Do you believe the separation of church and state was a good thing for the United States?

Question

To think otherwise is to reject freedom. I absolutely support, and always will support the separation of church and state.

Christians and Atheists appear to be united on this principle! (gleaned from the responses from my posting at least). Excellent!

Answer 1

Agree 100%. If only I could get peoeple to leave me alone in real life.

Answer 2

The separation of Church and state was originally develop to protect the Church, who were offering services to the community such as welfare, feeding the homeless, etc..
from being taxed by the government. It was not so the Church had to keep their mouths shut like the government is trying to do now. When the Church looses their freedom to speak, we will become like every other communist country that dictates to the communities what they can believe, work, say.... Socialism is doing just that, Because of a few wackos that go and kill people and say it because everyone is going to hell and God told them to do this. Doesn't this sound contrary to what the True Christians believe?

Answer 3

I always support the separation of church and state. Since when does it matter what someones religious beliefs are and if that will make him/her a good leader. This country was founded on freedom of religion and not the christian religion. When this country starts supporting a religion, it undermines religious freedom.

Answer 4

It's great, if only we can maintain it.

Unfortunately, there are certain Christians who act as if their religion is an article of patriotism, that in order to be an American you must be Christian, and not just any Christian, but a Fundamentalist Evangelical. And they are trying to get laws passed to impose their morality on the rest of us -- banning abortion and emergency contraception, allowing Christian pharmacists to refuse to dispense prescriptions that they disagree with, preventing girls from getting the HPV vaccine (which would effectively prevent cervical cancer) before they become sexually active, stopping gay couples from getting married and adopting children, blocking potentially life saving research into stem cells, forcing the universally accepted theory of Evolution out of science classrooms and forcing "intelligent Design" in, Bush's Faith-Based Initiative which allows tax dollars to pay for missionary efforts, and allowing Evangelical military chaplains to bully our men and women in uniform into becoming Evangelical Christians themselves. We are teetering on the knife-edge of Theocracy. Freedom of Religion means every religion, not just the most fanatical sects of Christianity. If we are to preserve our freedoms, we must stand together, and stand up to spiritual bullies no matter what faith they profess.

Answer 5

I dread to think of how history would have been different. We can't get these people to back off one inch as it is. Think what it would be like if they actually had the legal rights to match what many believers believe are their moral rights. Has there ever been a good theocracy?

Answer 6

The seperation is limited.
1) The state must cross the wall in order to enforce the wall
2) The religious vote and lobby.

I'll be here until 2 is false, or I die.

Answer 7

Absolutely.

Answer 8

Absolutely. I would hope we could follow that principle a bit better than than we do.

edit: Whiteh...
We were never a Christian nation. A nation of Christians is not the same thing.

Answer 9

You will not get any argument here.

Not only was it a good thing for government, but a good thing for religions too.


I not only meant that religious institutions could not control the government... but even more importantly:

meant that the state could not control religion, and therefor religious people.

Answer 10

Definitely.

Answer 11

If you are truly a believer in Christ, how can you really separate the holy from the secular- because everything that we do, and every decision that we make must be based on our belief in God. Reject freedom, from what. The greatest freedom that we can have, is freedom from sin.