Church and state. Lets keep them together!!!?

Question

Now that I have your attention...

After reading, "The Prince", I realized Machiavelli refers to The Church as a political faction. He compares popes to kings and lords, and usually bundles them up as people of great influence on the state. My question is, church and state have always been together, and always will be, why would people try to eliminate the good values from the church [1] to pursue a, "free state"? 

Elaboration(Warning, rant): I'm speaking from a perfectly levelheaded position, and will not disclose my opinion on the matter. I can say about most issues about religion and politics bore me and I can care less.

[1] The good values of the church are things like abstinence and traditional marriage. These are not necessarily good, but are things in the bible that don't involve death or stoning. Traditional marriage and the state go perfectly with each other because heterosexual couples can reproduce and expand the state. Abstinence and the state also go well, since you have to get married before you have children. This is great for the state because if you can afford a wedding, or parents have enough money, you are financially independent and don't have to live off the government's money. It makes sense to have a job and a stable life before you have a child. These values may not be good morally, but everyone wins. Why? Gays don't lose because they can't marry, they lose because they refuse to reproduce. This sounds very insensitive, (Because it is, they don't choose to be gay, so they should be treated equally. But life isn't fair to anyone.) but they can still love without marriage. They want marriage for the same benefits as heterosexual couples, like tax cuts. On the other hand, why should they get it? They do not bear children, so they adopt. They choose to adopt, so they should calculate how much money it costs to adopt. They should receive benefits for adopting, but it should also be considered that it was their choice to adopt, so they shouldn't get a discount.
The deal with abstinence is pretty simple, don't risk having a kid until you can support it. It should be obvious, but with condoms and birth control kids think they are guaranteed to not have kids. Condoms break, birth control wears off, and many babies have to be given off to adoption because kids are too horny. A lot of women have gotten pregnant thinking that birth control lasts longer than a week. Many boys get women pregnant thinking the spermicidal residue on condoms can let them have a second screw without needing a condom. Don't get me started on teens who think pulling out is an effective method. Kids make mistakes, and babies are a result of that. 
Abortions are a completely different issue. That is mainly a church's agenda, to preserve a kid's life. The state still dabbles in it though, and allows it. That should be enough to make the Christian-America relationship crumble, but it doesn't. The state supports many of the Church's actions, and in return the church helps the state. This relationship helped America for generations. Even of our founding fathers were Deist and Atheist, our sustainers of culture have been Christians. Some of the values above may be morally wrong, or just inconsiderate. But when you're talking about the mass, it helps out most people in the future. This can obviously be debated, like gay marriage and adoption. A gay couple may not be able to conceive a child, but they can raise one. But the state as a whole really doesn't care about the population of kids being raised, they just care about the population that's loyal to them.

imacatholic2 · Accepted Answer

The constitutional precept of separation of church and state only goes in one direction, from the state to the church. The U.S. Government cannot and does not actively endorse any one particular religion.

There is no law that forbids the members of a religion from working for the state, voting in elections, running for office, or (legally) influencing our elected leaders.

If one were to enforce a separation of church and state from the church to the state then over 90% of Americans would be excluded from most of the rights of citizenship.

The Most Sacred of All Property: Religious Freedom and the People of Maryland: A Statement from the Catholic Bishops of Maryland http://www.mdcathcon.org/library/resources/RLLaunch/ReligiousLibertyStatementbyMdBishops.pdf

With love in Christ.

? · Answer

I skipped all your badly-formatted rant after the first paragraph, because really no sane person is willing to read through a wall of text that you yourself considered not important enough to be broken down into paragraphs. If you can't be bothered to read your own words, why should anyone else care?

Machiavelli regarded the powers of Church and State to be similar because that's how the world worked back in his day. Centuries later, this thing called America happened - a new Republic separate from the ideas of Old Europe, where the power of the church was a separate entity from the state.

Whereas in Old Europe the Church and State were one, America was founded on the idea that a country could be formed and governed without the Church being a controlling force. It's an idea written into the very core of America's Constitution.

Alal, Utuk Xul · Answer

The problem with your thesis is the church really had nothing to do with creating values. The church adopted values of numerous Mediterranean cultures but did not create them. The values of the church are from Greek and Roman pagan religions . Personally I would rather have a more pluralistic religion involved with the state than a monist religion that offers the same values.There would be more personal liberties protected over a monist religion.

mcroberts · Answer

A scan of the Bible indicates that slavery is permitted as ordinary, and even promoted in each the historic and New Testaments. I've listed some verses in "sources". So the Church of England had no scriptural reason to abolish slavery, and each scriptural reason to oppose its abolition. The trade in angle may have come from sources rather then Christianity; despite the fact that many abolitionists will have professed Christianity, the proposal of abolishing slavery have got to have come from a compassionate view of humanity that need to have come from purpose as a substitute than faith, even if individuals who had those strategies thought the ideas have been Christian. The Christian church buildings will have finally followed the ambient opinion of slavery, as a substitute than led it. The top of opposition of some church buildings to the emancipation of women is advancing, and maybe their opposition to the emancipation of homosexuals will sooner or later be a factor of the previous. Let's hope so.

ANDRE L · Answer

What's your *actual* question ?

This isn't Yahoo Rants...

Church and state. Lets keep them together!!!?

5 Answers