Do you believe in the seperation of Church and State?

Question

Or should government be able to enact laws based on Religious beliefs?

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Third in a series.
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1. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Allk1DQ9MtyIbdcn3tQGx5Lty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071219173959AAXmXsD
2. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ApcNOBUeu8j07fn0_qma7Lvty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071220021339AAkV45S

Answer 1

The problem with allowing mingling of Church and State is now multi-fold.

First, WHICH church? If you count all of the Christian denominations, synods, and charasmatic congregations, toss in the Catholics, Jews, Moslems, and a few others... then add atheists, humanists, and Wiccans, you've got such a wide range as to make that mingling untenable.

Second, allowing the government to enact laws based on religious beliefs leads to a contradictory situation. Suppose (for the sake of argument) that we enact the laws of the Islamic Sharia. So some non-Islamic woman gets raped. According to the Sharia it was her fault for enticing men. According to the 5th Amendment to the Constitution, she is guaranteed EQUAL PROTECTION under the law such that beforehand, there is no pre-adjudication. This is where we get the "innocent until proven guilty" concept. You and your accusers are EQUAL. But not under Sharia. So this means that we would have an impossible situation to resolve.

You can contrive other cases based on some other religion to get the same result, a contradiction that cannot be resolved without making one or the other law higher.

The solution is to never allow religious laws to be come civil laws. To prevent paradoxes and to protect the rights of persons not of the "chosen" religion, there can be no "choosing" in the first place. Otherwise you get the STUPID concept of "higher law." (The excuse often given by murderers who target doctors who perform abortions.)

If you allow too much mingling, you get into the impossible slope of "higher law" as an excuse to perform mayhem on your victims. That can NEVER be allowed to happen.

Answer 2

I think the laws should do no harm. As far as what they are based upon, I don't see why that should matter as much. If it is a reasonable idea, it shouldn't matter where it originated.

Many things that are not called religion end up having the same effect as religion, so it seems unfair to single out a certain set of deeply-held beliefs, just because they have the tag 'religion' attached. Anything can become a deeply-held belief, nearly religious in nature to someone. Whether it is love of animals, or the environment, or hatred of a group of people just because they are somehow different, all of these things can become oppressive and harmful.

I think the government should be able to enact laws that come from religious sources or principles, just as it might use anything else as a basis for a law. But it should be well-reasoned and do its best to do no harm.

Answer 3

I fairly help it 100%. this isn't some thing that would properly be performed by 0.5 measures the church and the state might want to stay thoroughly separate. it is the section that drives me mad; it is for the church homes earnings besides and non secular human beings do not get that. non secular human beings seem to have a tendency to be happy with church and state overlap, provided that's THEIR church. yet it is the challenge once you commence defining who's church counts and who's would not its especially a lot inevitable that in the course of the top you will be on the incorrect area of the line. lets say the state joins with Christianity, properly then which denomination? What if the Evangelicals and the Baptists party and ensure Catholics aren't any more the "excellent" variety of Christian? Then the Evangelicals ensure the Baptists are not both. yet then the thousands of different denominations of Evangelicals commence finding out who's the right ones etc. it is the challenge non secular anybody is continually confident it will be them interior the cool team. they don't recognize that church state separation is there for his or her chance-free practices too. by organising the state as 100% religiously impartial it guarantees that anybody has equivalent rights to practice any faith or none.

Answer 4

I believe in the separation of church and state even more than I believe in the church or the state individually. That separation is far more sacred because it's the only way to have freedom of religion. Many of the founders of our country were fleeing from the tyrannical Christian theocracy of the Church of England. They knew they couldn't be truly free if they allowed the church to rule the government or the government to rule the church, so they added the First Amendment to the Constitution. Now a growing number of people who never paid any attention in history class are trying to rewrite history and do away with separation of church and state. They grew up with freedom, so they take it for granted to the point where they would gladly give it up and turn this country into a Christian theocracy if they could. We must prevent that at all costs, because historically this type of government has been as bad as or worse than the Taliban. The Church of England sentenced dissenters to death by hanging, drawing, and quartering, the most barbaric means of execution by slow torture ever devised. This was the penalty for High Treason, but when the church and state are one and the same, having different religious beliefs is "High Treason."

Answer 5

America is a secular nation. It is not quetion of what one feels. It is a question of Law. The 1st Amendment and 200 plus years of court opinions state that the government can play no part in either promting or repressing religion.

"When government and religion are mixed niether is benefited.

"The right of each and every American to practice his or her own religion (or no religion at all), is among the most fundamental of the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. The American Civil Liberties Union’s long history of working to ensure that religious liberty is protected goes as far back as the Scopes trial of 1925. Long before other groups appeared on the scene to argue for religious freedom, the ACLU was arguing on behalf of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ right not to be compelled against their beliefs to recite the Pledge of Allegiance (as an amicus in the famous West Virginia v. Barnette case of 1943). The ACLU has been involved in a long series of prominent cases – under both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause – that have argued against government interference in the religious sphere, including, e.g., Engel v. Vitale (1962), Abington v. Schempp (1963), Epperson v. Arkansas (1968), Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), Allegheny County v. ACLU (1989), Employment Division v. Smith (1990), Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000), and ACLU of Kentucky v. McCreary (2005). More recently the ACLU of Pennsylvania, with Americans United, successfully challenged the Dover, Pennsylvania, attempt to promote so-called “intelligent design” in public schools

Read from the URL below.

Answer 6

It is already Separated according to the Bill of Rights. Religious people and non-religious have the same rights and cannot be prosecuted for their beiefs or lack of a religion. Government Cannot intrude in Ideas or the Convictions of the People of The United States of America.

Answer 7

People shouldn't be arrested because of what one person beleives. I support seperation of Church and State, it's ridiculous for laws to be passed because of a Government's religious beliefs.

Answer 8

the government should stay out of church issues and visa versa

Answer 9

yes i believe in seperation of religion and Jobs to.