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American issues are deeply rooted in christianity. Separation of church and state is unfortunately not really a thing here, despite it being inshrined in our co

American issues are deeply rooted in christianity. Separation of church and state is unfortunately not really a thing here, despite it being inshrined in our constitution.

mjburgess 3y ago
that's the point of sep' of church and state. it's to protect the church and keep it religious. We have no sep' in the UK and our most sophisticated atheists are the appointed bishops of the church of Englandm (selected by, iirc, our prime minister)
rayiner 3y ago
“Separation of church and state” appears nowhere in the Constitution. The First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” An “establishment of religion” refers to established churches, of which there were several in existence when the first amendment was ratified: https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/established-churches-in-early-america https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/established-churches.... What it’s saying is that Congress cannot establish a national church, or regulate the state established churches. The Constitution clearly doesn’t prohibit even state official churches. Massachusetts—one of the most important states at the time of the founding—had an established church until the 1820s! What isn’t in the Constitution is French-style “separation of church and state,” where religion cannot be a motivation for laws Congress is otherwise entitled to pass. Congressmen/women can vote for laws based on Christian beliefs just as they could vote for laws based on neoliberal or socialist beliefs.
- whalesalad 3y ago
  For all intents and purposes, amendments to the constitution are the constitution.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    My comment above is talking about the First Amendment. When Congress approved the First Amendment in 1789, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and arguably South Carolina still had established state religions. The First Amendment simply prohibited Congress from messing with established state religions, or creating its own. It didn’t create a “separation of church and state.” And there is no other amendment that created a “separation of church and state.” You won’t find anything like that phrase in the Constitution or its amendments.
    - SllX 3y ago
      There is a jurisprudential concept called incorporation that SCOTUS largely adheres to borne from the 14th amendment, but for various reasons that’s actually a can of worms I don’t want to debate so instead I encourage you to learn more about it and make up your own mind. > It didn’t create a “separation of church and state.” That said, even if we were still under only the original Constitution plus the first 10 amendments, this statement would still be incorrect because State in this case refers to the Federal government which is a state in political philosophy terms which is what this phrase is using, but counterintuitively it’s not a State under US law. The Federal state is the operating one here, because the Constitution plus the first 10 amendments are laws for running the Federal government. On the subject of the States themselves, it says very very little, not nothing, just almost nothing. At least until you get to the doctrine of incorporation I mentioned above. Most States also have their own form of separation of church and State under their own constitutions. They don’t tend to put it in terms of “separation of church and State” but that is what they do.
      - rayiner 3y ago
        The issue is that the Establishment Clause doesn’t say anything about “separation of church and state.” It’s about regulating or creating established state churches—I.e., establishments of religion. The concept of “separation of church and state” is much broader, and comes from the writings of Thomas Jefferson—who admired revolutionary France and its secularism. But it has nothing to do with either the Constitution or the First Amendment. If we are picking random quotes from founding fathers, you could reach the exact opposite conclusion by quoting Adams instead: “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” It so happens that, because the Establishment Clause is a specific limit on the federal government’s ability to interfere with the state established churches that it makes no sense to incorporate the establishment clause into the states via the 14th amendment. (Just as it makes no sense to incorporate the tenth amendment against the states.) But my point remains even if you’re just talking about the federal government. The Establishment Clause is just not getting at the “separation of church and state” concept.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
