Originally posted by karajorma
What I'm seeing is me arguing that the government can and will try to be totalitarian and you arguing that it won't. What have you done with the real Rictor? 
It's only a short step from allowing the teaching of creationism in class to simply dropping evolution completely. Sure Bush can't turn the country into a theocratic state overnight but he can lay the groundwork for someone who will. Remember that Iran was almost all the way to becoming a fully westernised liberal style democracy before it changed into the theocracy it is now.
Nah, it's still me. And I absolutely do believe that the government can and will try to be totaliarian, I just don't think it's too likely to be along religious lines. Why? Because I must assume that those who try to institute governmental tyranny aren't stupid. State tyranny based on religion (and especially Christianity) would be very tricky to maintain. First of all, Christianity itself, even more so the Protestant factions which are the heart and soul of American fundamentalism, is an enemy of the State. But alright, that can and has been perverted.
The far bigger problem would be to construct a society so closed that it would be possible, over any period of time, to turn back the clock a few hundred years. In order for theocracy in America to be even concievable, we're talking literally 1984 level control over information and education. Putting aside the fact that a large percentage of the population are avowed atheists or very weak thesists, there's no way that a government could do away with not only the Constitution, but also all alternative methods of information (newspapers, radio, TV, Internet, carrier pigeons, word of mouth etc ) so as to prevent people from going through the same process which has been going on for quite a while now (assuming, of course, that the entire population could magically be transported back intellectually to 1800 or so). Religon is in decline for a reason. The reason being science, technology and reason. In order to accomplish a second ascension of religion, anywhere. you would need to compltely do away with those. You can extend it's lifespan a bit, like for example by piggybacking it onto nationalist sentiment (which, though not rational, is easier to justify and rationalize in the modern world), but it's days are numbered.
Even in Iran, to use your example, theocracy has been around for a scant 25 years or so. And let's be generous and give it another 20 years, though it will likely last quite a bit less. For one reason or another, faith is much more widespread and much stronger in the Muslim world than in the Christian. Even then, there is a huge reformist faction in Iran, and the theocracy is significant weaker than immediately following the revolution. I have two close friends who are Iranian. One is no more religious than the average Muslim, and the other is an atheist. Hell, even Saudi Arabia is modernizing and democratizing. What I'm saying is not that a theocratic dictatorship is impossible, only that is unpractical and unlikely, and that a dictatorship along secular lines is a far greater threat.
Originally posted by Ford Prefect
It does matter. Humans naturally want absolutes, and because we also possess an instinctual belief in a "natural order of things", we will always us that belief to validate our primal desire to enforce our own absolutes on others. The intellectual decision to break that pattern is inevitably crushed by the prospect of personal advancement. The reason that religion cannot be abandoned is the same reason that we create art, that communism failed, that war is a constant, and that people follow their governments off cliffs.
These are all trends. If they have been going on for all of human existance, that is no reason the believe that they will remain in the future. The character of humanity has been significantly changed, and will continue to be into the future. War is not constant (the world is now more peaceful than at any point in human history, and looks to be becoming more peaceful). Communism didn't fail, it failed at that specific time and in that specific fashion (a very oppressive variety). Look around at any Western society, the vast majority of people belong to the middle class. It's not hard to imagine Marx's classless society, not as a result of revolution and indoctrination, but because of the rise of the middle class, which in my opinion will only grow in strenght and numbers until it becomes universal.
If religion has been in decline for over a hundred years, at different speeds in diffrent parts of the world, but overall definitely in decline, is there any reason to assume that this trend will be reversed? If there is, I can't see it.
