Public Cooperation Is Not One Church of Thought.
There are fundamentalists who claim they are the only Christians and that the Constitution mandate against the establishment of a church only bars the government from controlling their churches. They insist that the government is obligated to abide by the church law of their own sect whichever one it is.
Actually, the ban against an established church has precedent in the intertwining of church and state in the history of Europe during the middle ages. Every facet of life was controlled either by the church or the state, and one enforced the authority of the other. There was no room for independent thought.
So when pagan knowledge was brought back from the Middle East by the Crusaders, there was a Renaissance of thinking and culture that allowed people to question everything about life. The king's religion was continued through the Protestant Revolution, but the Enlightenment that came with the Renaissance still separated peoples' religious thought from their secular thought.
Before the Enlightenment, Faith was a communal institution. That's why the king's religion was the religion of the kingdom. Personal faith didn't matter. It didn't matter what common people believed as long as they remained loyal adherents of church and state. But with the Protestant Revolution, individual Faith became important, and the Enlightenment separated that individual Faith from loyalty to the state whether a kingdom or a republic.
Now Fundamentalists want to change that back to where they can use the state to force people to be subjected to their beliefs. Fundamentalists insist that citizens get their freedom of religion and everything else from the sect of the Fundamentalists without bothering to understand the Enlightenment's arguments against the individual finding religious independence from Natural Law.
Fundamentalists even insist that secularism is a church that has become an established state church. Natural Law is not a church. It is the Enlightenment giving individuals the right to think for themselves. The authority of Natural Law derives from the inevitable social compact that comes into being with the cooperation of people. That cooperation may come about from each participant accepting a mandate of reality that could be called the Divine Providence, but it doesn't limit that cooperation to one congregation of thought.
Actually, the ban against an established church has precedent in the intertwining of church and state in the history of Europe during the middle ages. Every facet of life was controlled either by the church or the state, and one enforced the authority of the other. There was no room for independent thought.
So when pagan knowledge was brought back from the Middle East by the Crusaders, there was a Renaissance of thinking and culture that allowed people to question everything about life. The king's religion was continued through the Protestant Revolution, but the Enlightenment that came with the Renaissance still separated peoples' religious thought from their secular thought.
Before the Enlightenment, Faith was a communal institution. That's why the king's religion was the religion of the kingdom. Personal faith didn't matter. It didn't matter what common people believed as long as they remained loyal adherents of church and state. But with the Protestant Revolution, individual Faith became important, and the Enlightenment separated that individual Faith from loyalty to the state whether a kingdom or a republic.
Now Fundamentalists want to change that back to where they can use the state to force people to be subjected to their beliefs. Fundamentalists insist that citizens get their freedom of religion and everything else from the sect of the Fundamentalists without bothering to understand the Enlightenment's arguments against the individual finding religious independence from Natural Law.
Fundamentalists even insist that secularism is a church that has become an established state church. Natural Law is not a church. It is the Enlightenment giving individuals the right to think for themselves. The authority of Natural Law derives from the inevitable social compact that comes into being with the cooperation of people. That cooperation may come about from each participant accepting a mandate of reality that could be called the Divine Providence, but it doesn't limit that cooperation to one congregation of thought.
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