Corsair wrote: ↑Thu Apr 05, 2018 1:29 pm
moksha wrote: ↑Thu Apr 05, 2018 10:52 am
Should the Church be a master of humanity rather than its servant?
The idea of church and state separation is not a principle in the U.S. constitution, but I am increasingly glad for it.
The phrase "separation of church and state" isn't in the constitution, but the idea absolutely is in the constitution. The establishment and free exercise clause of the first amendment states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". This is a direct reference to practice of nations establishing a state religion. That's the very definition of church and state separation. If the state can neither establish a religion, nor prohibit what religion people choose to follow, then the two are separate.
There's a lot of ridiculous hairsplitting and rhetoric around an otherwise clear mandate because certain theocratic minded groups want to do the reverse and have their religion establish a congress. What the consistently fail to grasp is the fact that once they hold elected office, they ARE the government and must uphold the constitution. So no matter their personal beliefs or what they promised to their voting base, they do not have the power to establish a religion, nor inhibit the free practice of others. To actually implement into law the idea that the constitution and its rights only apply to Christians, an actual platform for some of these groups, would require the repeal of the first amendment and article VI which forbids a religious test for office. If your agenda requires a constitutional amendment to be implemented, then it is de facto unconstitutional until after that happens.
As far as the first question, history delivers an unequivocal answer. Any regime with unchecked power, especially those which define themselves as infallible, inevitably end in tyranny and mass human suffering. The only time that this kind of government would be even remotely justified, would be if the world itself were so unstable and horrid that even a tyrant would prove preferable to chaos. That's certainly what Hobbes believed, but the west took a different direction. In John Locke's less read first treatise on government, he completely dismantled the logic of the divine right of kings. In his second treatise, he argued that the only legitimate form of government is that which arises from the consent, either tacit or explicit, of the governed and that they held the natural right to depose it should that government violate certain inalienable rights. The French philosopher Montesquieu argued that the only way to prevent a government from straying into tyranny was to separate its powers into co-equal branches of government. Western democracy have practiced these principles with more or less success, and human suffering has been dramatically reduced along side an increase in both scientific and religious flourishing. Is this the best system of government? Yes, at least compared to all the others we've tried.
When you get to the heart of any theocracy whether it be the one established by Brigham Young, or the Roman Emperors, they all reduce themselves to monarchy by a different name. What you have a person, or group of people, who claim to have the power to either interpret the will of god or impose it by choice through predestination. They are fallible but rule as if they are infallible. They make decisions based on their own whims and are accountable to no one except one another. The Romans had a handful of emperors that did a good job, and a few others who did a passable job, but this is no consolation for the people who lived under the bad ones, and had to endure lives of constant war, corruption, and oppression. A system where at any moment the sovereign can take all that you have: your life, talents, possessions, reputation, or family, and give it to another or take it for themselves, is not one you want to be living under. Because even if the divine tyrant decides not to do these things, you still live under the constant fear and stress knowing that they could, and that you would have absolutely no rights or recourse to refuse. A person under this sort of system could never truly live free.