separation of church and state? or...?

okay. so.

should a candidate's religion play an important role when considering him/her for office??

obviously this is opinion-based... just wondered what people thought.

Well just the notion of separation of church and state is a bit different from the question you're asking. So... I guess I'll just give my opinion on the candidate thing.

It has to play a role in your choosing. The person that you vote for has to be someone you identify with and agree with. For example, if you're an atheist and you really like someone but they put a religious tone on everything they do... it's going to affect you. The opposite can be said. Maybe the focus should be on policy rather than religious belief, but it's going to play a big part. That is, if the candidate is very vocal about it. If they don't let their religion get in the way of what they say or do, according to them, then it's not a huge issue.

i didn't mean separation of church and state in the sense of the real thing... but sort of like a play on the words in the sense that i was asking about a religion/politics relationship.....
sorry.

but yeah. i had more in mind a person that wasn't advocating putting his/her personal religious spin on everything he/she did. Like..... should the only reason someone doesn't vote for someone be because he/she is a muslim or morman or catholic?

this question came to mind thanks to some of tommy's close-minded bigotry.

Well, you can't escape those kinds of ideals.

Maybe it's not right the way you say it. Just because Obama was a Muslim doesn't mean people shouldn't vote for him. If he's got all the answers the problems, forget what religion he follows. It's not going to hurt you.

well, tommy made some ignorant remark about how we can't elect a "muslim nigger"
[my father is a bigot-----not me. his words, not mine]

i pointed out that his mother was muslim, but he wasn't. i said, "your mother is a devout baptist, and you aren't"
he said, "oh, i'm baptist!"

that was a real laugh. seriously. i just sarcastically said "yeah you are!"

but yeah. i just think we need to elect someone who will make the best changes and decisions... regardless of race, gender, or religion

Well, Obama's probably the best candidate. But this is America we live in... which means he doesn't have a fucking chance.

McCain, Obama, or Clinton?

Jesus... I seriously think it's going to be McCain. He's an old, white ex-soldier. He's up against a woman and a black, ex-muslim.

oh i saw on MSN that clinton would have to win EVERYTHING else coming up to have any chance... they pretty much gave it to obama

i also like obama... i don't like mccain.

i don't know.... america is getting pretty dang fed up with the republican party thanks to "w"

I don't know. We'll see.

I personally don't have a problem with Bush.

well, if were sitting on a porch drinking a beer, i'd be cool with him.

as a president, i'm not too impressed at all.

he left a message on our answering machine, though! hahahahaha

Well, what has he done that is so wrong?

well, for one thing, i think he shouldn't have veto'd so many things that would bring the soldiers back....

i mean, i don't know much about the world, politics, etc., and i won't deny that fact... but as far as i know, we've not made much progress...

We've taken out one of the world's biggest dictators. That stopped a potential threat for many people across the world. Sounds like progress.

Plus, there are tons of insurgents that have been killed as well.

okay, just to warn you, i'm going to suck in this type of discussion/debate... and i'll probably be wrong.. and look stupid.. but i can live with that

why is it our battle to fight?

So should we not be pre-emptive? We should allow harm to come to ourselves instead of taking out the threat beforehand?

Look at World War 2. Do you think it would have ended sooner and a lot of things in the world would be different had we entered as a pre-emptive strike to aid another country? Why wait until there is another global problem? We know Saddam is a bad guy. We know he had terrible policies, so why not take him out?

we'll just have to nuke the world... then no one can harm us anymore!!!

Right...

we should have separation of black people and state.

There are very few black people in Canada.

what? There's quite a few, really. There's more Chinese and pakis, but there are alot of Black people here too. Though not as many as in the States.

wow. we have a lot of blacks and mexicans.
take my apartment for instance,
if you're in the front room, you'll hear the BOOMBOOMBOOM of rap music
but if you go to the bedroom in the back, you'll hear the tinkling melody of mexican polka.

(on a sidenote, if you're taking a bath, you can hear spongebob squarepants)

i hate where i live.

Go find a new apartment then.

Them niggers 'gon rape you.

yeah, we're actually planning a big move at the end of august.
(we have to wait until our lease is up)
we're moving to arkansas!
(yay!)

I got nothing.