Why a Division of Church and State is still an Important Issue.
You've all heard the rhetoric that religion has a place in government. Well, let me take the time to educate you on that particular subject. Part of the reason why the United States became as powerful as it did was because of the first amendment right to freedom of religion. Until the United State, historically, countries had a state religion. In those coutries, while other religious sects could exist, worship tended to be a secretive affair. At the whim of the ruling people, any or all of those sects could be purged from a country. In the most well known version, this is what more or less happened during the Spanish Inquisition, when any person who wasn't of the Roman Catholic faith had to convert or die. It was also the source of purging the Jews from every European country at one time or another. In France, Germany, England, amongst other "christian countries" wars broke out between different sects of christianity.
So let us begin with what would happen if christianity became a state religion. First it would be any christian, at least until the non-christians were suppressed or expelled. Then it would be whatever sect of christianity the leaders of the country were, maybe Southern Baptist, or Roman Catholic, or Mormon. Either way, you'd end up being pressured to accept their way or get out (or die). This has been the pattern throughout history. The United States broke that pattern and allowed people to worship as they chose to, assuming they otherwise followed the law. What is happening now, is individuals with prejudices, are trying to use religion to back their claims. The only problem is that they aren't very educated in their own religion, nor in the history of religion and religious wars, nor even the history of the United States. Now, that isn't to say that I believe that people shouldn't be able to be prejudiced at their place of business, so long as they are open about it. They should also not be able to complain if people use their freedom of speech to protest in front of that business, or on the internet.
Now, if you are talking about moral decay, well then we should have a discussion of what morals are, where they come from, and if they are generally universal, or if they only exist within religiously influenced areas. When they are universal, they tend to have sound reasoning, when they are religiously based, it tends to be at the whim of the church, or whomever started that church. Being a religious country did not stop corruption from occuring during the early part of our history in this country, nor has it ever been as white-washed as the modernist christians would like you to believe. Even the bible shows that this is the case. Why have to create laws to tell us right from wrong? Why add to the list later? Why have we dropped many of the laws in that list while retaining others? In the end, instead of ranting religion, we should have an open discussion on what things constitute universal morality, and how to implement them in law, while allowing the greatest diversity otherwise to allow allow maximum freedom to Americans.
Now this isn't to say there are not anti-religious people. There are anti-religious people. Not all athiest are anti-religious. Most of them don't care if you worship a Jewish Sky God, or a rock shaped like a peanut At least, they don't care until you start imposing your religion upon others. Making laws that are based solely upon particular passages of the bible, tends to offend them, even when they don't necessarily pertain to them. It's the principle of the thing. You certainly don't want people passing laws based on the Koran(Islamic), or based on the Vedas(Hinduism), etc. So why should those others put up with those based solely on Christian texts.
posted by Hugo Fuchs @ 12:00 PM
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