reaperman 3y ago
*enshrined (pedantic). Though I don't think this entirely explains the difference. The same could be said for some EU countries: - "Irish issues are deeply rooted in Christianity" - "Italian issues are deeply rooted in Christianity" - "Polish issues are deeply rooted in Christianity" - "Hungarian issues are deeply rooted in Christianity" It simply doesn't explain why the USA is so different from Ireland in terms of public policy. ----------------------------------------------- I think a bigger issue is which countries people (even europeans!) mean to include when they say "Europe". Usually they mean either "Northern Europe" and/or "Western Europe", or sometimes even a small subset of those (just the richest ones -- even Spain/Italy/Portugal are preferentially excluded sometimes depending on the topic). Some people probably started to get uncomfortable seeing "Poland" and "Hungary" up above, and have already steeled themselves for any further analysis involving "those" European countries. Many certainly wouldn't generally want to have to include Moldova, North Macedonia, Albania, and Belarus in their most casual definitions of "Europe", at least when comparing how good they have things things compared to the USA. ----------------------------------------------------- Breaking down "We have no HSAs, no three or four layer tax systems, no governments trying to legislate really bizarre religious issues, no paranoid militarised police, no busy-body suburban sprawl of interfering no-bodies.", I could look at two of these: - no governments trying to legislate really bizarre religious issues And counter with Poland and Hungary having some serious recent issues with abortion legislation/enforcement and LGBT freedoms. These are both "EU" nations, so it's hard to claim "Oh they're not part of Europe" but what is often implied is "Oh I wasn't talking about that Europe". But that's not a fair comparison because when we say "USA" we don't just mean California. - no paranoid militarised police I get what the commenter is saying. Yes, the overzealous policing situation is generally worse across the USA than the EU. But we can find regular abuse by police officers against Roma communities across Bulgaria, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Romania, and Slovakia (once again, people will often say "Oh when I say Europe I'm not talking about Bulgaria or Romania or Slovakia", as if the USA could ever just exclude the ten worst states when talking about "USA" things as well). We also see increased militarization of police in Germany with the BFE+ anti-terror police units. And many protestors of the Gilets Jaune in France certainly saw the results of clashing with increasingly militarized police as well[0][1], including armored transport vehicles. To which some people will say "oh that's not the police, that's the Gendarmerie", which is a bit of an odd argument as that's specifically a domestic police force, and one that is explicitly militarized. What they mean by this is that the "average" police officer a citizen is likely to encounter will be less militarized, and that's true. But saying "we have no militarized police" is pretty off-the-mark. 0: https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/politics/article/les-gilets-jaunes https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/politics/article/les-gilets-ja... 1: https://7enews.net/en/news-en/world-news-en/france-says-police-to-use-armoured-vehicles-against-riots/ https://7enews.net/en/news-en/world-news-en/france-says-poli...
renegade-otter 3y ago
Please don't call this "Christianity". American evangelicals are the most hypocritical, vile people of them all. No wonder they never quote Jesus. The New Testament is a surprisingly liberal document. It effectively says "as long as you TRY to be a good human being, all will be forgiven". This cohort, however, prides itself on being awful humans.

