Should we ever regain the microphone, this is what we need to say about Church and State: the State corrupts the Church.
The winning argument for a secular government isn't that government is being warped by the bigots, the credulous, and the hypocrites.
- There are plenty of bigoted, credulous, hypocritical non-Christians.
- There are plenty of fair, wise, and pious Christians.
It isn't that our current government shouldn't be run according to a set of rules that were created by Semitic nomads thousands of years ago.
- The Ten Commandments are an important beginning in creating rules to live by and the Bible does contain the Golden Rule. Funny how you never hear of statues of the Golden Rule in the courthouse.
It isn't that the government was originally created secular.
- They'll either deny this or argue that it is unimportant.
It isn't that teaching Creationism threatens the teaching of critical thinking and confuses students' understanding of the scientific process.
- Critical thinking and the scientific process don't generally have the same importance to the very religious as they do to the areligious. The skepticism involved runs up against the foundation of a religion, belief.
The winning argument is that government corrupts religion.
- Putting parts of the Bible in the courthouse cheapens Christianity by associating the power of the word of God with power of the government. The government doesn't deserve that power.
- People are fallible and respond to inducements in this sphere. Taking taxpayer money and funneling it to Christian charities seems like a good idea until you realize that the government is now controlling church funding. While the churches may claim that they won't be affected by the source of funding, experience proves otherwise.
- Using public schools to teach Intelligent Design seems like a good idea until you realize that you are giving school teachers, who may or may not be Christians, free rein to teach Christianity. Better that be left to ministers, pastors, and priests.