Fundamentally, the US government (the state) is set up SEPARATE from religion (church). As it says in the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...." and the meaning of this was elaborated upon by Thomas Jefferson in the statement, "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State".
This has worked very well in regards to the majority of situations that we, as an American people, have faced. However, I hope that everyone understands that this perceived 100% separation of religion from government is practically impossible. Here is why....
Every person has a religious belief. "Religion is a cultural system that establishes symbols that relates humanity to spirituality and moral values" (Wiki). Spirituality is the "deep values and meanings by which people live". If we break these statements down into simple terms, religion is a: common agreement amongst a people of what is good, bad, or inconsequential. We all have an opinion of what is good & bad, there are others who agree with our opinions, thus every person is indeed a part of a religious community! I can hear your responses now "I am an atheist, so I can't be categorized in what you said", but in literal terms you have the 'religion' called atheism and are a member of that religious community.
We have people (humans) running our country. If every person has a religion that dictates their actions, then every governmental action is a religious act. Political leaders are put in office if their actions/beliefs/opinions are similar to what we, as their constituents, agree with. We expect that when they are in office they will make changes to the laws of this country to meet the (religious belief driven) desires of the people at large. This means every law written is a religious act, every court decision is a religious decision, and every international activity is a religious activity.
If the state was actually NOT run by religious beliefs then all people would have equal rights (man, woman, homosexual, old, young, fat, skinny, white, nonwhite, etc) and we would not have many of the conflicts seen in the news today. Marriage, as the best example, could be between anyone... the very old, the very young, the gay, or in MULTIPLE. Marriage, historically, derived from an economic purpose anyway, not for a religious purpose, so why are there any limits to who you can marry in the US in the present day? If there is a medical reason for a limitation (such as incest) then it can be understandable because the population as a whole could be harmed with increases in the resulting genetic disorders.
So, can we do it... can we separate religion from government? Here is what it would look like...
There would be 3 independent branches of government: Medical, Educational, and International. All leaders would not be elected, but rather any applicants would be tested equally on their knowledge of the field and the highest score gains a position in office. The Educational branch would be the largest, as it would review all knowledge from past, present and anticipated future and disseminate to all people for their learning and decision making. No topic would be left out (all 'religious material' would also be shared) as all knowledge would be considered of equal importance. The choice to learn that information would be left to the individual. The International branch would have the sole purpose of communicating with other countries and deciding when to participate or not in global initiatives based on eminent threat to our lives.
In terms of domestic laws governing things like murder, theft, etc....Those who had dependency on the one murdered would decide what would happen to the murderer, as they would be the ones most directly affected by the event. It would be decided case by case and there would only be limitations on any request for torture or some crazy things like that. In terms of theft, the same would apply... the one who lost the item would decide the punishment for the one who committed the crime within a certain realm of permissibility.
So, the key factor to having the situation exist described above would be to become a country where the government is NOT elected... but tested and the individual decides how their own morals effect their own lives. Those are my two cents...
We are imperfect. We cannot expect perfect government. ~William Howard Taft (US Pres)