American issues are deeply rooted in christianity. Separation of church and state is unfortunately not really a thing here, despite it being inshrined in our constitution.

mjburgess 3y ago

that's the point of sep' of church and state. it's to protect the church and keep it religious. We have no sep' in the UK and our most sophisticated atheists are the appointed bishops of the church of Englandm (selected by, iirc, our prime minister)

rayiner 3y ago

“Separation of church and state” appears nowhere in the Constitution. The First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” An “establishment of religion” refers to established churches, of which there were several in existence when the first amendment was ratified: https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/established-churches-in-early-america https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/established-churches.... What it’s saying is that Congress cannot establish a national church, or regulate the state established churches. The Constitution clearly doesn’t prohibit even state official churches. Massachusetts—one of the most important states at the time of the founding—had an established church until the 1820s! What isn’t in the Constitution is French-style “separation of church and state,” where religion cannot be a motivation for laws Congress is otherwise entitled to pass. Congressmen/women can vote for laws based on Christian beliefs just as they could vote for laws based on neoliberal or socialist beliefs.

whalesalad 3y ago
For all intents and purposes, amendments to the constitution are the constitution.
- rayiner 3y ago
  My comment above is talking about the First Amendment. When Congress approved the First Amendment in 1789, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and arguably South Carolina still had established state religions. The First Amendment simply prohibited Congress from messing with established state religions, or creating its own. It didn’t create a “separation of church and state.” And there is no other amendment that created a “separation of church and state.” You won’t find anything like that phrase in the Constitution or its amendments.
  - SllX 3y ago
    There is a jurisprudential concept called incorporation that SCOTUS largely adheres to borne from the 14th amendment, but for various reasons that’s actually a can of worms I don’t want to debate so instead I encourage you to learn more about it and make up your own mind. > It didn’t create a “separation of church and state.” That said, even if we were still under only the original Constitution plus the first 10 amendments, this statement would still be incorrect because State in this case refers to the Federal government which is a state in political philosophy terms which is what this phrase is using, but counterintuitively it’s not a State under US law. The Federal state is the operating one here, because the Constitution plus the first 10 amendments are laws for running the Federal government. On the subject of the States themselves, it says very very little, not nothing, just almost nothing. At least until you get to the doctrine of incorporation I mentioned above. Most States also have their own form of separation of church and State under their own constitutions. They don’t tend to put it in terms of “separation of church and State” but that is what they do.
    - rayiner 3y ago
      The issue is that the Establishment Clause doesn’t say anything about “separation of church and state.” It’s about regulating or creating established state churches—I.e., establishments of religion. The concept of “separation of church and state” is much broader, and comes from the writings of Thomas Jefferson—who admired revolutionary France and its secularism. But it has nothing to do with either the Constitution or the First Amendment. If we are picking random quotes from founding fathers, you could reach the exact opposite conclusion by quoting Adams instead: “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” It so happens that, because the Establishment Clause is a specific limit on the federal government’s ability to interfere with the state established churches that it makes no sense to incorporate the establishment clause into the states via the 14th amendment. (Just as it makes no sense to incorporate the tenth amendment against the states.) But my point remains even if you’re just talking about the federal government. The Establishment Clause is just not getting at the “separation of church and state” concept.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

reaperman 3y ago

*enshrined (pedantic). Though I don't think this entirely explains the difference. The same could be said for some EU countries: - "Irish issues are deeply rooted in Christianity" - "Italian issues are deeply rooted in Christianity" - "Polish issues are deeply rooted in Christianity" - "Hungarian issues are deeply rooted in Christianity" It simply doesn't explain why the USA is so different from Ireland in terms of public policy. ----------------------------------------------- I think a bigger issue is which countries people (even europeans!) mean to include when they say "Europe". Usually they mean either "Northern Europe" and/or "Western Europe", or sometimes even a small subset of those (just the richest ones -- even Spain/Italy/Portugal are preferentially excluded sometimes depending on the topic). Some people probably started to get uncomfortable seeing "Poland" and "Hungary" up above, and have already steeled themselves for any further analysis involving "those" European countries. Many certainly wouldn't generally want to have to include Moldova, North Macedonia, Albania, and Belarus in their most casual definitions of "Europe", at least when comparing how good they have things things compared to the USA. ----------------------------------------------------- Breaking down "We have no HSAs, no three or four layer tax systems, no governments trying to legislate really bizarre religious issues, no paranoid militarised police, no busy-body suburban sprawl of interfering no-bodies.", I could look at two of these: - no governments trying to legislate really bizarre religious issues And counter with Poland and Hungary having some serious recent issues with abortion legislation/enforcement and LGBT freedoms. These are both "EU" nations, so it's hard to claim "Oh they're not part of Europe" but what is often implied is "Oh I wasn't talking about that Europe". But that's not a fair comparison because when we say "USA" we don't just mean California. - no paranoid militarised police I get what the commenter is saying. Yes, the overzealous policing situation is generally worse across the USA than the EU. But we can find regular abuse by police officers against Roma communities across Bulgaria, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Romania, and Slovakia (once again, people will often say "Oh when I say Europe I'm not talking about Bulgaria or Romania or Slovakia", as if the USA could ever just exclude the ten worst states when talking about "USA" things as well). We also see increased militarization of police in Germany with the BFE+ anti-terror police units. And many protestors of the Gilets Jaune in France certainly saw the results of clashing with increasingly militarized police as well[0][1], including armored transport vehicles. To which some people will say "oh that's not the police, that's the Gendarmerie", which is a bit of an odd argument as that's specifically a domestic police force, and one that is explicitly militarized. What they mean by this is that the "average" police officer a citizen is likely to encounter will be less militarized, and that's true. But saying "we have no militarized police" is pretty off-the-mark. 0: https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/politics/article/les-gilets-jaunes https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/politics/article/les-gilets-ja... 1: https://7enews.net/en/news-en/world-news-en/france-says-police-to-use-armoured-vehicles-against-riots/ https://7enews.net/en/news-en/world-news-en/france-says-poli...

renegade-otter 3y ago

Please don't call this "Christianity". American evangelicals are the most hypocritical, vile people of them all. No wonder they never quote Jesus. The New Testament is a surprisingly liberal document. It effectively says "as long as you TRY to be a good human being, all will be forgiven". This cohort, however, prides itself on being awful humans.