American Constitutions - 5 Theses on Religion, 6-15-2010, Pt. 1

 I use Constitutions because I am as interested in state constitutions as I am the federal.

Thesis One: State Bills of Rights clearly show a division between government and organized religion. The federal First Amendment, written more sloppily than most analogs in state Bills of Rights, building on the first state Bill of Rights, needs to be read as incorporating this division.

Thesis Two: Aristotle writes (Book II, Chapter 1, Section 5 of The Nicomachean Ethics) of legislation habituating citizens to virtue. He writes elsewhere that youth are too young for teaching ethics. Yet, I think youth - teenagers - would be learning proper behavior somewhere.

[This is confirmed by what happens in states; for legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one. sch 11/7/22.]

Thesis 3: I think there are many reasons for keeping religion free of government. The Iranians began learning last year the same lessons as did Puritan Massachusetts, the English Commonwealth, and Borgia Rome about the taint political power puts on religious institutions.

[And as we can see in Russia today. sch 11/7/22.]

Thesis 4: Also, many reasons exist for keeping religious figures away from political control. See Spanish Inquisition or pogrom.

[Even more fun (more relevant to the Age of Marjorie Taylor Greene?) is the Münster rebellion. sch 11/7/22]

Thesis 5: Religion apart from government provides a moral/ethical education for the citizenry, who will in turn become legislators and other politicians. Religion free of governmental entanglements provides a moral/ethical education not conducted for governmental ends.

Conclusion 1: Separating church and state provides a check on both, benefitting both.

Conclusion 2: The framers of American constitutions presumed a general religious background for all of its citizens, thereby providing a common ethical outlook for the country.

sch

[To be continued in American Constitutions - 5 Theses on Religion, 6-15-2010, Pt. 2. sch 11/7/22.]