Scott Adams: Religion and Politics

"Why would you vote for a president who has a different religion than you?", asks Dilbert creator Scott Adams on his blog: "If you are certain of the rightness of your own beliefs, and equally certain of the wrongness of a presidential candidate’s belief, that proves the candidate has, in your opinion, bad judgment about the most important question in reality."

With one simple statement, Adams gets down to the crux of religion and politics. If people really thought about the relationship between church and state, things would turn on their head.

To wit: "why would you trust a Catholic who wouldn’t take advice from the Pope, who the candidate believes gets advice directly from God? Such a candidate would be a liar or an idiot to ignore advice from God."

Adams' question: is an alternative even possible? Does a modern candidate indirectly reject the tenets of his/her religion by refusing to take "perfect" counsel from those he/she believes to be communicating directly with God? Can an honest, intelligent candidate or politician ignore the "most important question in reality" and remain viable?

The fact that "good judgement" is only a Presidential priority for some 25% of American voters begins to answer the question, but opens up some larger, scarier questions. Do we really "believe" our religions, or is our religion just something to help us "feel good about our place in the universe"?

One alternative explanation (more of a theory):

1) We really do believe our religions (and that certain leaders communicate with Higher Powers), but in the name of plurality we avoid pushing our religious beliefs upon others in order to retain that same comfort ourselves. We unconsciously recognize the damage that a schizophrenic American theocracy would create and decide that it's better not to be ruled by any God as long as it's not someone else's.

Just a theory.