Throughout history, ruthless and or desperate people have seized upon 'otherness' to rally towards desired goals. The deeper the emotion, the more force it generates and for that religion is hard to beat!
This is what our FOUNDERS were thinking when they penned the FIRST AMENDMENT clause for FREEDOM OF RELIGION! They saw the history of the state-mandated religion and these abuses and made it clear that our government would have no such thing for our country. It is the recent generations of illiberal de-constructists who have turned it into "Freedom from Religion"!
>”They saw the history of the state-mandated religion and these abuses and made it clear that our government would have no such thing for our country. It is the recent generations of illiberal de-constructists who have turned it into “Freedom from Religion”!”
Yes, as they also did not mean this meant the official institution of atheistic secularism, which has effectively been the result.
The fact is by not allowing such things as any sanctioned prayer by teachers,m etc it sends a message to the country that we do not see ourselves in need of help from a Creator, or deem anyone more than man worthy of our gratitude. Thus it officially fosters agnosticism or atheism.
One can argue that not allowing state sanctioned prayer means we recognize the state has no business in that, but you cannot separate the state from a basic belief system and practices, and in a Democracy the people will decide what that is.
And in America the Christian faith was it, and in the general sense the Gov., including the writers of the 1st Amendment, overall sanctioned it, and which was reflected in courts and schools for a long time.
And by censoring churches from endorsing candidates within the church itself via 501(3)(c) (voluntary but basically needed) then it seeks to silence not just gov. from positively speaking about religion, but religion from speaking about government, contrary the 1st Amendment.
Yet this means of establishment does allow that the people may choose to officially sanction atheism, and with officially sanctioned secularism - which is intolerant of official sanction of the general Christian faith - then it has. And which functionally serves as religion in determining an ever morphing morality, to our collective hurt. http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/RevealingStatistics.html#TABLE