Separation Of Government

Since the founding of America, there has been concern with the church manipulating government. The separation of Church and State was to make sure the church did not become more powerful than government. In spite of wanting a separation of church and state, The United States of America became one nation under God. The earliest test of the separation of church and state with respect to education is McCollum versus Board of Education. This was a landmark case the United States Supreme Court in 1948 ended the power of a state to use its tax-supported public school system in aid of religious instruction. “The court case which prohibited the state from sponsoring specific prayers in public schools was Engel v. Vitale, decided in 1962 by an 8-1 vote.” (Cline p) It is unconstitutional to compose a school prayer and make students repeat it daily. Although these cases protect our religious freedoms, there is some fear that expelling God from public school has adverse effects. God can still be present; teachers can lead by example and teach behaviors and ethics that

When the Constitution was first made in 1787, it gave us the freedom to have whatever religion we want. The constitutional right of freedom of religion hasn’t wrongly evolved into freedom from religion. This country was found by God-fearing people and has been governed by believers. Over the years, the love of God we had died down. Despite the decrease in the Christian faith, the country still governs by the word of God.

"Prayer has been banished from schools and the ACLU rampages to remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. Moreover, “Separation of Church and State” is nowhere found in the Constitution or any other founding legislation. Our forefathers would never countenance the restrictions on religion exacted today." -- Bill Flax, Forbes, 2011

When discussing the intertwining of church and state; soul liberty and freedom from religious belief, we must recognize that freedom and faith were at one point complementary ideas. Faith was once the foundation for freedom and vice versa. The Declaration of Independence clearly states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights." With these words from the Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers set up their vision of what this country would come to be. Among those rights, which are deemed “inalienable”, is the right of religious liberty. (Neumann, 1990: p. 241)

Even when the Constitution establishes a separation between church and state, traces of religion can still be found in public and government environments, such as the Pledge of Allegiance containing the words ‘under God’, American currency having ‘In God we trust’ and other such events and places. Consequently, this prevalence of Christian ideology violates all Americans’ first amendment right to freedom of and from religion and has a negative impact all citizens as it conflicts with their individual beliefs, religious or not.

The First Amendment ensures that there is separation between Church and State. However, this disjunction is not absolute. As the United States has become a more multi-cultural society, certain rituals have become problematic. Some issues were traditions that put one religion at the forefront, violating of the Establishment Clause; other issues affected peoples’ right to free expression of their religion. Many times people do not realize the Judeo-Christian bias in our culture because it is so integrated into our way of life. This country needs to recognize these biases and address them as the United States become a more diverse population.

The United States is a place where different types of people live together and gradually create one community. Within these communities are those who hold different faiths and beliefs. Right from the start of time we have begun as an assembly of societies that understood our religious differences. Spiritual acceptance among Americans is as strong now as it was once the Declaration of Independence was written by our forefathers. Nevertheless, the concepts of religion and government that they put in place by means of the Constitution of the United States and its Amendments no longer provides the freedoms of religion that they had in mind. The concern of our forefathers was to allow individuals to worship as they desire. The First Amendment of the United States addressed how our new government and religion would work stating: “Congress shall

America is constantly evolving and redefining itself. Those who oppose a separation between church and state claim that because this country was founded on religious principles, our government should continue to base its laws on a Judeo-Christian God. An article entitled, “Standing up for Church-State Separation in Difficult Times,” states that, “Religious Right groups are crowing and insisting that they have some sort of mandated authority to make their repressive agenda the law of the land,” however, we no longer live in the 1700’s (13). Times are changing and America is no longer predominantly white, Christians. Furthermore, some believe that public

In recent decades, the separation of church and state has been somewhat of a contentious issue. Both sides have claimed that, if the other side gets their way, public morality will suffer. The right typically comes down on the side that encourages the presence of religious practices and principles in the public sphere, while the left–where I personally stand–advocates for the privatization of religion. After a long summarization of the history of the separation of church and state in America, this article claims that public morality has fallen to new depths since a series of rulings in the 1960s that began to interfere with public religious expression and teaching. There are two major reasons that I do not agree with this article: the first

From the beginning the United States of America was formed, it has been founded and established by religious toleration and freedom. Without religious freedom, people are forced to comply with laws and policies that blatantly contradict their beliefs. This results in people living their lives in a struggle between their personal beliefs and obeying the laws that are placed before them. Obviously upholding personal convictions is very important, but people are forced to decide if it is personally worth the persecutions they may endure in result of it. Freedom of religion is considered to be a basic human right. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance” (Leiter, p. 6). However, there are many countries throughout the world that are actively engaging in religious persecution daily. Roger Trigg, author of Equality, Freedom, and Religion, states that “without the ability to decide, and live by, what we consider to be most important and valuable in life, we cannot be free” (Trigg, p. 153).

Religion has always been a topic that makes people uncomfortable, it has sparked wars, legal cases and arguments. This is a controversial issue that reigns havoc in many countries and because of this American citizens are afforded religious freedom through the US constitution. The goal of the United States government has never been to make our nation irreligious but to uphold the values of religious freedom.

We are not speaking here of the secularist idea that the state should marginalize religion and discourage people from voting their consciences as Christians. We are talking about the idea that church and state are not the same thing and that they have different spheres of activity.

There has been much debate on whether or not the United States has been doing the right thing by keeping church and state as separate entities rather than keeping them entwined as had been the standard for centuries prior to the country’s founding. The list of influences this law could affect is substantial, ranging from the workplace to school functions. Even the way people decorate their offices and houses has come into question from time to time. However, remarkably, every person has a different style of argument and a different way of looking at the available facts. I intend to compare two very different argument styles on both sides of this issue, and how two capable writers use completely different methods of research,

America wastes a lot of time trying to create a democracy completely absent of the moral expectations that our ancestors have put into place. Our founding fathers’ dream of establishing a country in which all people would be accepted has begun to fall. In our attempt to rid our country of a democracy contaminated with any belief in a supreme power, we have rid ourselves of many of our values and morals. Perhaps it is impossible for religion to dominate our political country, but we have misinterpreted the original intent of “separation of church and state” and taken this concept too far.

The United States of America was founded with a credo of religious freedom. They hoped to change the vicious cycle of religious persecution and intolerance that had been swirling through Europe for centuries. Over the last two hundred years this legacy has been shredded and stained. Our religious freedoms have been taken away by people who have twisted what our country was founded to protect.