(Vincent van Gogh. Still Life with Open Bible. Source)
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(Vincent van Gogh. Still Life with Open Bible.
Source)
These days, many people claim that "Politics and Religion must not be mixed", that "Religion is something private and personal, and that Faith has no place in the Public Square", etc.
Is this true? I would like to briefly and authoritatively describe how the Church and the State must coexist, but all I can offer you here is my opinion concerning a few principles.
To act well means to act according to reason. If religion by definition was irrational, then we would have to eliminate all religions. By definition, a belief, to be tolerable, must not be contrary to reason. This is explained in greater detail in the following essay: "100% of all religions are false (± 1%)".
Atheism, strictly speaking, is a serious threat for the whole society. See also: "If God Is Dead, Nothing Is Forbidden".
In real life, the State cannot ignore religions, or treat them all equally. To convince yourself, just imagine a religion where murder, or theft, or anarchy would be encouraged. This is one of the reasons why we'll never be able to have an absolute "separation between Church and State".
To see this, imagine a Nazi who is convinced that Jews are sub-humans who must be exterminated. He would be totally convinced, his convictions would be very strong. Except his convictions would be crazy and immoral!
Pure conviction, in the sense of a subjective psychological certainty, has no place in politics, and cannot be used to guide us on election day.
The State cannot ignore that a true religion is at least possible, and must encourage its citizens to seek it. See the essay: "Philosophy, Queen of Sciences and a Door Opened to the True Religion".
We don't mow the lawn with a Rosary and the Bible, but with a lawnmower, and a set of skills you could call "The Mowing Technique". It is the Mowing Technique that teaches us how to prime the motor so it will start easily, or how to mow under the branches of a fir, or how to avoid our wife's Most Holy Plants (carefully camouflaged, and arranged in a random way, a bit like anti-personnel mines, so they are harder to avoid).
Strictly speaking, the Mowing Technique cannot tell us why we must not mow our neighbor's foot. Human flesh is easy to cut, and mowing a foot doesn't dull the mower's blade. We need another set of human knowledge for this: Moral Philosophy, a part of the Science of Philosophy. It is Morality which can explain to us why mowing our neighbor's foot is not a good idea.
The only true religion will necessarily have moral teachings which will mesh perfectly with the conclusions of the Philosophical Science. Otherwise, God would be stupid (which is impossible), or this religion wouldn't be true.
The Rosary and the Bible can help a good Christian mow the lawn well, since Jesus Christ teaches not only purely religious teachings, but also some moral truths which are accessible to natural reason, without the help of Revelation. "Don't do to others what you wouldn't want them to do to you" is also true for your neighbor's foot. This is an example of a Biblical principle that overlaps with the conclusions of a correct Philosophical Science. There are many more examples in the Ten Commandments, which are an overview of Natural Law.
This is similar to what happens when it's time to vote. A Christian cannot vote for a politician who is pro-abortion or pro-homosexual unions. But this imperative does not only derive from one's religious convictions, but also from the fact that these religious convictions mesh perfectly with the ethical and political conclusions of a correct Philosophical Science, which must guide our democratic choices.
Of course, not everybody will agree with my assertions. But then these people will have to come out of their "philosophical closet", and publicly discuss these issues!