DEBATE: Sebastian Morello vs. Kevin Vallier | Christianity and the State

Sebastian Morello, Senior Editor of The European Conservative, and Kevin Vallier, Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University, discuss “Should government and religion be separate?” The Acton Institute’s Collins Center for Abrahamic Heritage organized this debate, moderated by John Pinheiro, as the second part in a series on the relationship between government and religion.

The Acton Institute is a think-tank whose mission is to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.
This direction recognizes the benefits of a limited government, but also the beneficent consequences of a free market. It embraces an objective framework of moral values, but also recognizes and appreciates the subjective nature of economic value. It views justice as a duty of all to give the one his due but, more importantly, as an individual obligation to serve the common good and not just his own needs and wants.
In order to promote a more profound understanding of the coming together of faith and liberty, Acton involves members of religious, business, and academic spheres in its various seminars, publications, and academic activities. It is our hope that by demonstrating the compatibility of faith, liberty, and free economic activity, religious leaders and entrepreneurs can contribute by helping to shape a society that is secure, free, and virtuous.

[they]

Sebastian's reaction to being introduced as a wine critic is too funny.

[kamilziemian]

I had a question to Kevin Vallier: are you Sir speaking about theoretical construct or about reality of some modern states? It is not clear at all from this discussion. I specifically want to know, is Church and the State separated in the USA? Because if you answer "Yes", we need to explained, why USA is plagued by problems that he described as bad results of union of this two institutions.

[reformational]

Some important clarifications at episode 15 @reformedlibertarians "Can Christian Civil Government Be 'Theocratic'?"

[jenna]

The big problem is there's not ONE Christianity. There's something on the order of 45, 000 flavors and 2 new flavors appear every year.

[kamilziemian]

50:04 I think in this and few minutes following we see how confused Kevin Vallier is on what is theoretical proposition and what is state of reality today. He said that "from evidence" we know that various forms of establishment religion is know to be bad. And at the same time he try to answer problem "in practice we don't have separation of Church and State, but competing integralisms" using strange mix of theoretical reasoning ("it is incompatible with human dignity") and empirical data. And he said that various countries that he put as positives examples have something like "moderate establishment of religion or ideology", which seems to be rejection of his own position.

At least this is how I see this right now. It is quite hard to grasp what Mr. Vallier position really is.

[Musonius]

Unfortunately, Dr. Vallier fails to provide any specific support for his controversial claim that natural law is universal across religions. To cite one example, Buddhism ethics presupposes a metaphysics of the self based on the notion of sunyata or emptiness. According to the Buddhist philosopher Jay Garfield this means that persons have no essence and are merely conventional. This is contrary to the natural law view that not only affirms essentialism, but also identifies our essence with rational nature. I could cite other examples from other world religions. The point is that it is a mistake to assert without detailed argument that Buddhist ethics, Hindu ethics, Confucianism, Daoism, and even Judaism and Islam really all presuppose, in any interesting sense, natural law.

[prviakaunt]

they didnt allow to Mel Gibson to make movie on third secret of fatima but third secret of Fatima can be understood through reading all four parts of "Night in Zagreb" series by Adam Medvidović.

[HasnoRats]

Oh yeah devil worship should be outlawed because it disagrees with you and all other religions would probably blindly agree thats why you stuttered when saying that you were gonna say another common religion but you caught yourself im onto you

[kamilziemian]

1:07:40 It seems that Mr. Vallier believes that abortion is murdering of babies. I want to him to ask, what is a value of human dignity in the state, that allow babies to be murdered "on demand"? He seems to be very uneasy with abortion and at the same time, speak about great value that human dignity has in human society. I just want to know how he is squaring this out.

[papaspeleo]

Government IS A religion.
All the best