onegoodmove

On the subject of the seperation of church and state, I was thinking recently about how the British situation differs from the American one.

Because Britain has no clear constitutional rule guaranteeing a secular state, it would probably be possible for granite monuments featuring the Ten Commandments to be displayed on government land without much of a legal battle. However, I cannot envisage a situation where this would actually happen, as no one is really interested in using the apparatus of government to push religious beliefs at people (or at least, not as much as in America). Furthermore, it should be remembered that in Britain there is an established church with official status as the religious side of the state, but no one pays any attention to it. In America it would seem that religious leaders have a much greater influence over what goes on, this being due to the much more important role of religion in people's lives. In Britain and many other Northern European countries church attendance each Sunday must be only a very few percent of the population, and it is rare to hear politicians asking for God's blessing of things, urging people to pray for things - all the religious stuff so common in American life.

The point I want to make is this:

The USA is, by virtue of its Constitution, a secular nation, although religion plays an unusually large part in national governance and decision-making.

Plenty of other Western countries have official religions and official churches, but religion has almost no place in politics.

Public attitude then, seems to matter more than what is written down in law, although I must admit that one thing Britain would really benefit from is a definitive document we could all recognise as being the Constitution, instead of the mess that was cobbled together over centuries that we have to put up with now.

The above comment was not mine. Chris is some kind of scary doppleganger of me or I am a scary doppleganger of him. I spent a year in Sheffield England studying philosophy. I had a conversation regarding this very issue with Christopher Hookway who is a professor of Philosophy at Sheffield. I then made comments very much like this to Norm after I had returned to the states. It was strange, because he thought the comment was mine at first, but had misgivings. I wouldn't have made a post as long as the one above because we had already discussed it.

A doppelganger! This is all very exciting, although I will try to offer a rational explanation:

1. Great minds think alike.

2. The number of people in the world called Chris must be immense, although I have never counted.

3. People with certain views can find themselves drawn to the weblogs of people who share those views, hence my discovery of onegoodmove, and via a post, All Too Human.

4. Plenty of people must have thought at one time or another those things which I said in my original comment, as anyone who observes religious life in the two countries in question will draw parallels and make contrasts.

I could go on, as there are plenty of other reasons why these things might happen.

Chris, if I met you in the street and you looked exactly like me then things would be a little scary, but for now I am prepared to put it down to an interesting coincidence.

It will have me thinking though!

Actually Chris made the comments to me in an email the contents of which I posted here