Can someone PLEASE tell me when there ceased to be a seperation of church and state???? I ask this question, what seems like every day, to some faceless group of people and it seems they think I am being rhetorical… I AM NOT.
Someone please tell me how arguements for or against POLITICAL issue have the word “God” in them???
The article that inspired this rant today can be seen here: Abortion Nightmare
I promise, I really want feedback here. I don’t understand.
Hurricane Candice 
Okay, I’ll bite. I’m not much into getting you links on this, but I think Wikipedia might have an entry on “separation of church and state.”
My recolection of civics and U.S. history is that a basic tenet of our Constitution derives from the fact that in Great Britain, the monarchy was the head of the church as well.
Some irony there since the Anglican church was founded when the king wanted a divorce and the religion of the land was Catholic and the bishop wouldn’t grant him a divorce.
The concept of “separation of church and state” was not that there would be no god or no religious influence on the masses of society – but that the government could not become a church. The government will not recognize one particular religion as the government’s religion.
That doesn’t mean the framers of our Constitution were not without religious influence of their own – they just were without a *single* religious influence. Hence, they framed many of our governing documents recognizing that:
1) everyone is governed by a spiritual power separate from their participation in civil power through government
2) spiritual power and government power do not mix well
Hence, the religious message behind many requested rules and regulations that impose restrictions on people for activities which do not, actually, injur anyone else.
All that said, one of the most contestable issues on abortion is that those against it believe “life” begins before most of those for it. Some religions go so far to say the intent of sex is sacred therefore all sperm should only go toward conception (POE).
People, generally, are not without god (athiests excepting). But they are not of one God. It’s a tough balance in a society that is not of one religion.
So, hope that helps. “Separation of church and state” is not that religion will not enter into our state affairs but that the government will not recognize a single religion as the one and only religion (reference Iraq).
I have a far less politic, and far more tongue-in-cheek answer to your very sincere question. The title of the blurb directly following the one you mention is “Brain damage can change moral thinking.”
In all seriousness, the separation of Church and State is becoming an ever more critical one in American society.
The separation between church and state is a product of the Enlightenment movement of the 16th and 17th centuries. I think the 16th century was particularly brutal in Europe as there was a lot of violence that followed the Reformation, when Protestantism began. These were massive changes in the social fabric of the time, and there was a lot of war.
After the Thirty Years War (the latest, longest and bloodiest in a series of wars) there was a collection of treaties called the Peace of Westphalia. Built into these treaties was the acknowledgement that any state was allowed to follow its own religion – that no other state could try and change that. This had two effects, it kicked back the Vatican’s influence stopped everyone slaughtering each other but also laid the foundations of the modern nation state.
Before this time we didn’t look at countries the same way. You would not be German or French as you would be now. It was more blurry. And you were Protestant or Catholic. The Peace of Westphalia said you followed the religion and rules of your king, your sovereign. This is where national “Sovereignty” comes from.
Still no complete separation. That was to wait until the 1790s and French Revolution which changed the political landscape forever, and really put the foundations down of what countries look like today. This movement borrowed heavily from liberal thinkers like Rousseau and Locke.
The American experiment that you live within was borrowed very much from the French model, but with a lot of tweaks and refinements that I’m sure you’ve heard about. One of the highlights of the new French system (it was cutting edge stuff) was this idea of separation of church and state. This was to stop everyone from killing themselves, as they are prone to do over God.
Actually, sorry. My mistake, the American revolution obviously happened prior to the French.