preview

Ingersoll And Paine

Good Essays

The separation of church and state grants the freedom of thought and belief to people. It allows us to be “advocates of inquiry, of investigation and thought.” (Jacoby, 2013) It also permits for individuals to function as individuals on their own “pursuit of happiness”, as referenced in the US Declaration of Independence
(Jefferson, 1776). This pursuit of happiness conveys the definite right of human beings to seek that, which gives them personal fulfillment, whether it is through trade, property, capital, religion, arts, charity, or other means (Jacoby, 2013). In order to preserve this American way of civil liberties, faith groups and institutions should not be allowed to form political parties and they should not attempt to gain influence …show more content…

Free at last! Thank god almighty, free at last!” (King, 1963).
Robert Ingersoll and Thomas Paine once possessed real fame as one of the two most important champions of reason and secular government in American history (Jacoby, 2013). Ingersoll’s lifelong effort to restore Paine’s reputation and carry on the ideals to Paine's fierce defense of liberty of conscience and the separation of church and state. He did so by bringing forth the issue of what role religion ought to play in the public life of the American nation for the first time since the writing of the Constitution, when the Founders deliberately left out any acknowledgment of a deity as the source of governmental power. In one of his most popular lectures, titled "Individuality,"
Ingersoll said of Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin:
They knew that to put God in the Constitution was to put man out. They knew the terrible history of the church too well to place in her keeping, or in the keeping of her God, the sacred rights of man. They intended that all should have the right to

worship, or not to worship; that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed. They intended to found …show more content…

The stances, beliefs, relentless pursuits of the historical figures as Hugo Black, Thomas
Jefferson, John Locke, James Madison, Martin Luther King, Robert
Ingersoll and Thomas Paine as mentioned along with the endless documents from which their words pleating and demanding a separate church and state are recorded still resonate to support the continuance of this abstract concept. The civil and legal cases against religious coercion are well known: human freedom extends to one's conscience, and by abolishing religious tests for office or mandated observances, Americans have successfully created a climate, a free market, in which religion can take its stand in the culture and in the country without particular help or harm from the government (Meacham, 2010).

This concept that religion and government can stand in the
American culture without being a hindrance or help is somewhat abstract. However, this very concept is infiltrated in our secular way of the world every moment of every day in insurmountable ways. It allows for a healthy democracy and allows a degree of peace that theocratic nations such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia do not have. It supports leadership roles for women and the gay,

Get Access