Agreed. I prefer my politicians to keep their religious views to themselves.
I don't care what religion they are, I don't want to hear about it.

Of course it does!
 

I think it depends how close your relationship is with God. I am a Christian, which means I have a relationship with Jesus Christ i.e. I pray to him daily and read his word daily. The Bible should be a blueprint for the Christian lifestyle, so if a candidate doesn't profess Jesus Christ as their Lord, I wouldn't vote for them. The flipside of that is if they do profess Christ as their Lord, they must act accordingly. A lot of people say they don't like it when folks wear their religion on their sleeve. But see when you realize that your mere existence is because of Jesus, and what he's done for you, you can't help but let your light shine in all areas of your life. I guess for me, I don't understand how one can claim to love Christ, but dislike it when people say they believe in him publicly.

Religion matters to me but since we live in a pluralistic society I don't think it's right to force your religious beliefs on others. I believe that religion is something private and personal.

well i don't know how you force or push your beliefs on anyone..but again i think it depends on what God you believe in. no where in my bible does it say that your belief in christ is private or personal. we're supposed to let our light shine and win souls for Christ! ~ :D

BINGO! :D

That's one way to interpret those verses. I wrote a whole paper on this but that's a discussion for something besides the N&P forum.

I personally could not ever vote for a fundamentalist/creationist - as Teresa said last night, we need a president who not only understands science, but believes in it.

ETA: The verse I'm thinking of here is “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them, for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matt 6:1)

I respect anyone who as an individual takes their religion very seriously.

In government, however, you are charged with the responsability of governing many lives that don't necessarily share your views. This needs to be taken into account. If you represent those people, you need to be willing to act accordingly on their behalf. If you are a creationist Christian, you'd better listen to the 75% of your constituants that want evolution to be taught in public schools and creationism to be taught in Sunday schools.

it does to the extent of i would prefer to have a Christian in office, but i'm not NOT going to vote for someone if they aren't. but i totally see love_spell's viewpoint b/c that's what Evangelicals are taught....to spread the Word. it's our "duty" as Christians to let as many ppl as we can know about Christ. she's not talking about hackin a Bible at someone from 50 ft away, she's just talking about not denying what they believe and not only saying they're a Christian, but showing that they are. (right? :) )

i think it matters to me more than i originally thought b/c i find that ppl who are truly religious (which does not refer to the clintons or r.kelly :p ), stick to their morals better b/c they have a reason. whether you are buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Scientologist (is that considered a "religion"....i think so), there are guidelines that one should follow (which are all remarkably similar). not that atheists have no morals (i have plenty of non-evil atheist friends :D ), but i personally like the idea of doing something for a higher power as opposed to just doing something for myself.

***did not mean to offend anyone, so i apologize early if i did....everything here should be followed with a loud IMO. :)

yep you got it ;) glad somebody understands LOL gold star for alphagamdiva :D

I don't think anyone here was suggesting that politicians deny their religion. Only that some of us prefer not to hear about it. If someone were to ask a poltician what his/her religion was I think they have every right to answer that question.

It just that, I personally feel that there is no need to bring up your religion when you're talking about taxes or health care.

While religion shouldn't really matter, sometimes, politicians have to watch what they say/support. Catholic politicians (for example) on both sides of the border have been criticized by church leaders for supporting issues that are not pro-Catholic.

Thanks. People's religious beliefs are usually evident in how they behave so it's not like they would have to hide anything.

That pretty much sums up my feelings on it. I think the only way it would sway my vote would be if someone militantly athiest (athiest is fine, I considered myself one for a long time... I'm talking more like the "God is a curse word and we should ban Bibles from being printed" kind - trust me, I've met some) or satanic or something like that were on the ticket... I would have a hard time voting for them.

As some others have said, I thinking judges would be the one place I might vary... I would prefer to have judges holding seats who have the same beliefs as I do, both on moral and more straightforward matters. But I'm guessing it's pretty unlikely that someone of my religion will make it to the supreme court, unless Utah suddenly gets much more important politically :)

religion matters greatly to me in deciding who to vote for.
Last year there was a candidate for school board who was for teacher-led prayer in the schools- on my premise of religious freedom I had to vote against him.

I thought since you were a Democrat you would vote for these Christian evangelicals.

-Rudey