Religion and politics should never be combined

I’ll deal with counter-arguments first: "one's religious beliefs or values shouldn't have anything to do with their desicions as a politician." If a politician is religious, I can’t imagine him or her using anything but their religion to help make a decision. Similarly, an atheist politician will do exactly the same thing (base their policies on their belief/lack of belief) – he or she is not going to fight for policies based on what he or she saw was preached in the Bible. I couldn’t imagine a politician campaigning for something he or she doesn’t believe in. In reality, it is probably better that politicians base their decisions on their religious views (if they have any) as this helps the voters know exactly what is influencing the politicians. What would be worse than having a politician that had seemingly secular policies (coming into an election), but within a few days of being elected says that he is a Muslim and that he will be implementing Sharia? Would that not be unfair to the voters, whom thought that they were getting a secular president? The Bible is immoral Honestly, I think it would be very, very hard to prove as (mostly) moral. Seeing as the resolution is “Religion and politics should never be combined,” I don’t deem it necessary to defend Christianity in this sense – other religions, and perhaps only parts of Christianity, can be proven to be okay to combine, and therefore deny the resolution. My arguments: Religious politicians for the religious Let’s take America for example. In a Democratic society, would not the popular opinion/person win? Say a Christian was running for president. Her views on Christianity are main-stream and she genuinely believes in the Bible. Come Election Day, she is voted in because she is a Christian. If you consider that “Two-thirds of them [Americans] say they believe in God (68%) [1],” wouldn’t this be a democratic and fair representation of the people of America? Cherry-picking “Never be combined” irks me. I think there are good parts to every religion, even if they are out-numbered by the bad ones. Despite the Bible being mostly morally reprehensible (imo, and I don’t think you’ll disagree), there are instances where Jesus preaches ‘good*’ things: “love thy neighbour” and “he who without sin cast the first stone,” for examples. I imagine the majority of Christians, other religious members and even non-believers will see these sentiments as ‘good*’, don’t you? *Good as in moral/ peaceful/ civil Personal Religion Religion does not necessarily mean simply Christianity, or even a well-known religion. Religion (Noun)1. The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods2. Details of belief as taught or discussed. The latter definition could allow for religion to mean something I thought of seconds ago and are speaking about now. For example, it could be my belief that humans deserve to be treated equally. I then discuss this with someone else. I go into details of how this belief could be applicable to every-day life. According to the second definition, this belief could be considered a religion and also ‘moral’ in secular terms. [1] http://www.pewforum.org...