Last week, Debating Europe liveblogged the finals of the European Universities Debating Championships (EUDC 2012) in Belgrade, Serbia. The tournament winners have now been announced: Leiden University were crowned champions of the English as a Second Language (ESL) competition, beating teams from the Berlin Debating Union, Tallinn University and the Raphael Recanati International School (RRIS) from Israel on the motion: “This House would retrospectively remove all amnesties granted to those who committed crimes as part of oppressive regimes”. Meanwhile, the team from BPP won the Open (i.e. English as a First Language) final, seeing off teams from Oxford, Cambridge and University College Dublin on the motion: “This House would amend the US Constitution to prohibit any involvement by religious organisations in the electoral process.
You can see the full video from the Open final below:
Congratulations to the winners! And well done to everyone who took part in what (according to the buzz on Twitter and Facebook) was a really lively and interesting debating championship. Take a look at the video, and (if you feel like sharpening your debating skills) we’ll leave the floor open for your comments on whether religious organisations should be prohibited by law from supporting political candidates. As always, let us know your thoughts and comments and we’ll take them to policy-makers and experts for their reaction.
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Eu sou contra que a religião entre na politica a igreja não pode e não deve misturar a religião com a politica a politica foi feita pelos politicos a religião foi feita pelo vaticano o vaticano deve criar projectos sociais e apoiar as familias Europeias que hoje estão com muitas dificuldades económicas e não entrar no mundo da politica
Let?s remember history, when religious institutions welcomed government support… Religious institutions should not enter politics. Religious politicians, on the other hand, can influence corporate and social behaviour toward being a more responsible society.
oh yes….religion has no place in politics…religion to me is all about spirituality, not about dogmas and power mongering representatives of those dogmas or sects.. haven’t we learn so far when we allow clerics (of any religion or sect) to try to get involved in our social and political life, what mess comes out of it? usually is a war, or butchering of the believers of the opposite sect. Mind control, control of the human sexuality, freedom of expression and with those human creativity. The Church must have only one role: help people with their spiritual path, and spiritual problems or doubts. Apart from that no religion, either Christian, Muslim, or whatever else should gain too much power over us, ever again…
The religion of the Egyptians and the Americans is greed hidden in democracy and qoran verses. Adressing such movements as religious is shear ignorance. If these people only had half the conduct of a priest they would have my vote without hesitation. But ofcourse i agree it is easier to ruin people when there is no religion involved to recal on in dire times like these. It is always more preferable to take descisions based on economic grounds without considering the social aspects of life. Religion is a fact deal with it.
I’m pretty straightforward on this one. Church and state should be seperated, period. Every citizen of the European Union should have the right to believe in whatever he wants, but the political structure should be religionless.
France and Turkey are perfect examples of how it should be in my opinion. The French call it laïcité. I think it’s the best way to secure common sense and personal freedom in our beloved Union.
Church and State cannot be separated if the State endorses or accepts religious practices and embraces them within their ethos.
Any acceptance of religious dogma, such as the covering of females as a principle of subjugation, is a form of embrace. To allow any form of religious extravagance that reduces one section of the population denotes collusion and acceptance of that practice and that part of the population should indeed be subjugated.
However, without the influence of religion, how does society stay on an even keel? Oh, yes, I know the voice of natural instinct will survive and the natural instinct leans toward goodness. But does it? It didn’t with Hitler? Did it with, Tony Blair, a so called devout Catholic? Who lied to his people and to his government in order to procure war illegally against another nation, for his collusion in greed.
What I am getting at, is, mankind deviates from any form of norm or expectation. If we look at political correctness, where people are forbidden to acknowledge or speak their truth, this is only one step away from totalitarianism. To enforce silence is to instill fear in truth. If there is no form of guidance or path for the State to follow that expresses what we collectively deem as humane, where will we end up when left at the mercy of mere men? The concept of religion being it is doctrine of a higher power.
So, this needs to be studied very carefully indeed. Glib responses to such a deep concept is foolish.
In my opinion, religion should be separated from the politic issues, because we are not anymore in the Middle Ages, where the king or the leader of the country was elected “by the grace of Gods”. Still, as Catherine pointed out, religion makes people moral aware.
Judging by the struggle that is faced by every country nowadays, I am inclined to affirm that we lost our bound with God. But this doesn’t mean we need to be extremists, but we need an ideal person, something, let’s not say to “worship”, but to respect, and IDEA, which should give us the desire to change the world.
Analyzing the problem from a political point of view, we can observe that, in some countries, the politicians are elected by religious reasons and this is not fair. Religion has its own impact, politics has its own impact, a more pragmatic and realistic one.
To sum up, I don’t think that “banning” is the right word, but the separation, the fact that politics means something else than religion and that the religious leaders cannot lead the people in economical and strategic issues.
Absolutely!