Yes, I have. But since you’re so certain, why don’t you cite some facts to back up the idea that there was a patchwork of “theocracies” in the US before the 1st amendment was incorporated.
Wrong, again.
No it is not. It is just that what would today be considered extreme religiousity was the de facto condition that nobody really thought much about it.
The former Soviet Union tried mightily to abolish at least the practice of religion, and nearly suceeded. Recognizing the need for some kind of established belief system they sought to replace traditional religions with a devout belief in theoretical communism - stateism in place of orthodoxy.
It was to the communist leaders advantage that the SU was traditionally more homogenous, religiously speaking, than places like the US or Britain. The vast majority of people were of the Russian Orthodox faith (or one of the “satellite” orthodox churches - Ukranian, Lithuanian, etc.) with Islam and Judaism also represented. In the main, the communists forbade the assembly of large groups for anything other than state-sanctioned purposes and declared most religions to be anti-state. Hence, churches were forbidden to meet for worship.
Treatment of the Russian Orthodox Church - formerly the official “state” church was somewhat different. The Russian people were traditionally deeply religious and communist leaders feared an enormous public backlash if they attached the church openly. Instead, they attacked indirectly. They declared church buildings to be state property and closed and demolished many of them. Of the relative few that were left open they traduced the clergy and in many cases, by threats and coercion, forced priests to become KGB informers…it was that or be closed down, beaten, sent to the camps. They were content to let elderly Russians worship in some cases, figuring they could do no harm, but they went after youth with a vengence. A young person who sought baptism, or especially to enter the clergy was usually faced with loss of position at school, loss of the family home, etc. Seminaries were mostly closed, and the few that remained open were staffed with the dregs of the clergy…dull uninspiring men, drunkards and dimwits that could do little to influence anyone in the “wrong” direction.
Oddly enough, the state left the monasteries and the various cloistered holy orders largely alone, probably assuming that with minimal contact with the outside world they could do little harm. During the worst of the communist years it was to these isolated outposts that the best minds of the church retreated, keeping the faith alive for such time as it could return to the forefront of Russian life.
I realize this is a rather convoluted answer to the OP. But the Russian experience clearly shows that while an established religion can certainly be suppressed, possibly even eradicated, personal faith is a much harder thing to do away with. If one wished to attack religion in the U.S. it could be done by a variety of means…ending the tax advantages on church property and outlawing religious assemblage would be only partially effective. Probably the surest means would be to discredit the church, to halt its growth and wait for it to wither away. But for that to work, the human element of faith would need to be replaced with something else. Stateism did not work in the case of the Soviets. Capitalism and materialism and other western “isms” have proven disappointing…what else is left?
SS
Ia ! Ia ! Chthuhlhuh f’taghn !
(I can never remember where the Hs are supposed to go, so I play it safe)
Judaism has also a birthright cultural influence that christianity does not have, with several thousands of years of influence. There is a much stronger ‘pact with god’/‘gods chosen’ that is also not present in christianity to the same intensity.
I think that if you removed any tax incentive on every aspect of religion - donations, tax burden on properties, church income it would pretty much embegger religion in America.
As much as Evangelicals may annoy me, I don’t want to outlaw them, or other religions besides. We went through this in history already- authority over people’s very consciences was one of the last things the Roman emperors thought to strive for, and look how that turned out.
Maybe it wouldn’t be too oppressive to figure out how to get future evangelicals to pay attention in math class. But at the end of the day life and the universe etc. remain somewhat mysterious and you never can tell for sure what a religion may be doing for a given individual.
Fine, so that way you would take away the* power *of institutional organized religions – but why would the OP want to abolish freedom of religion itself?
What does that mean, anyway? Abolish nonestablishment? That would just make SOME religions - those who got offical sponsorship - extremely powerful.
Abolish the guarantee of free exercise? Though not quite in the extreme form that*** Der*** proposes, all that would accomplish IMO would be facilitating the steamrollering of such groups as Jehovah’s Witnesses, 7th-Day Adventists, Santeria, Mormons outside of Utah/Idaho, Southern Baptists outside the South, NOI everywhere save perhaps Detroit, and so on. Again, the majority religions would retain dominance.
Heck, even French laïcisme, which Illuminatiprimus mentions, does not go after individual freedom of worship. It mostly makes religion non-privileged in public interactions but it does not seek its removal from society.
No, that is the point – one of the points – of constitutional government and the rule of law. The whole point of democracy to make the state do whatever the majority of the people want it to do – good or bad, wise or foolish, just or unjust. The two go well together but sometimes butt heads, which is why (in the U.S., at least) we have a written constitution and a court system to thresh out those conflicts. (No such thing in the UK, no executive-legislative separation of powers either, but somehow they manage to have a good human-rights record anyway. Parliament could restrict religious freedom, and has, but not for centuries now.)
It kept a rotting-even-at-that-time empire going, in some form, for another thousand years, is how it turned out. (Not that there weren’t political downsides. The Arabs found it that much easier to conquer Byzantine Egypt, because the Egyptians knew the Muslims, at least, would not harass them for being Monophysites.)
That is usually the point, isn’t it? And it is within the range of possible points/goals under the OP. And to some IRL. See Dominionism. (Jihadism you already know about.) And I sometimes wonder if there aren’t still some Catholics who would like the Church to have the kind of political/social hegemony it had before Luther.
If I had the power to abolish freedom of religion in America, I certainly would not do it.
That said, I certainly would take steps to abolish the privileges of religion in America, such as automatically being tax-exempt.
I’m not sure what the OP is getting at. But if I had that kind of power I’d use it for more productive ends, probably involving beer volcanoes, dancing girls, underground bunkers and satellite laser cannons.
To abolish freedom of religion in the United States, I would order a tax of 150% of your last ten years income, payable every year, unless you could show evidence that you inhale or exhale at least once every six months.
I’d be a crappy antireligious dictator. Suppressing freedom of religion is really not all that great an idea.
And, that would only lead to the dissolution and confiscation of all nonhuman “corporate persons” so again it just shuts down the institutional churches, plus annihilates the economy; yet people would STILL be praying and engaging in ritual, in their back porches with volunteer clergy.
OP, I don’t think you can “abolish” the* practice *of religion; ISTM you have to wait for society to evolve towards *abandonment *of the practice, if it will.
Oh, and:
This. Very much so
Remove tax exempt status.
Outlaw all religious based education at the primary and secondary levels. Kids would have to go a public or private school free of religious affiliation or influence. Jesus could be taught but only as Zeus or Odin is taught and given equal billing as mythology.
No, I wouldn’t abolish freedom of religion. But I would heavily penalize those who break the laws by sneaking it into our school systems in backhanded manners. Once the fundamentalists found out that I was firmly against required prayers in schools, it was thrown in my face all the time. And I was certainly treated unkindly by many faculty members who wanted to lecture me on how I should “Pray without ceasing.” (Maybe they should have been praying instead of lecturing me.)
I don’t think a day went by when I didn’t offer a silent prayer about one thing or another. But it was nobody’s business and I wasn’t going to drag others into my prayers.
As much as I hate religion, the only thing I’d like to do is strengthen the separation of church and state somehow.
What about imposing a religious test for holders of public office, i.e. they have to claim to have none?
Take it off basic cable. I know I’ll never see ala carte station offered by cable or dish companies, and I’ll accept that ESPN and the shopping channels are to be accepted on TV as they would be as sections of the newspaper. But if people could choose ala carte TV, where would all the all the 700 Clubs and clones go?
Perspective is key. There is ‘in some form’ and then there is the complete collapse of the original, western half. How much blame to assign to which phenomena is a tough question though.