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The Forum > Article Comments > Bigotry rules in the USA > Comments

Bigotry rules in the USA : Comments

By Walt Brasch, published 2/7/2008

The US Constitution states: 'No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States'.

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Western style participatory democracy has more in common with Periclean Athens than the ancient Jewish kingdom. In Athens, free adult males were regarded as citizens with a stake in how the city-state was run - as opposed to subjects under a Jewish or Christian king.

This article illustrates how a firm separation between religion and the state is essential. While there are obvious flaws in the American system, we can see the disasterous results in the Middle-East when the separation between the two collapses.

Separation between religion and the state is also good for religion. No Christian would want the government of the day appointing bishops. That happened, for example, in pre-1789 France. And no thinking Christian would want to see Jews or other adherents of minority religions persecuted by state authorities. Nor would they want to see jobs earmarked for those of a particular religion unless we are talking about jobs where adherence is an essential requirement (being a priest, for instance).

The US Presidency should not be faith-based. We're talking about 2008 America not Tsarist Russia.
Posted by DavidJS, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 10:24:06 PM
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Faith-based politics eh?

Look at Northern Ireland, the USA France and even Australia...all only a shade better than Taliban run states.
The two cannot be completelyseparated.We invariably act out of our values but the extent we are willing to do this makes the difference between benign liberal states and autocratic despotic ones.

socratease
Posted by socratease, Thursday, 3 July 2008 11:50:58 AM
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