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Essay on Religion and State

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Thomas Jefferson in his letter to Nehemiah Dodge said “The legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions ... thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”(Jefferson) The concept of the separation of religion from state has been battle that has endured through the furnace of time. While some may argue that religion and state should not be merged, a presumable equal population will agree that religion and state should not be separated. This paper will reflect on the history of religion and the State using the church as its point of reference. It will briefly discuss the existence of the Church before it merged with state, the church as it became one with the state, and subsequent its separation …show more content…

No key decision or policy was carried out without consultation from the Church or its involvement. In the Age of reason, also known as the age of illumination or enlightenment showed that the populace and even Christians were getting sceptical of their Religion, with new discoveries and scientific findings issues such as natural law was baffling religious people and a small group of thinkers, philosophers and scientist came together and formed the Deist Religion. The Deist Religion simply acknowledges God as the Supreme Being, the maker of the heavens and the earth and the laws governing. Deists believe that God kept man and the natural laws in place and did not interfere with them.(Matthews and Platt, The Western Humanities) I feel that Deists represent the people today that uphold their values on religion and try to merge it with the natural law in order to keep it from criticism. In this phase of revolution among the people at that time, the people were seriously getting enlightened in various spheres of knowledge, from mathematics, medicine, philosophy etc. This caused a little repellent on the claims of the Christian religion which at that time was controlling the State. Christian philosophy was the basis for all philosophy, then if the Church was to proclaim that for instance that the earth is the

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