Piety as a Pretense...

polifrog




Where are all the benevolent tyrants? There are none. There are only those who use piety as a pretense for non pious rule.

That piety may come in different forms, such as religious piety (theocracy) or duty bound piety (atheocracy). Whereas the former’s power is circumscribed by the religion that empowers those who rule via a religious citizenry, the latter enjoys no such restraint, as duty bound piety is piety toward self.

The truer danger, then, is the atheocratic regime which is bounded by no wrong. History points to this. Pick your theocracy then pick your athocracy and compare the suffering under each. Based on sheer number of dead no theocracy can match the accomplishments of the atheocratic regimes of China, Russia, Nazi Germany, or N. Korea.

Does that make a theocracy desirable? No. But it is preferable to the atheocratic rejection of all religion.
 
There is a third way.

It is one that requires no false piety, as it is a choice that does not  adopt a single religion for empowerment and it is a choice that does not reject all religion leaving  only self in the form of duty from which rule is empowered.

That third way is the inclusion of all the various religions or the lack thereof as legitimate voices informing a representative democracy.

Our nation originally chose option three, but unfortunately that third way requires a degree of tolerance the intolerant atheists among us find intolerable and it is they who are slowly forcing us toward the greatest threat to liberty, an atheocracy.




 out