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Is it to protect religion from government interference, or to shield government from religious influence? --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] ^{[[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]]} 10:54, 20 January 2010 (EST)

Is it to protect religion from government interference, or to shield government from religious influence? --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] ^{[[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]]} 10:54, 20 January 2010 (EST)

Both, as the historical context was one in which the Founders saw the harmful nature of state imposed (institutionalized) religion, while yet recognizing it as necessary for good government (not in the liberal sense today), and thus overall most had no real issue with a basic state sanction of general religion. The problem is that of understanding it too much by the letter of the law, and defining  a religion as only that which is formally manifest, and thus eliminating any sanction of formal religion,  which results in  secularism becoming the state-sponsored functional religion. One must not imagine that legal or educational system can separate itself from a moral beliefs. Who says cheating, etc.,  is wrong? but in  democracy, people decide what will be the "civil religion". And American has chosen false gods, and thus it has and will suffer accordingly. [[User:Daniel1212|Daniel1212]] 15:46, 23 March 2010 (EDT)

 

:Both, as the historical context was one in which the Founders saw the harmful nature of state imposed (institutionalized) religion, while yet recognizing it as necessary for good government (not in the liberal sense today), and thus overall most had no real issue with basic state sanction of general religion. The problem is that of understanding the 1st Amendment too much by its letter, as well as defining  a religion as only that which is formally manifest. And then eliminating any sanction of '''formal''' religion,  which results in  secularism becoming the state-sponsored '''functional''' religion. One must not imagine that a legal or educational system can separate itself from a moral beliefs. Who says cheating, etc.,  is wrong? But in  democracy, people decide what will be the "civil religion". And American has chosen false gods, and thus it has and will suffer accordingly. [[User:Daniel1212|Daniel1212]] 15:46, 23 March 2010 (EDT)