I hear this often from supporters of the Religious Right. Their concern is that if we enforce church-state separation, it will lessen the influence of religion. If religion loses power, a corrosive secularism will take hold and people will adopt the view that “anything goes.”
There are several problems with the argument.
First off, church-state separation doesn’t lessen the influence of religion. Separation creates a platform on which religious liberty rests. People are free to engage in the religion of their choice or ignore them all.
Church-state separation simply mandates that the government be neutral on questions of theology; it does not call for hostility toward faith. The great flowering of religious freedom – and the diversity of sects we have seen here – are evidence that our government is anything but hostile to religion.
Secondly, it should be pretty clear by now that non-religious people can be good, ethical and decent and that religion is no guarantee of moral behavior. I pointed out to the young woman that many European nations, which are much more secular than the United States and where interest in organized religion has fallen, have lower crimes rates and stronger safety nets than our country.
Religion, I replied, can inspire people to do great things. It can also lead some to start wars and engage in violence. At the same time, secular ideologies like Communism and Nazism spawned horrible crimes. Blind, unquestioning adherence to any ideology, whether religious or secular, is the problem.
via blog.au.org
