Friday, March 28, 2008

Separation of Church and State

This is a topic that I think the Indonesian Government should listen and implement in ............
The Idea of separation of church and state is born by the proclamators of the United States of America.......
Their Idea is simple knowing that there were religious unrest in europe and that their country will be and is a plural country as people from different religion and divine cultures would come and in order for the government to run and be able to function, their official religion should be no religion.
The reasoning was written down by Thomas Jefferson who said:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

Now to all conservatives this might not be ideal, however in order to foster democracy, all should be included and no matter what their beliefs they must be able to function as both citizens and government personnels.
That was why in the USA, state/public schools are not allowed to hold school prayers or the teaching of one particular or even any religion.
The answer of why they tought that in schools this should not be in the curriculum is that school is a place for scientific and logical learning and the teaching of religion is in the exact opposite. Religion teaches us that scientific prove and logic does not apply to faith whereas in science for every reaction there exist an action that provokes it. Although I do believe that in the beginning of all that begun something begin, not all share this belief. I believe it isn't the Christian way to enforce my beliefs to others hence I do not want anyone to enforce their beliefs unto me. At the beginning of this blog I said that the Indonesian Government should apply this philosophy into the governing and law making process. Separation of church and and state for our country should be endowed as separation of religion and state and one of the way to do this is to dismantle the KUA and the Ministry of Religion. Government should not be in the business of controlling anyone's beliefs more ever here in Indonesia it symbolizes a tendency of favouritism towards certain beliefs, which is the very opposite what our heroes that died for our independence want it to be.
I do believe once we instill this philosophy, Indonesia would be as great a nation that would even rival the United States of America in all aspects.

1 comment:

Matt said...

You make excellent points in all of these posts; they are very well written and well researched. I applaud you for level-headed, even toned commentary you make, leaving open enough room for both sides of the story. I agree that there should be a separation of chruch and state, but people should not forget that the United States was founded on Christian principles, and, thus, guided the laws which our forefathers created to establish the groundwork for this nation. As for prayer in schools, I agree that there can be no mandatory prayer time, but they should not prevent students from praying on their own if it does not come during class time, and does not exclude anyone or interfere with anyone else.
Great posts, keep up the good work!