if there is a seperation of church and state why are so many laws based on religious beliefs?

Question

think about it so many laws are based on the christian view of "right" why is this and will it ever change

Answer 1

Laws are based on people's beliefs. People have religions. Therefore laws will be based somewhat loosely on religious beliefs.

However, that's not a violation of the separation of church and state. The idea of separation is not to make the state immune from INFLUENCE of churches, or religions. The idea was to make them INDEPENDENT - in other words, not controlled by them. In Europe, before our American Revolution, most countries had a 'state church' that everyone was required to belong to, and this entity also had control over the laws. That was what they wanted changed. It was never intended to eliminate the opportunity for religious people, and even organized religions to have influence in society. That would be repression of religion.

Everyone should be free to try to influence the way the laws are constructed, even if they're beliefs are something that I might consider wrong.

Answer 2

oddball may have glanced at the Constitution, but not apparently at the Supreme Court decisions going back to the 1820s, when the doctrine of separation of church and state was first acknowledge by the Court, over a century before Warren.

While those words are not in the Constitution, the concept is pretty simple really. The government cannot tell religion what to do, because of the Free Exercise clause. Neither can the government say that one religion is right and others are wrong, because of the Establishment clause. Therefore, since the government cannot control religion, and it cannot promote or support religion, the government and the chuch(es) must be different. That's what separate means: different, distinct, not the same thing.

Under that model, since the church and the government cannot be the same thing, government (secular) laws must be based on valid secular grounds: legitimate government interests. If those interests happen to be the same as the requirements of many religions, that's fine. You don't need religion to tell you that murdering or attacking people causes pain and fear and disrupts society, or that stealing property makes people angry and disrupts their lives. So, there are plenty of laws that happen to have religious counterparts that are also valid based purely on their secular/societal effects.

That's where the distinction needs to be drawn. A law which has a valid social or economic purpose, and which satisfies or addresses an objective secular goal, is perfect fine (within constitutional limits) even if it happens to be religiously motivated.

However, a statute which has no other purpose or effect than to give religious dogma the weight of law is invalid, under the Establishment Clause, because it effectively allows the majority religion to enact its beliefs as a matter of law.

It can change, and for a while was changing, until there was a resurgence of religious conservative control over government. Now, I have nothing against conservatives believing whatever they choose to belief. But that doesn't allow them to enact laws based solely on religious dogma and religious morality, without any objective economic or societal rationale.

To change (back), everyone needs to start being tolerant of different beliefs. The majority needs to stop thinking that it is the only mindset that matters. We need to accept differences in belief, and make the effort to base laws not on our personal beliefs, but only where those laws have a rational objectively societal purpose independent of religious dogma. Our government needs to stop trying to legislate morality, and stop trying to say that one set of religious-based moral values are inherently better than any other.

Because once the government can start legislating morality based on religion, we've effectively established a government church, using law enforcement to make sure everyone follows the religious teachings. And that's what this country was founded to prevent.

Answer 3

Your fine Liberal education is showing. You were never required to read or study the Constitution, was you?

You only have to do a few minutes of reading and you will learn there is no such thing a the seperation of church and state.

The Constitution says Congress will make no laws respecting the establishment of a Religion. That mean Congress cannot do like England (Church of England is the official Religion of England) and establish a specific religion as the Official religion of the U.S.

The seperation of church and state was made up by the Warren Supreme Court to justify the removal of prayer in the schools. This is called Interpolating. That is when there is nothing there but is said to be there. There is nothing in the Constitution about it but the Justices said it was there anyway. They read between the lines. Guess what? I've looked between those lines in the Constitution and there isn't anything there. This shows the Justices who see this are mentally ill and should be committed to a nut house.

Answer 4

I think that you are right- many laws are currently passed on religious beliefs. But, if you think about why laws are passed, laws are passed because the majority of the people in the United States think that a certain activity is right or wrong. Because the majority of the country is Christian, many of these laws may come from religious morality.

A lot of laws based out of Christianity (ie- no murder) don't bother me because I think that as a society we benefit from these ideas and they are general morals that most people hold. It's when they start forcing their religion down my throat that really bugs me (ie- prayer in schools, 10 Commandments on courthouses, anti-abortionists, not allowing gay people to have equal rights, etc). I don't think that it will ever change. I just hope that the country stays sane enough to ward off these type of ideas.

Answer 5

The separation of church and state is NOT in the constitution. This was a phrase cooked up by the left to defeat Republicans.

The constitution states that the government can not endorse any religion. That does not mean it has to condemn Christianity.
Our common laws came from England, which did have a national religion at the time.

Answer 6

ever hear of Commen Law? That's' kind of" this is the way it's always been." In 1776 we started a new country, and not every little detail was covered, so in many cases the laws the people were comfortable with stayed around, that would include a lot of minor arguments, torts etc. These were based on English law. Hence we still have a lot of common law, and dumb little laws based on that flawed concept of prudence. Don't know if I answered your question, but that's the gist of it.

Answer 7

The true language of the concept is "the United States government will not officially recognize or support any one specific religion". The term "seperation of church and state" relays an incorrect concept. America is devoted to providing the pursuit of life, liberty and justice for all (regardless of religious belief)...as long as our pursuit doesn't disrupt any other citizens pursuit of life and liberty. Many of the original settlers to America were fleeing some type of religious or government persecution. As such, the Federal government needs to be very careful in appearing to promote one type of religious following.

Answer 8

You need to read your constitution. There is no church and state seperation, there is merely a protection of the church from the state and a rule not to have a state religion.

Answer 9

Because the United States was founded on Christianity read your history book. the pilgrims came over here so they could have the right to worship there own faith and the founding fathers were Christians

Answer 10

Cannot possibly add to what coragryph (above) said. And, said very eloquently.

two thumbs up for coragryph.

The US was founded as a secular (atheist) nation.

Thomas Jefferson was a Unitarian, or Deist, and did not believe in Christianity as practiced by the majority of Christians. He even wrote his own bible to remove all references to miracles and the "resurrection."

Thomas Jefferson, credited as author of US Constitution:

"In extracting the pure principles which he (Jesus) taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible