Madison’s reasons for Church State Separation, 1785. Still relevant today, remain a compelling argument against the impulse to mingle church and state.
To paraphrase
A person’s relationship with God is between that person and God so a majority of people should not be able to impose its religious opinion on individuals.
Government gets its power from the people. Since people should not impose their religious opinions on one another, government should not impose religion on individuals either.
We just fought really hard to win our liberties from England—why would we want to start giving them away again?
If we expect to be free to worship God in our own way, we have to let everyone else do the same thing.
A just God is more offended by inequality than by uncertainty.
The president isn’t an authority on religious truth and the state is not the means of salvation.
Are you worried that religion will fail without the support of the government? Isn’t your faith stronger than that?
Anyway, religion flourishes when it’s oppressed by the state as surely as it turns corrupt when joined with it.
History Lesson: the quickest way to destroy a peaceful society is to give its rulers the authority of God.
Besides, how are we going to explain a State Church to a world of people expecting America to be the “land of the free”?
If we start revoking liberties, all the good people who value freedom will leave and then what will we have?
Relax. Remember: every time we try to make everyone believe the same thing, lots of people get killed.
If we start acting like a backward theocracy, no one will like us and they won’t believe a word we say—as a church or as a state.
It’s hard enough enforcing laws that we agree on. How are we going to enforce a law that no one likes? Besides, stupid laws only damage our credibility.
Okay, this is a democracy. How many people really want the government to tell them how to worship God? Not enough.
If we start to think it’s okay for the majority—the state—to take away our religious freedom, what freedom will we let it take away next?
9
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The other side of the coin though , is that across Northern Europe many countries have state churches of some sort, (though never enforced membership ). And guess what ? Across Northern Europe religion is nearly dead, compared with the US anyway. One of the best reasons for having a state church, is that it kills the church.
Fernapple
Level 9
Dec 15, 2019
1
Correlation is not causation
@Gareth True, and I think that it would be a very dangerous trick to try, so I would not seriously recommend it. Having said that, in this case I can see more than just correlation. For one thing when you have a state church, then one of the churches most valuable assests, that it provides an alternate voice to the state, and a refuge and support for political dissidents is removed. Also it becomes tainted by politics and the crimes of politics, (The involvements of chuches in promoting wars for example.) with a lose of credibility. It also suffers a lose of competetive edge when removed from the free market place, where US churches for example have to compete with all sorts of educational establishments and the media for attention, a state church just sits and lives of its assets. Remember we are talking about a single national church, not linking all churches to the state, as with the US tax system. Plus it is also to be noted that the church in Europe is perhaps strongest of all in Russia, where the state tried to ban it.
A couple of points. It was Britain, not England that you gained independence from. (The Scots, Welsh and Irish take great exception to this kind of laziness from yanks)
"History Lesson: the quickest way to destroy a peaceful society is to give its rulers the authority of God." We have had the monarch as de facto pope for hundreds of years and with a few blips along the way it has been without blood on the streets for 250 or so. We are different counties with different systems. So I am not calling for the US to lose its separation of church and state. Just saying that it can work if tolerance is there too.
273kelvin
Level 8
Dec 14, 2019
0
Ping @Triphid. . . There I thought Australia was being talked about. @Seeker3CO have a search of Aussie Sceptics ("aussie sceptics") for what is currently happening because of our evangelist Prime Minister.
FrayedBear
Level 9
Dec 14, 2019
0
Good stuff.
I’m currently reading “The Founding Myth” by Seidel. Excellent.
mentalinnuendo
Level 5
Dec 14, 2019
0
Me too. I just got it from the library today
He learned much from his neighbor.
moosepucky
Level 7
Dec 14, 2019
0
@Seeker3CO Jefferson spoke frequently with both Madison and Monroe who were close neighbors of his. I worked at Monticello for a while. Couldn't help but to pick up a few things.
@Seeker3CO Jefferson used a machine that would create a duplicate in his hand that he would retain. Monticello has a few Jefferson documents. I'm not sure if there is a complete record of every letter he wrote.
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