Why I'm not in a hurry to get to heaven

Over at Asymmetrical Information, Jane Galt discusses why believers should or should not have higher traffic mortality rates than non-believers. I like her mortal-utility maximizing explanation mostly because it's a rational approach to religion.

By way of brutal segway to an only peripherally related subject let me begin a diatribe about religion and politics. I dislike the idea of mixing politics with religious causes, mostly because religion is supposed to be about you and God while politics is about rule of law. I'm not saying that one's political leanings shouldn't reflect or be affected by one's religious leanings. It's just not a good idea to rule by religion in a country where religious tolerance is a founding priciple.

Some would say that most of our basic laws come from the Bible and I'd agree. The main difference is that we used those ideas as a basis for laws not because they came from the Bible, but because they're good ideas. Don't kill people, don't steal other people's stuff - pretty good way to keep people from getting mad at each other. Of course, we also put some exceptions on these rules - don't kill people unless they're trying to kill you or if they've killed someone else and we as a society agree they need to be killed to either keep them from doing it again or to serve as a lesson to others or as payback for their action.

Strictly speaking, a Christian shouldn't support the death penalty what with the injuntion against killing and the whole judge not deal. But a society needs to reserve the right to do anything necessary to keep itself alive. Politics deals with the society, our laws are general rules that we're supposed to play by. Can we set up even more restrictive rules on ourselves by choice? Yes, most of us do. There are certainly some legal actions that many see as unethical.

Let's look at the gay rights issue. I have no problem whatsoever with gay people being able to "marry" their same-sex lover. They are entitled to the same rights that we heterosexuals are. Do I think that the Church should marry them in the name of God? I'm not so sure about that. Do homosexuals have the right to be married under the law of society? Yes. Under the law of God? I'll leave that up to the theologans. The point is that just because one is married by law does not equate to marriage under God. I think that the institution of marriage has unfortunately not received the benefit of separation of church and state and it's past time we change that.

I propose that we stop calling civil unions marriage. If you are not married by a religious personage you are in a civil union. If you are married by a religious personage you are both married and in a civil union (provided you have the "marriage" license). So, any type of union of 2 people (yes, let's keep it down to 2 people only) licensed by the state will now be called a civil union, or union for short, and only those who are joined before God are in a marriage. So, the state is out of the marriage business, civil unions are legal contracts between 2 parties regardless of gender (but still no inbreeding or incest, please), and marriage is solely the pervue of the church.

I think that's enough for today, we'll save the question of capital punishment for another time.