know... can't remember the denomination... could be methodist... but don't know... when in doubt blame methodists..

It was brought to my attention that the UN may not be a place for religious topics. What I mean by that is, things that have something to do with religion. Stuff like, Gayrights, Abortion, and so on.

Now if a specific group, religious or otherwise need the UN assistance in a specific matter then fine. However lets leave the Religious stuff to the individual nations to decide for themselfs. The UN doesn't need to be a place for religious battles. It doesn't need to be a place that forced particular few on other nations, weather by popular vote or otherwise. Lets leave the United Nations to the more pressing issues.

What is your opinion?

Well, it kind of depends on the situation. If the issue deals with a certain religion demanding that it be the UN's official religion, or something similar, then I say definitely not. However, if the issue is, for example, asking for religious equality in all nations with UN membership, then it belongs there. (Just to be clear, I voted NO)

I object to the idea that gay rights and abortion are religious issues. These issues affect those outside of religion also. You can be an atheist and still gay as well as have an abortion. These are just as much social issues, if not more so, as they are religious issues.

Any person's opinion on a matter of policy is going to be informed and shaped by a matrix of valies, experiences and relationships. Included in that matrix for many of us is religious belief or philosophy. These influences cannot be removed even by the most delicate surgery; they are a part of who a person is. They are also a part of the world in which we all act, and so we need to learn to deal with them.

If one person's opinion is shaped by scientific positivism and another's by ecastatic visions I treat them both equally, as thought shaped by belief (which they in fact are).

P.S.: You can lose a great deal by banning religious thought. Erasmus and Donne contribute more to tolerance and global thinking than Hume and Huxley.

Any person's opinion on a matter of policy is going to be informed and shaped by a matrix of values, experiences and relationships. Included in that matrix for many of us is religious belief or philosophy. These influences cannot be removed even by the most delicate surgery; they are a part of who a person is. They are also a part of the world in which we all act, and so we need to learn to deal with them.

If one person's opinion is shaped by scientific positivism and another's by ecastatic visions I treat them both equally, as thought shaped by belief (which they in fact are).

P.S.: You can lose a great deal by banning religious thought. Erasmus and Donne contribute more to tolerance and global thinking than Hume and Huxley.

I think it's been stated pretty clearly already that all your "example" issues seem to do is demonstrate how an issue in which people's religious beliefs affect their opinion can still be a viable and important issue. So I guess I'll just cast in my vote of agreement with those. The laws come from the needs and desires of the people, their desires come from their opinions, opinions from beliefs--including religious. As a person (OOC, that is) almost all of my opinions and views come from a religious foundation, but that doesn't make any of them less viable than if they had been based on something else in history.

It is a place for the topics you mention, but it is not a place for the opinions of the church on those topics.

It's not that I think one belief system should be able to impose itself on the world, it's that I don't believe that ANY state should impose religion or laws based on religious precepts on their people - i.e. there should be no theocracies and no state religions - and if necessary, the UN needs to deal with this, e.g. by legalising (as it has already) gay marriages to stop churches imposing their bigoted homophobic views on the law

I wanted to say no, I don't think the UN is a good place to talk about religion. Except that your examples where very good examples to say, THAT can be talked about. And should. Well IRL that is. On nation states these discussions get a bit boring :P.
So since I quickly found out that support of your poll would be a very dangerous thing.

ps. And I would advice the church to hire you because you would be number one in being able to stand for a case, and being able to sneakishly submit the whole world to the rule of the church. :P

But I do agree that nation states is not the place to vote does god exist or not :P

Though it would make an intresting polls.

If you're to leave the religious stuff out of the UN, then who's to say that we shouldn't leave the human rights stuf for individual nations, or the healthcare, eduction, political stuff.

IMO, the UN deals with all issues or doesn't deal with any. There is no pick and choose just because you don't like one something.

Any person's opinion on a matter of policy is going to be informed and shaped by a matrix of values, experiences and relationships. Included in that matrix for many of us is religious belief or philosophy. These influences cannot be removed even by the most delicate surgery; they are a part of who a person is. They are also a part of the world in which we all act, and so we need to learn to deal with them.

If one person's opinion is shaped by scientific positivism and another's by ecastatic visions I treat them both equally, as thought shaped by belief (which they in fact are).

