Christians, what are your thoughts on the "separation of church and state?"?

I am not very religious but I do believe in God. My religion is Protestant. I believe in the separation of Church and State.

When I was on Wis.dm the question of the 10 Commandments being posted in courthouses came up. I was all for it. They are good rules to live by, right? It was Rarebear who pointed out to me that if there were Islamic religious “rules” posted in a courthouse, would I, as a Christian, still feel comfortable about getting a fair trial. I really thought about that for a long time.

I agree with her view. She is comfortable with her religion and her beliefs and understands that showing is so much more important, and impressive, that commanding or demanding.

Also, I would like to keep religion out of politics. I am not saying that only atheists should hold political office, on the contrary. I think that your particular religious beliefs are a part of you and your world view and should come into account when you serve in public office. My problem with religion in politics is when it becomes the end game; that is that we need to fashion our laws and our society around your particular religious views. That is where I draw the line.

I would like to point out that Brian Fischer of AFR is not happy with the pope injecting his religious beliefs into the political arena, much like many members of the Republican party members in Congress. Evidently he believes that only his particular take on religion should be injected into the political system and everyone else, Catholics and Muslims in particular, should mind their own fucking business I am paraphrasing here

I believe in separation of church and state, but I think the biggest problem comes when someones personal beliefs have blended with their morals and people disregard their stand on an issue because of their faith.

An example would be abortion. Not everyone who believes abortion is wrong is religious. I’ve known some atheist who thought it was murder. And not every spiritual or religious person believes that plan parenthood needs to shut down.

Just the same that not every person who believes in the death penalty is an atheist.
These are things that are decided by whom we vote for. They are suppose to be representatives of different parts of this country and by the majority that vote them into office. So it isn’t quite as easy to separate church and state, try that we may.

This is a big country with thousands of communities that are each asking to be heard. But it is inevitable that some are going to have their toes stomped. It’s not perfect but all we can all do is keep trying.

North Korea is an atheist state and all that does is allow their leader to hold himself up as some sort of God. He gets to decide what is moral or not moral and you are free to argue it with him of course if you don’t like your head attached to your shoulders.

There were also nations in Africa before religion came that still had feuds and wars. If it’s not religion, it’s revenge, or it will be greed. Ever since man could walk and voice his different opinions and lift a stick to strike, there has always been war and conflict. Winner lives, loser dies. Winner gets all the women and power. Mankind is morally corrupt. Religion tempers some and gives an excuse to those who are already morally corrupt. But they would’ve always found a reason to fight. You think all who are in the KKK are religious? Doubt it. They just want to reign over others and make themselves feel important and exert their cruel nature upon others.

So you say that he isn’t talking for all of us. So you don’t want peace in the world? You don’t want us to do all we can to preserve our planet and help heal it? You don’t want our men and women not ever needing to go to war? You don’t care if the poor, many who are children, in our country to be fed, educated or taken care of when they are sick? Or have a roof over their heads? You don’t have to be religious to want those things. Compassion isn’t just for the religious person.

^^^Amen!