This thread should be Godwin'ed... but I'm interested so I'm going to contribute to this mess
First, my two cents on the election issue:
So let's assume 75% (took it from a hat) of people in Portugal would think the abortion law should be changed. Let's also assume, that regular voting turnout would be 65%, that's more then last presidential or parliamentary elections. If the 25%, who are against abortion, would just decide to abstain from voting, the turnout would drop to 48.75%. That would mean that, even if the elections ended up with 100% votes for pro abortion. All it would take from the 25% minority to negate the elections is not to vote.
I'll take your math at face value, since I'm too lazy to work it through. However, I take issue with your conclusion that just because this is
possible, a minimum voter turnout is a bad idea. You say
all it would take to corrupt the system is for 25% of the total population to not vote.
All it would take???!??!?!?!? How likely do you think this is? You're asking a large bloc of voters to make a conscious, decisive effort to corrupt the system. Of all the types of corruption that democracy is subject to, I think this may be the least likely I've ever heard of. This 25% is passionately motivated, taught from birth that the way to make a differnence is
to vote, and highly unorganized. They are not going to collectively not vote just because they could rationally win by doing so. And, on the absurd off-chance that they
did manage to coordinate their voting to exploit this, you would know long before the vote occurred because it's not possible to convince 25% of a population to vote as a bloc without everyone else discovering what's going on. And if some group
does start a "no vote" campaign, you're going to have far more debate on this issue that you ever wanted.
Moving on...
First, a few one liners...
Why do all of the anti-religious folks assume that either
a) Religion = Christianity, or
b) Religion = The political orgainization that is the Christian Church?
Why is it assumed that science does not involve / is not compatible with faith? Do centuries of religious scientist not mean anything?
Why is it assumed that Darwin is incompatible with religion / faith / God? For the record,
he studied to be an Anglican clergyman, and, despite losing faith in the Church later in life, remained agnostic to death. It's Darwin Day today, let us all honour God as he did.
Why is it assumed that we can somehow think ourselves to a better world?
Why should it matter whether God is a human creation? Does His/Her/Its being so make Him/Her/It any less worthy of acknowledgment, or, conversely, does not acknowledging God as a human creation make Him/Her/It
more real, not less so?
Moving on...
I am shocked and appalled that so many of you seem to think that religion (more specifically, religious
values) should be utterly divorced from politics. I am shocked that you think science can tell you what to vote for.
Let's take a good look at what science, or, more broadly, rationality is good for. Science is in the business of making predictions, of discovering how the world
is and deducing how the world
will be based on
how things were. Science and rationality will tell you how to get from A to B, where we were before we got to A, and where we are likely to be after we get to B. It is very, very good at studying and solving problems, at explaining why things are the way they are, and how to go about changing them. Sounds good, right? What else could we ask for?
Let's apply this to politics. Let's say you want to get to B from A, who should you vote for? Obviously, the candidate who is most scientifically qualified to understand how to get from A to B. And, after a little scientific study, it should be possible to determine which candidate this is... presumably the most scientific candidate.
So if it's so simple to get from A to B, why are elections so hotly contested? Why doesn't everyone just vote for the best candidate?
There's a lot of reasons, most of which I will ignore, but there's one reason that's specifically relevant to this thread. And that reason is that, quite often, half of the population doesn't want to go to B, they want to go to C instead, so they are all voting for the candidate who is most qualified to go from A to C.
So, no problem, let's just find a scientist who can tell us whether it's better to go to B or C, and then vote accordingly. Wait, did I say no problem? Well, actually, there is a problem. Science can tell us how to get to B; it can tell us how to get to C; it can even tell us with ruthless precision whether we're more likely to get to B than C. But, it cannot solve the problem at hand, because, no matter how much we study the world around us, science cannot tell us whether it is good or bad. Science is value-neutral and cannot make value judgements. But, the question at hand requires a value judgement. We want to know whether B or C is a
better choice.
Science can (and does) certainly try to get around this. Typically, science will turn its considerable prowess to discovering as much as possible about both B and C. And, often this will be enough, since it turns out that one or the other leads to problems down the road. If C causes cancer and B doesn't, science chooses B, doesn't it? No, it doesn't. Science puts information on the table: C causes cancer, B doesn't. But then another value judgement has to be made: Is it better to get cancer or not to get cancer? And then,
we make a decision based on the best information that science can give us: We decide to go to B because we agree that it's better not to have cancer.
But how did
we decide that we didn't want to have cancer? We didn't use science — science doesn't care whether or not we get cancer. Science will just unemotionally tell us what will happen as the cancer progresses, or (hopefully) tell us how to get rid of it. Somehow, we made a value judgement. Presumably, we used thought along these lines: Cancer leads to death, and death = bad. In other words, we looked to our existing values (death = bad) to solve the problem. But, where did these values come from in the first place?
This is a problem that science could solve, but I'm going to jump the gun and point out that values come largely from religion. And, before you atheists start screaming "I'm not religious and
I have values", let me point out that your values are largely Christian with the ideals of equality and freedom tacked on the side. Let's face it, the members of this debate are mostly American / European, and our heritage is Christian, like it or not. Besides, I'm not really interested in where our values came from. I'll accept that you have values, and I don't particularly care how you got them. What I'm interested in is how to make a decision when two of my values conflict. Or, more combatively, how to make a decision when my values conflict with your values. Science can't make this decision. Religions, on the other hand, can, because they provide a (mostly) consistent system of values that do not conflict with each other.
(Yes, the problem gets pushed back a bit when two religions have values that clash, and that's a much more difficult problem. However, it's mostly irrelevant within a single society because you can assume that a society is dominated by a single religion. Also, a religion that can accommodate a wide range of opposing values, such as our own society, or many Eastern religions will suffer less from this problem.)
So, getting back to the example at hand, religion can help us choose between B and C, while science cannot. Making a value decision wisely requires a system of values, which religion can provide. When you say that religion has no place in politics, I understand that as meaning that a system of values has no place in politics. And that makes me shocked and appalled, though perhaps not very surprised.
Over the past couple hundred years or so, our society has systematically tried disengage systems of value from government by delegating value decisions to "the people" via democracy. While it is admirable to have a system of government where the citizens are not at the mercy of the value system belonging to the person(s) in power, that advantage is eroded when none of the citizens have value systems, or when their value systems are widely divergent. Yet, this is the situation that we have today.
Our society is full of well meaning people like Redzo who are so afraid to have values (or, perhaps, to admit that they have values that are not "determined by science") that our elections are won by the "least offensive" candidates who express the most value-neutral positions. We have a system of government that, currently at least, puts the people with the weakest values in power. Is this not a perfect recepie for corruption? We have
no idea where the majority of our elected officials really stand on important issues because the system does not allow values to be expressed. Is it any wonder that the young population in most western nations (the most idealistic, value-motivated demographic) do not bother to vote? With no values expressed, how do we choose who to vote for? Is it any wonder that there are religious resurgences in many countries (Bible-thumpers, I'm looking at you). At least these religions are expressing
something. We know where they stand, unlike our politicians, who, we can only assume are simply out for personal gain. Yes, past religious organizations have been corrupt, but even they had to stay within their stated ideals enough to maintain the illusion of honesty. Our current leaders don't even have to do that.
/rant
To sum up: Politics requires a decent system of values. The most likely (only?) source for that system is religion. I don't suggest reinstating the Church, but it might be worth paying attention to the values they espouse.