P.S.: You can lose a great deal by banning religious thought. Erasmus and Donne contribute more to tolerance and global thinking than Hume and Huxley.

But if you're going to impose laws on a population, it should be possible to justify them with non-religious arguments, even if they're based on religious ideas. Eg. if a religious politician decides that god has given him a mission to help the poor because god loves everyone, and he decides that the best thing he can do is to work for social welfare legislation, he should be able to argue the merits of helping those poor people without resorting to religion (i.e. by saying that poverty is not caused by laziness and is generally not the fault of the sufferer etc.). What annoys me is when someone has no arguments to support their position except for scripture, but still insists that this opinion should be imposed on the whole population, whatever their religious beliefs.

First, let me thank everyone for thier comments thus far. Second I wanted to mention one of the reasons I did this poll. You see everyone seem to have a problem with religion. Some believe that Bible, for instance, is false just words and stories passed down by man. Some people, like some of those stated here, don't believe religion is even a valid arguement. And ofcourse, there are yet those that don't even believe God is real at all. It seems that if so many people had such a problem with Religion than we should just leave it out, or should we?

I believe that there is no right or wrong answer to this question. My personal opinion is that religious topic don't belong in the United Nations. I believe if there is a subject that needs to be address, that is one thing. But that brings us to the next subject, what classifies religion, or religious topics. What it boils down to is we can't excape religion. It is here to stay, what matters in how we deal with it. Should the United Nations be a place for religious debates, for what is morally or ethically right? Probably not. In my heart of hearts, I truely believe it should be up to the citizen of each nation to decided. I don't believe the United Nation has the right, by popular vote, to deligate what people can or can't believe. We are here to protect, guild, give insite to, help, and empower. Not take away someone right to worship as they wish, or not. If someone has a religious conviction about abortion, than so be it. If a nation has religious conviction about what ever, than it should be up to that nation how it deals with that, not other nations that it may have contact with.

Obviously, this is not an easy topic, but again thank you for your comments. They are greatly apprecieated!

The Therapon Protarchon of the Logarchy feels that although whether a religion should be banned or not is entirely a state issue, many "religious" topics touch on non-religious ones as well. We feel that the U.N. is the proper forum to discuss this topic, especially considering that religion is so often a cause of strife and distrust amongst nations.

First, let me thank everyone for thier comments thus far. Second I wanted to mention one of the reasons I did this poll. You see everyone seem to have a problem with religion. Some believe that Bible, for instance, is false just words and stories passed down by man. Some people, like some of those stated here, don't believe religion is even a valid arguement. And ofcourse, there are yet those that don't even believe God is real at all. It seems that if so many people had such a problem with Religion than we should just leave it out, or should we?

I believe that there is no right or wrong answer to this question. My personal opinion is that religious topic don't belong in the United Nations. I believe if there is a subject that needs to be address, that is one thing. But that brings us to the next subject, what classifies religion, or religious topics. What it boils down to is we can't excape religion. It is here to stay, what matters in how we deal with it. Should the United Nations be a place for religious debates, for what is morally or ethically right? Probably not. In my heart of hearts, I truely believe it should be up to the citizen of each nation to decided. I don't believe the United Nation has the right, by popular vote, to deligate what people can or can't believe. We are here to protect, guild, give insite to, help, and empower. Not take away someone right to worship as they wish, or not. If someone has a religious conviction about abortion, than so be it. If a nation has religious conviction about what ever, than it should be up to that nation how it deals with that, not other nations that it may have contact with.

Obviously, this is not an easy topic, but again thank you for your comments. They are greatly apprecieated!

Of course many of us don't see quoting scripture as a valid argument. If something is based only on scripture, then by definition it should only apply to members of the religion which follow that scripture. You cannot force Christian doctrines made law on Muslims, just as it would be wrong to make Christians to pray five times a day in a mosque.

But the NSUN is specifically for debating ethical and political problems, since it cannot fulfil the RL UN's primary aim of peace-keeping. So topics such as abortion and gay rights etc do belong here, and nations may argue that they are topics for nations to deal with individually, but they should refrain from arguing solely based on scripture - if they come up with better arguments that all can appreciate, not just religious people, they are more likely to win support and be taken seriously.

Arguments on philosophical purely religious topics, such as the existence of god, belong on the General forum.