What is the best reasons for separation of church and state?

Question

Please tell me a maximum of 3 distinct reasons why the separation of church and state is important. I believe Kark Marx wanted it because the collectivism of religious groups interfered with the collectivism of the state. I think the U.S. founding fathers wanted it because they felt the collectivism of religion in government interfered with persons individualism.

Answer 1

1) Taliban
2) "E Pluribus Unum" is a unifying phrase that means "Out of many, one". It says that though we are all different, we come together as one nation. "In God We Trust" is a divisive statement that excludes about 14.1% of the US.
3) If religion has any merit, it shouldn't need government to promote it. It should stand on its own in the marketplace of ideas.

Answer 2

One must put things into context when speaking of the founding fathers and just what motivated their thinking.

First, they were until the revolutionary war governed by the King of England. England had a state sponsored church. But religion was not their primary cause of rebellion. The cause was taxes.
Religion was only a factor after they had won the war.

Second, they believed that all men had absolute rights, one of which was main to them, "freedom of religion."

Third, and still they set up the new government believing that all men did have religion of some sort. And they used Christian laws and the Bible to govern men's rights and liberties, this is clear in the wording of the constitution. And the bill of rights.

Fourth and most important, they did not want religious leaders to dictate to the government, knowing that many people were still allied with the Roman Catholic church and the Church of England. And that the King of England or the Pope could therefore maintain a strong influence on the new government.
So the clause, "separation of church and state" was put in to insure that would not happen.

Answer 3

For Thousands of years there was always a fight between Church and State for control of the People. The Church liked to Dictate to the Government on laws and Taxation and they liked to have there own Taxes Levied on the People. It caused trouble in the Days of the Pharoahs in Egypt with the Priest wanting more Control. In the Middle Ages it was the same thing there was a State Tax and a Church Tax and the Cardinals were dictating to The Kings.
When the French Revolution came along They banned Religeon for a few Years. After That the French Government had an uneasy Relationship with Religeon and always kept a strict Separation of Church and State up to the Present Day.
Other Countries the Same thing Applies in Portugal after the Revolution overthrew the Monarchy they took a hard line against the RC Church.
In most Countries in Europe they maintain a strict Separation of Church and State. Churchs like to control the Peoples Hearts and Minds and they love Money they like Power. If they just Stick to what they are Supposed to be doing and not try to interfere with Peoples Lives and keep there noses out of Politics they will be REspected more.

Answer 4

1To keep the government from interefering in the rights of individual churches.

2 To keep individual churches from interfering in the government

The founding fathers came from countries which had a state religion, and no one was able to choose another religion if they wanted to. My own family were Catholics, who could not worship in England, where there was at the time only one state mandated religion, and no one could worship any other way. So they came here after a sojourn in Holland, and founded the state of Maryland. In old St. Mary's City, the original capitol of Maryland, there is a statue of a man breaking away the chains that bind him. At the base of the statue are the words "Freedom Of Conscience". Many of the colonists that founded all of the colonies came here for that very reason, to worship without interference with others, and the way to protect that most basic and fundamental American ideal, is to keep an individual church from trying to take over the government, and to keep the government from deciding for all of us who we can or cannot worship, and how.

Answer 5

1. Once a single religion takes over a country, then all other religions are persecuted. Examples: Iraq, Iran

2. There were already many different religious groups in the United States when the revolution started, and in order to bring these groups together, each had to be assured that another group would not achieve dominance.

3. In politics, you often have to do things that religion does not approve of. In this way, you can be a typical corrupt politician and still go to church with the other hypocrites every Sunday.

Answer 6

You can not infringe upon the freewill choice as to what religion a person chooses.

A Government by the people, majority, would mean the State Church would change every time a party changed.

A Sate Church is not a democracy, it's a dictatorship which inhibits free speech.

Answer 7

The words "separation of church and state" are not in the consititution. But the simple principle exists that the government cannot establish or prohibit the exercise of religion. That means that government cant tell people what to believe! It doesnt mean that the govt should atheistic and the only state sanctioned religion is none at all. We have to be careful to read the consitution for what it says and what our founders meant and not let atheistic philosophy invade it and reinterpret it.

Answer 8

Here is one great reason.

If they were not separated, then what Church should the government follow?

Each person can derive their own morals from their church, and then derive laws that they want to make from those morals.

What would be wrong is if religion-specific laws were made.

Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Atheists, and Buddhists would disagree to a law that said that Jesus is God's son.

No law that involved religion would be fair to all people of all religions or of no religion.

That's why.

Good luck.

Answer 9

Sorry for the long cut and paste, but this is a good quote from Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, 1833:

'No religious test shall ever be required, as a qualification to any office or public trust, under the United States.' This clause is not introduced merely for the purpose of satisfying the scruples of many respectable persons, who feel an invincible repugnance to any test or affirmation. It had a higher object; to cut off for ever every pretence of any alliance between church and state in the national government.

"The framers of the constitution were fully sensible of the dangers from this source, marked out in history of other ages and countries; and not wholly unknown to our own. They knew that bigotry was unceasingly vigilant in its own stratagems, to secure to itself an exclusive ascendancy over the human mind; and that intolerance was ever ready to arm itself with all the terrors of civil power to exterminate those, who doubted its dogmas, or resisted its infallibility."

Answer 10

1) To keep from slaughtering people of other faiths.

Jesus told Pilate his kingdom was not of this world. The jews and the romans of the state had a bad habit of murdering enmass church going folk like John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter, Andrew, James, Paul Prophets from the old testmant etc.
Christians and jews alike were often food for lions in the Coliseum of Rome, crusades and Inquisitions.
Saw Islamic, Christians, and Jewish going folk all murderer if they weren't towing the state religion of worshipping the emporerer/Pope/dogmatic baal/pagan doctrine
Illegal wars of great idealogical struggle - see WWI and WWII-Nazi imperialism, Iraq war-American corporate imperialism cloaked as GWB's profane blasphemy of the christian faith. Using the military to enforce a christian ideals goes against the very fabric of christianity.

2) To keep taxpayer money from going to special interest - religious denominations that don't support all people of the state equally.


3) To ensure that the branches within government work independently of outside relgious influences.