Read And Rate My 1/3 Done Persuasive Essay On The Separation Of Church And State.?

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Austin Rannow 1/19/2009 ©
A famous Greek philosopher known as Aristotle once said, “If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost;” if a nation is to obtain true liberty among its people, the state as a whole must relinquish any predisposed positions on idea, initiative, and philosophy, or otherwise succumb to inequalities amongst the freedom of various peoples. Religion is well defined as a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, which adheres to the definition of a philosophy, and so if a nation is to obtain true liberty among its people, religion must be well respected, free from bias and prejudice. The separation of church and state is and always has been a vital part of the United States’ core; in order to promote civil equality and peace, the government must do its best to completely separate religion and politics, both with its conscious and subliminal correlations.
The United States was founded on July 4th, 1776 with the preconceived idea of the separation of church and state. Thomas Jefferson, one of the cofounders of the U.S., has made it clear what this partition entails: “All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution.” There is no argument as to whether or not we should abide by the forefather’s ideals; citizens, being relatives of the country, should honor and respect the ancestral beliefs. The only rejoinder to this principle is the open literal interpretation of Jefferson’s idea. The word compel, which most nearly means to persuade or encourage, was used by Thomas Jefferson to show that no person of the country should be pushed or encouraged towards a certain denomination of religion, and certainly not be squandered of fair opportunities at political power due to one’s own personal belief and morals.
Over the course of the United States’ history, people of certain religions have been harassed, treated unfairly, and even killed. One recent example of this is when the 41st president of the U.S., G George Herbert Walker Bush, responded, “No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God,” to the question of whether or not atheists should have an equal chance at citizenship. Bush’s statement goes directly against the separation of church and state. Someone who is so quick to say those words is sure to hold a conscious or unconscious bias on religion. Another classic example of the government abusing its power over religion is when Jim Mosser, a Marine Corps veteran and practitioner of the Wiccan faith, died, but the military refused to put a long excluded Wiccan emblem on the tombstone, whereas if Mosser were Christian, the military would have given a list of several crosses to choose from. After ten years of fighting in court, Mosser’s widow successfully sued the military and had the Wiccan emblem carved into Jim’s gravestone. Mosser’s widow spent ten whole years struggling through the agonizing process; life is too short to have to fight with the ignorance of injustice.
There has only been one time in the history of the United States where the country was so divided that it could be cut into two separate parts; this was during the civil war. The American civil war lasted four years, from 1861 to 1865, and resulted in over six hundred thousand casualties. The entire war was based on the question of whether or not African Americans should have equal rights with Caucasian Americans. The war initially erupted because of the predisplaced division between the slave and slave-free states. This division can still be seen in the United States today, not just with views on racism, but moreso with views on religion.