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Many e-mail lists and forums prohibit the discussion of religion and politics.  There are various reasons for this, the main one being that they want to limit discussion to the subject matter at hand.  Another reason is that there are few topics around that can be as inflammatory as religion and politics.  Why?  Because they both deal with ideas, the very core beliefs that fuel our being.

Many people are intimidated by the discussion of religion.  Often because their own ideas on the matter are tenuously held.  They believe something, very strongly, and yet are not sure why.   Often the reason is that they have inherited faith or belief.  We see this a lot here.  “I’m a Catholic because Mom was a Catholic, Grandma was a Catholic and Great Grandma was a Catholic.  In fact, our whole family has been Catholics clear back to Adam!” Of course, there’s also a lot of Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and even Charismatics of all sorts who follow the same type of “reasoning”.  This makes it difficult for people to discuss their ideas since their ideas are usually vague suspicions gathered from forced attendance at Mass or while sleeping through sermons.

The matter of politics is even more difficult.  Folks tend to vote “Brand Name”.  They are “Democrat”, “Republican” or some other label if they are in a country other than the US.  They may (probably) not know what all their party stands for, but because “My papa told me to always vote for X or Y brand.” that’s good enough for them.  Nor do they often pay attention to the voting record of their representative (whether Congressman, Mayor, Councilman, Senator or any other position).  All to often folks have NO idea what their candidate will actually do once in office.  Nor do they care enough to find out.

The big question is, how do you get folks to think?  How do you get them to open up their idea box and use their reason?  It’s not easy.  Far easier to fall back on old ideas rather than to search for truth.  Far easier to cop out with “There’s no alternative other than X or Y” than to actually seek out alternatives.  One of the most difficult things around is to galvanize folks into action, to drive for change instead of the status quo.  How to do this?  I’m not sure.  But if we DO “stir the pot” occasionally, perhaps folks will start thinking rather than feeling and learn to make wiser choices.