Nonsense. The separation of church and states creates no moral vacuum, because the state is not a moral actor. The state is incapable or morality, nor ethics. It is a weapon, and a weapon alone. If you give it the opportunity to enforce morality, it will accept that it has the authority to police all human thought and behavior with violence.
Morality resides in the church and the church alone. If the church has failed to inspire good conduct among it's congregants, the state can not do it for them. The state is not moral, it is never moral, it never will be moral, because it never can be moral. It is a weapon.
A good guy with a gun does not make the gun good. A bad guy with a gun does not make the gun bad. The goodness of the man holding the gun is irrelevant to the gun.
The institution is occupied by people, and those people will have values. Either those values will be chaotic, and the institution will collapse, or those values will harmonize, that harmony being described by a moral system.
A state having a moral system described by a religion doesn't necessarily mean it will violently enforce that religion. It depends on the religion. Islam, progressivism, communism, these will be violently enforced. Christianity, there is no guarantee.
Nonsense. A government exists only through violence. Coercion is the only mechanism of the state, and it is the only legitimate mechanism of the state. It is designed for the purposes of being a structure that can settle the disputes of individuals, and has the overwhelming capability of violence, to threaten into compliance anyone that does not meet to it's conclusions.
The state is far more aggressive and self-perpetuating than any simple gun. It is akin to a rabid wolf, or a rampaging dragon, or a permanent runaway-gun.
The state must be forced, violently, typically with the bindings of law, into compliance with the law; and still you must starve it of revenue and opportunity to make sure it can't kill you.
States are not moral actors, and have nor moral system. They are weapons. It can only violently enforce a religion that expresses itself through the state. All the religions you mentioned explicitly express themselves through the state, making their violence maximized.
Christianity has the exact same guarantee. A cursory examination of the atrocities of the 30 Years War explains in no uncertain terms why Christianity is no different. Protestants, Catholics, French, Germans, Sweedes, Spainards, none of it made any difference because the problem is that no government is moral, and the moral system is now enforced with violence inevitably.
The only time when the state wasn't mandated with violence is when English Protestantism, rebuked the authority of the state itself. Religion intentionally separated itself from the state, in order to prevent the state from regulating it. Once the English, Protestant, Liberals decided that religious values could teach men to confine the powers of the state, the violence and madness of the state was finally in check.
Everyone else who didn't learn this lesson, including the French and Spanish, quickly re-learned that the state is a weapon and began fighting for control over it.
When English Protestantism teaches men to contain the state, then the state will not act violently, because it has a boot on it's neck.
When English Protestantism is enforced by the state, then the state will act violently because that is it's nature.
The state is not a moral actor. The state is a weapon.
It uses practically unlimited violence to settle disputes between parties. Laws, made by the people, confine the state's actions to specific responses for specific reasons.
The moment you make an "ethical state" is the moment you get a totalitarian state. If the state decides morality, then it is declaring that it has unlimited jurisdiction to use unlimited force. This is why the very fundamental premise of Fascism relies on the construction of "An Ethical State". The state is literally the intertemporal, metaphysical, representation of the people, and exists as the moral ordering of each person in society to that metaphysic. That is why it is totalitarian.
The Separation of Church and state requires both the separation of the church's influence from the state, and the state's influence from the church.
Using government powers to force individuals to violate their religious conscience is the latter.
The separation of church and state creates a vacuum of moral systems in the state. Progressivism fills that vacuum, then exercises power.
Nonsense. The separation of church and states creates no moral vacuum, because the state is not a moral actor. The state is incapable or morality, nor ethics. It is a weapon, and a weapon alone. If you give it the opportunity to enforce morality, it will accept that it has the authority to police all human thought and behavior with violence.
Morality resides in the church and the church alone. If the church has failed to inspire good conduct among it's congregants, the state can not do it for them. The state is not moral, it is never moral, it never will be moral, because it never can be moral. It is a weapon.
A good guy with a gun does not make the gun good. A bad guy with a gun does not make the gun bad. The goodness of the man holding the gun is irrelevant to the gun.
The institution is occupied by people, and those people will have values. Either those values will be chaotic, and the institution will collapse, or those values will harmonize, that harmony being described by a moral system.
A state having a moral system described by a religion doesn't necessarily mean it will violently enforce that religion. It depends on the religion. Islam, progressivism, communism, these will be violently enforced. Christianity, there is no guarantee.
Nonsense. A government exists only through violence. Coercion is the only mechanism of the state, and it is the only legitimate mechanism of the state. It is designed for the purposes of being a structure that can settle the disputes of individuals, and has the overwhelming capability of violence, to threaten into compliance anyone that does not meet to it's conclusions.
The state is far more aggressive and self-perpetuating than any simple gun. It is akin to a rabid wolf, or a rampaging dragon, or a permanent runaway-gun.
The state must be forced, violently, typically with the bindings of law, into compliance with the law; and still you must starve it of revenue and opportunity to make sure it can't kill you.
States are not moral actors, and have nor moral system. They are weapons. It can only violently enforce a religion that expresses itself through the state. All the religions you mentioned explicitly express themselves through the state, making their violence maximized.
Christianity has the exact same guarantee. A cursory examination of the atrocities of the 30 Years War explains in no uncertain terms why Christianity is no different. Protestants, Catholics, French, Germans, Sweedes, Spainards, none of it made any difference because the problem is that no government is moral, and the moral system is now enforced with violence inevitably.
The only time when the state wasn't mandated with violence is when English Protestantism, rebuked the authority of the state itself. Religion intentionally separated itself from the state, in order to prevent the state from regulating it. Once the English, Protestant, Liberals decided that religious values could teach men to confine the powers of the state, the violence and madness of the state was finally in check.
Everyone else who didn't learn this lesson, including the French and Spanish, quickly re-learned that the state is a weapon and began fighting for control over it.
When English Protestantism teaches men to contain the state, then the state will not act violently, because it has a boot on it's neck.
When English Protestantism is enforced by the state, then the state will act violently because that is it's nature.
The state is not a moral actor. The state is a weapon.
It uses practically unlimited violence to settle disputes between parties. Laws, made by the people, confine the state's actions to specific responses for specific reasons.
The moment you make an "ethical state" is the moment you get a totalitarian state. If the state decides morality, then it is declaring that it has unlimited jurisdiction to use unlimited force. This is why the very fundamental premise of Fascism relies on the construction of "An Ethical State". The state is literally the intertemporal, metaphysical, representation of the people, and exists as the moral ordering of each person in society to that metaphysic. That is why it is totalitarian.