Debate: Seperation of church and state is a fanciful myth
Side: False

I worded my reply before this one improperly, and thus conveyed the wrong meaning in many ways. Unfortunately, I cannot simply mass-clarify everything, so I'll just try and be clearer in general in this reply.I would disagree there. It is ordered according to individual preference, and is more or less meticulously orderedLet me clarify. It does not necessitate social order. It generally is a personal order, which is the point of it, to give an individual clarity and answers over existence.And while it does make sense that personal order leads to social order, this doesn't mean it happens every time.As a general rule, people do things to survive, in the long run. Creating social groups because of shared belief is, therefore, not a constant or necessary factor in the creation of order.I agree. Congratulations on basically stating the same thing I did in my first paragraph albeit in different words.I am an evolved simian, separate from my ancestors by only few hairs on my neck. Go easy on me. ಠ_ಠA state cannot be religiously neutral in either sense of the wordExplain this to me in monkey-man words. How is it impossible to make decisions and have opinions separate from religious beliefs?A personal belief system doesn't depend on the state, but the state depends on personal belief systems. A state is ALWAYS an institutionalized belief system. A religion CAN BE but is not always.A personal belief system is not always a religion. Is believing in a communistic state intrinsically tied into any particular religion? Does a capitalist state require it's establishment be Christian to function? Did the rise of Feudal Japan require that everyone be Buddhist, Taoist, and Shintoist?While we have a lot of evidence to suggest that many states rise and revolve around religion, I think it's a huge leap to make the absolutist statement that all states are directly connected to religion.I'd say that everyone has a systematic set of very strong beliefs that can reasonably be categorized as religious.I'm not so sure about that. I think you can believe something strongly without it being religious. With that logic of yours, atheists are religious, because they have a strong belief that there are no deities in any religious mythology in truth.And even if everyone does have a strong belief, that doesn't mean said strong belief has anything to do with politics and statehood. If someone believes without a doubt that the Flying Spaghetti monster will return to bring peace on Earth long after said someone has died, why would they ever necessarily bring this view into play when writing up a bill about taxes? I mean, unless they were crazy, such a belief has no relevance to what they're doing. In fact, I don't think such a belief would have any relevance to what they're doing other then just being something they believe in without a doubt.Let's take this on even more hypothetically. Let's say a group of primitive people with this belief about the Flying Spaghetti monster band together and form a clan, a state, a small government, because based upon their belief, they must create order and make the future as bright as can be in preparation for the return of the Flying Spaghetti monster.Now, let's say they do this. How is that any different from a group of primitive people forming the same clan, except it has nothing to do with believing in anything strongly, and simple happened because they all wanted to survive together and have a community?This is why I have a problem with your absolutist statement. Perhaps, again, there isn't a lot of evidence to suggest there has ever been a society that never had religious belief governing it from the shadows, but given our relatively short human existence, I don't really think it's called for to make an absolutist statement in this.Like, a pecking order among a lion pride. That is about as basic an orderly community as it gets for us earthling creatures. Now, do the lions form the pecking order because they devoutly believe in something? Of course not, they're lions. They form the pecking order because they want to survive, because being together in a group is simply logical to that end. Why does the pride determine who is on top and who's behind in the pecking order? Not because they believe anything, but because they have the strongest lion among them 'lead' them, because it's logical for the strong to lead and assist the weak so that the group survives. You don't have a weakling at the very front of the pecking order, cause a weakling wouldn't handle the position.But do you see where I am going?Religious belief does not necessitate societal order, and societal order does not necessitate religious belief. You can maybe believe things, but that doesn't mean those beliefs are relevant to anything you're presently doing, nor necessarily religious beliefs. Furthermore, you don't need religious beliefs to have incentive to form a state. Perhaps you could argue that religious belief is a product of human development that is meant to give us incentive to form a state, but if you're going to make that argument, you also have to acknowledge that it's not an absolutist factor if we can go without that incentive and make incentive that is non-religious via logic.A person, politician or not, makes all their decisions based upon their beliefs. If you think it's possible to make decisions that are not based on your beliefs, than this explains how you think separation of church and state is a realistic goal.You know I was speaking of religious beliefs in this context. No need to be insinuative. I did after all clarify before even getting to this part of my reply that I understand the difference between religious belief and other belief.Furthermore, yes, everyone does make decisions based upon beliefs, but these beliefs are not necessarily religious. Religion involves worship. You can have a strong belief without worshiping it. Which is why, again, you don't classify being a communist as being religious, because believing strongly in a communist state is not a religious belief, even if strong.Arguing that it would be a religious belief, though, would begin to skew the definition of a religious belief, and my tired brain wouldn't be able to handle that. ಠ_ಠ This isn't to say you can't feel so strongly about communism that you could be classified as worshiping it, but it would take a lot to make such a classification because communism doesn't have an object of worship, or an idea that could be worshiped as some sort of singular thing. Buddhists worship kindness. Christians worship a monotheistic deity. Communism, and most statehood structural ideas, aren't really so simplistic, which is why it's easy to be religious from being just Christian and hard to be religious from being just communist, because they are separate ideas and things that do not necessarily correlate. Because a state does not necessitate religious belief...What they think is best for the people who elected them is based on beliefs. The opinions of the people who elected them are based on those peoples beliefs.None of which are necessarily religious beliefs.If they happen to make a decision that conforms with what is objectively better for the people , it is because they just so happened to have a well formed belief, Not because the decision wasn't based on belief.A belief that was not necessarily religious.Sure if they don't have a strong belief on a political issueA person can have a strong belief without necessarily having faith... or, perhaps I worded that wrong. A person can have a strong belief without necessarily having a strong religious belief. Yeah, that's probably better.The biggest difference between a church and a state is how they are spelled.You still have yet to convince me with apparent logic as to how this absolutism even remotely makes sense, considering you can form order and community, and thus a state, without the incentive from a religious belief.