goverment and religion?

Question

How have government and religion been connected throughout history? Does it happen that government organizes the conquest and then religion justifies it?

Answer 1

Thats the way it is now but earlier in history it was the other way around (crusades).

Answer 2

They've generally been connected throughout history. In Rome, for example, they were polytheists, and eventually, the Emporer decided that he and all future emporers had divine blood... demigods. This was a bad idea and now they're gone... later the Catholic church and the Pope became the main source of royalty, ie, they would decide who was or was not a king. Kings were not officially considered part god or anything like that, but were considered above normal humans, in sort of a lesser form of the way the Pope is considered above normal humans. Then the Catholic church splintered off, England went through a couple of different official religions and the local church would serve as, let's say, the state, county, city, or district government. Then in the New World other factions formed into separate colonies, and when they worked together to declare their independence from England, they kind of had to form a truce in a secular government, but states often had their own official governments until the ratification of the 14th Amendment after the Civil War. That's all I know about, anything that's not from Europe or the U.S. I wouldn't really know much about.

Answer 3

In our history in the US, our founding fathers did want to separate church & state, because of the oppression of England & their national religion. In spite of that, God appears in the pledge of allegiance & on our currency. Our current administration has implied that anyone who is not Christian is against the US. Also anyone who is opposed to the war in Iraq is not patriotic.

Answer 4

Wow, it would take several days worth of writing to answer that. I suggest you find a good book on the subject and sit down for a while.