The Separation Of Church And State

"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

After reading this article, I was impressed that the impact of Roger Williams’ idea – “separation of church and state” still reach into today’s world and countries. I was also surprised that at 17th century, people don’t have freedom of worship or belief.

In today’s society, the separation of church and state is a fundamentally important aspect of our government. Most any citizen would agree that the government should operate based on the law and the constitution, not on the individual 's religious beliefs, yet when the issue is Abortion, that stance is flipped. The debate over abortion rages on despite the supreme court giving women the right to abortion in 1973 with the ruling of Roe v Wade. Looking at both sides objectively, the pro-choice arguments lineup with facts, while the pro-life arguments are either supported by facts yet purposefully misinterpreted, or simply not factual at all. State governments pass laws that regulate abortions and abortion centers all in the attempt to close these centers down and stop women from getting abortions at all, including situations of rape or incest. Just as the government in Brave New World controls the bodies of women by keeping them on contraceptives and controlling their bodily functions through medication, the American government seeks the same control over what women do and don’t do with their body by denying them abortions and birth control.

In today’s society, the separation of church and state is a fundamentally important aspect of our government. Most any citizen would agree that the government should operate based on the law and the constitution, not on the individual 's religious beliefs, yet when the issue is Abortion, that stance is flipped. The debate over abortion rages on despite the supreme court giving women the right to abortion in 1973 with the ruling of Roe v Wade. Looking at both sides objectively, the pro-choice arguments line up with facts, while the pro-life arguments are supported by facts yet purposefully misinterpreted, or simply not factual at all. State governments pass laws that regulate abortions and abortion centers all in the attempt to

During the 18th and 19th century, or to be more precise, The Great Awakening was a response to the Enlightenment. Against the Enlightenment that is. That being so, it ended up being a major cause of the revolution in the long run. Not only that but the new religious messages that were emerging were increasingly more democratic overall becoming, in the U.S, messages of greater quality. “Old lights” and “New lights” sprung up and began disagreeing with each other. The effects of the Great Awakening caused religion to have an infringing position on the states. Thus, the people thought it best if the two ideals (Religion and the State) were separate from one another so people aren’t governed by other people’s feelings on religion.

In the early year of 1801, the Danbury Baptist Association wrote a letter to the president of the time, President Thomas Jefferson. The church was worried about a rumor. Was an national denomination soon to be established? The letter read. Jefferson then responded to the letter for the church in the year January 1, 1802, telling the people of the church that there was no real solid basis to this supposed rumor and that no one should believe it . Jefferson then stated “I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should not make any laws respecting any and all establishment of religion., thus the idea of separation of church and state was first put in action.

This has been the belief since trials in the 1960's when people started use a phrase “wall

The purpose for this amendment was to protect religion from the government. It was to limit their power and secure the freedom of each individual as well as the right of the states. A wall was never intended to stand in the way. But as the years went on and more people were going to court over different religious views, this wall got bigger and bigger. Over 6,000 cases were formed since 1962 over religious expressions in different public institutions and public life ("The Wall of Separation Between Church and State | Foundation for Economic Education."). Different cases such as prayer in schools, verses on the walls, or how a homosexual newspaper could be given out but not a religious one were all examples of the different bricks that added

The fist amendment of the constitution states that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” (Wald & Brown, 2014). This prospect overtime has been adlibbed to represent the importance of keeping church ideology separate from state issues. The separation of church and state has been challenged an insurmountable number of times by avid church-goers wishing to spread their morals to public schools and federal courts through the erection or display of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are the rules that define the Christian way of life, from moral values to instruction on how to properly appreciate their God. The first amendment has kept these religious displays out of courtrooms and public schools thus far,

Separation of church and state is a defined as, the understanding of the intent, and function of the Establishment Clause, and Free Exercise Clause. The Combination of church and state has been a topic that, many generations have struggled with for centuries. The first amendment of the constitution states that “Congress shall make no law about our religious beliefs, or prohibiting our free exercise of religion” If we put our faith in the constitution to define the founding father’s standpoint of separation of church and state, then we have definitely misinterpreted their stance on religion. Many people believe the reference to separation of church and state is in the original constitution, but the truth is, the references, often conceptualized and misinterpreted as intertwining with our religious freedom, but that is not the truth.

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 fusion or separation of church (or in greater sense, religion) from the affairs of the state (nation) is an issue whose relative importance in any society cannot be overemphasized. This stems from the impact of having state affairs directly influenced by religious beliefs and practices in the case of the fusion of the state and religion. Better still the separation of the state from the clutches of religious beliefs has the propensity to significantly affect way of life as well as the rate of development in a society.

Without a God how do we know what is right from wrong. What is good or bad? The Ten Commandments tell us what is right or wrong and good or bad, but the constitution says the church has to be separate. If there is no God in our government we cannot have our Ten Commandments, how do we know what is right or wrong? The current opinion of courts is that the First Amendment bans religion in our government to protect the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from the government. The first amendment does not say church and state should be separate since our founders understood if church and state were completely separate, our government would fall apart.

In 1791, ten amendments were made to the U.S. constitution: The Bill of Rights. The first of these rights given to the citizens of America is the right to freedom of religion and freedom of the press. Countless court cases have brought the issue of the separation of church and state to light. Legal battles and administrative actions in the government have led to conversations about how much religion should be involved in schools and what power the state has over religion.