Old School Power Discussion

[Traitorfish]

Didn't Massachusetts exile people for heresy and stuff though?

In the early seventeenth century, yes, but that was an extension of an ongoing religious conflict within the Church of England, as well as the frankly weird politics of early Massachusetts. The Puritans of New England mostly lined up behind the Cambridge Platform of 1648 which codified Congregationalism as we'd now recognise it, and although I wouldn't suggest that the society they built was particularly liberal, they enforced religious orthodoxy through societal rather than governmental pressure.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Fanatic Pagan theocracy when?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Isn't it obvious?

1. Because they don't function the same way. The church answers to its dogma while the state answers to the people.

When the church had power (THE church, meaning the Catholic church ruling from Rome) it didn't "answer to dogma," it answered to the same wealthy class that the smaller states answered to. Now churches are predominantly powerless and "the state" has the power...and answers to that same wealthy class. So, please, point to how they "don't function the same way."

 

[Berzerker]

What exactly is the separation of church and state?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Means we cant legislate our religion and impose it on others. The exception generally being religious laws that are secular laws too, like a ban on murder. Two examples: Christmas displays are okay because they're not laws and dont impose a burden on others, but the Pledge of Allegiance is law and does impose a burden on others - the burden of swearing an oath to an idol thereby violating both religious clauses of the 1st Amendment. Good job anti-commies!

Is it possible, especially in the type of environment in which the idea first developed, in which the church had near absolute power over every aspect of the average person's life? What is the use of this idea; if the church itself is completely abolished, and the state takes over its duties, what is the functional difference, and why does the classical liberal thought prefer the state's authority to the church's authority if they function the same way?

The church simply refers to the individual's right to religious freedom. Most religious people went to church and Thomas Jefferson was addressing the concerns of a Baptist church when he assured them the federal government wont or shouldn't be involved with religion, beyond ceremonial stuff of course.
Going back further the Church had a different meaning that changed with the enlightenment. Actual historians are welcome to correct my armchair pontificating.

If the state is shown to derive its power from the implicit and explicit force of a ruling class, and the church is shown to derive such from the same, but both claim a demonstrably false mandate (God and popular sovereignty), what is the difference in the authority of each?

I dont see one

 

[Lexicus]

Fanatic Pagan theocracy when?

I mean, most pagan societies had pretty strong taboos against religious heterodoxy. The Romans, for example, killed plenty of Christians for refusing to get with the Imperial Cult.

 

[warpus]

When the church had power (THE church, meaning the Catholic church ruling from Rome) it didn't "answer to dogma," it answered to the same wealthy class that the smaller states answered to. Now churches are predominantly powerless and "the state" has the power...and answers to that same wealthy class. So, please, point to how they "don't function the same way."

When the church used to be the state, of course it functioned like the state.

I was of course commenting about the present

 

[Cutlass]

That's unfair. Most religiously active Americans at the time of the Revolutionary War belonged to denominations which had an established antipathy towards established religion- Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, and so on. Scotland and the United Provinces, two very important (if in the latter case more indirect) influences on American religious life, were dominated by Calvinist churches, but no movement was ever made to establish those churches, before or after the Revolution.

The trick is that they were concerned about government intervention in religion, rather than religious intervention in government. That was understandable, given: England, but turned out to be unfortunate in the long run, given: America.

The Church of England was a much bigger player than you seem to indicate.

 

[Berzerker]

I mean, most pagan societies had pretty strong taboos against religious heterodoxy. The Romans, for example, killed plenty of Christians for refusing to get with the Imperial Cult.

From what I understand the Romans allowed religious freedom but required loyalty, the people with religions forbidding that loyalty became suspect and persecuted, ie many Christians wouldn't bend the knee so to speak. Their secretive practices didn't help endear them to the neighbors either, rumors of cannibalism etc stemmed from consuming the Lord's body, flesh and blood. Course the persecution was not constant, kinda depended on other factors, like who was in charge and how the economy was doing. If times were bad it was probably the Roman gods upset with the Christians' attendance record at church. But your point still stands, pagans aint necessarily more tolerant. Was that your point? I didn't read the debate

 

[Traitorfish]

The Church of England was a much bigger player than you seem to indicate.

To an extent, but it turned out to be such a bastion of Loyalism that it was permitted little to no influence on the shape of the early Republic. Its organisational structure was strikingly feeble, for a supposed national church- there wasn't a single bishop in the entire Western hemisphere, it was all part of the episcopacy of London- so it operated more or less entirely on the good graces of the gentry and the colonial governments, and when that was withdrew with Cornwallis across the Atlantic Revolutionary War, whatever political clout it had dissolved pretty entirely. Those few Episcopalian who maintained influence by adopting republican loyalties, mostly in the South, where under intense suspicion as potential crypto-Loyalists, so they weren't foolish enough to push for something so aristocratic and English as an established church.

 

[stfoskey12]

That's unfair. Most religiously active Americans at the time of the Revolutionary War belonged to denominations which had an established antipathy towards established religion- Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, and so on. Scotland and the United Provinces, two very important (if in the latter case more indirect) influences on American religious life, were dominated by Calvinist churches, but no movement was ever made to establish those churches, before or after the Revolution.

The trick is that they were concerned about government intervention in religion, rather than religious intervention in government. That was understandable, given: England, but turned out to be unfortunate in the long run, given: America.

But many individual states had established churches. This article seems to have a good summary if you want to read more in-depth.

http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1382&context=wmlr

 

[Traitorfish]

That's true, they inherited established churches from the colonial era, though, and with strictly circumscribed powers. As I understand, it mostly amounted to a German-style church tax, which wasn't consistently collected, or passed to churches, outside of New England. It's easier for people to overlook something that already exists, where they were rant and rave and froth against the same thing were it introduced anew. (Look at Republicans and single-payer healthcare: Medicare is a fact of life, Obamacare is Satan's sweaty bunghole.)