Originally Posted by Willravel

Yes. I, personally (meaning, this post and my previous posts are imho), believe that theocracies shouldn't exist. Governments should be secular and provide freedom of (and from) religion as a fundamental right. If people wish to worship someone or something, that should be their right, but the idea that an entire state is based on a faith and forces that faith (or even lack thereof) on people is a human rights violation by default.

A friend and I were once talking about nationalism and he brought up this interesting idea about the idea of national identity as it pertains to culture and/or religion. His point was that the problem for theocrats (or "ethnocenterists", as he called them) is that the territory encompassed by their theocracy is not the same as the territory where their religion is. Their religion is found outside of their country, and other religions are always going to be found inside of their country. When a country attempts to expunge any group—be they ethnic, religious, cultural, or otherwise—from their supposed haven, inevitably they'll only end up creating a disaster for human rights. Iran has run into this problem and Israel is battling with it right now. It's insane that Israel, which is kinda based on Western governments and culture, is also trying to go through an ethnic and religious cleansing. It makes me think if there were more Sarah Palins and Glenn Becks here, we might be doing the same thing.

Then I go have some tea and read a book.