Wiki’s a good starting point to help you compare and contrast the US and the UK for your homework.
- People don’t agree on religion.
- There is no realistic prospect that people ever will agree on religion.
- Despite that, people do care about religion, often quite deeply and passionately.
Separation of church and state–that is, secular government and state neutrality with respect to religious opinions–is the best way to protect everyone’s freedom of religion (and the freedom from religion of those who don’t accept any religion). That freedom is something that at the very least everyone wants for themselves. How then can you guarantee your own freedom of religion without guaranteeing that of everyone else? (Given that there is not going to be any miraculous universal consensus in religious belief short of Divine Intervention–or totalitarian coercion.) And if we don’t separate government and religion, we have to decide, who is not quite equal in our society, and just how unequal are they?
The state is not a voluntary organization; you can decide for yourself what religion to adhere to; you don’t get to decide for yourself what laws you will obey or what taxes you will pay. It’s therefore best to strictly separate the (involuntary, ultimately has the power of coercion) realm of state power from the (is not and never will be agreed upon yet is passionately cared about) realm of religion. Separation of government and religion is also much more likely to bring about and maintain civil peace than mixing in claims that can never be proven but for which people are willing to die (or even kill) with the business of making laws–that everyone has to obey–to enable everyone to live together in the here-and-now.
It’s not about the state being religious or not. It’s about the state being able to control the church.
As is amply demonstrated by the example of the UK, state neutrality or formal separation of church and state is not essential to protect freedom of religion or freedom from religion. The UK( or Europe) is probably a far better place to be an atheist than the US, even though it has a state religion. It would be nice if the UK (or European) dopers could trace the history of this phenomenon. Since when has religion been informally divorced from public life? How did this come to be?
(Bolding mine)
Ummm… no. No, we don’t.
State establishment of religion in England is vestigial. Once upon a time people were burned to death and disemboweled while they were still alive over the question of the established church in England (that is, just which church should be established). As recently as the 19th century dissenters from the Church of England faced real legal discrimination (including having to fight for years for the right to sit in Parliament after having been duly elected–multiple times–by one’s constituents). The question of Catholic rights was a significant contributor to the problems in Ireland.
So, yes, an established church that has withered away to the point where no one is actually being gruesomely killed over it–where in fact no one takes it very seriously at all–is not incompatible with general freedom of religion. That still doesn’t make it a good idea. (I’m not an Englishman; I suspect the group who might now most benefit from formal disestablishment would be the remaining Englishmen who are actual serious believing adherents of Anglican Christianity.)
Of course it doesn’t make it a good idea. It just makes it an idea that is demonstrably compatible with irreligiosity in public life. This says that the causation behind said irreligiosity is not the seemingly obvious ‘separation of church and state’, but something else altogether.
Seeing as both of us seem to be of the view that religion is not that good of a thing, it would behoove us to try and pin down what that something else is, rather than insisting on nominal separation of church and state, and in reality having constant kowtowing to the religious, as happens in both of our countries (Assuming that you’re from the US. I’m from India)
Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates.
By and large religion in Britain is separate from the State on an operative level, but they are intertwined in a symbolic nature, and in the presence of Bishops in the House of Lords. Here is an interesting article on the day-to-day impact of Bishops as lawmakers in Parliament - the conclusion seems to be that they are negligible.
The chief difference is, I think, that while generally religion and the State try to keep aloof from each other on a day-to-day basis, Parliament remains completely free, if necessary, to legislate on religious matters and we have no First Amendment that religion can hide behind.
Iran.
The Inquisition.
Salem Witch Trials.
The Crusades.
Pakistan.
Sudan.
Reconquista.
AIDS in Africa spread by denial of contraceptives.
Take your pick.
This is crucial. If I may bring some existentialism to bear on the problem, given that there is no inherent meaning to life beyond what we give it, and that the variance of individuals will always produce wildly differing opinions on what the meaning is, a free society must be able to accept individuals believing and practicing as they desire. There is no doctrine so true and so compelling as to win everyone as a convert, nor can there ever be. Establishing one doctrine as the only acceptable one is thus to entrench oppression. Oppression is anathema to societies of worth. Therefore, no worthwhile society can blend church and state.
It seems obvious that unless Church and State have a high degree of seperation then they would be one and the same. Anyone who doesn’t belong to the state religion will be unhappy with that, although they might just want the state religion to change. And anyone who prefers democracy would also find it disadvantageous, unless there’s some sort of religion that is democratiic in nature, and that wouldn’t really match up to most people’s concept of a religion.
It seems obvious, yet it is manifestly not so.
The public school my daughter taught in had Mass for the kids. It was in Southern Germany, true.
The Archbishop of Canterbury wants a word with you.
Political ideology is divorced enough from reality already. What is gained by adding in unprovable ideas about how your imaginary friends will treat you in the afterlife?
And when did Catholics get their rights back? Wasn’t the Catholic Emancipation in 1830? And when did all the nonlegal prejudice end? And exactly why cant Chuckie marry a nice catholic girl and convert and sit the throne? Or the Heir and the Spare?
[For us USians, think Jim Crow Laws, just in whiteface and catholic.]
Separation of church and state is terrible…unless its my church
I’m comfortable with a government tied to the worship of Yog-Sothoth. I have a few people to volunteer as sacrifices.
Leaving aside the historical examples, since they’re obviously not helpful, it seems to me that religion and government have different purposes and serve different roles in society (and in people’s individual lives). There’s no real benefit to combining the two.