Book #1: Religion and State by L. Carl Brown

[Tukhachevskii]

I am not so sure that Westerners have actually separated politics from the church; we have only compartmentalized their organizational charts. That was simply the result of dealing with multiple religions. India had a separation of church and state for two thousand years.

I don’t quite know what you mean by that unless you mean Protestantism and Catholicism are two separate religions which is what they meant at the time (I know, strange to our ears though it may be. As for India it hasn’t existed for two thousand years, it is a post-colonial creation. Prior to the Empire the geographical area in question contained kingdoms that were either Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist.

I believe that any complex society that has to deal with multiple religions either has to suppress religions not in concert with the political entities or would have to find a way to tolerate them – a defacto separation if not one sanctified by a constitutional separation. That does not mean that religion, or politics, or any other component of society are separate (or separable) from the human animal or the human condition. They are creations of the human condition and have no life without it; they are immutable from their creator.

A belief is not a statement of fact it is a desire. That sort of constitutional thinking is typical for the heirs of Locke and that “unvarnished Doctrine” splinters a little too much for my liking sir. But I cans ee where you are going (though I don't have to go there).

I don't accept it at face value, and I accept the challenge of attempting to explain the phenomena.

You may want to investigate the Putney debates by the New Model Army during the English Civil war (itself an instructive case) to determine what is political and what religious or even if the distinctions apply. Personally, I gave up on high brow pursuits like that in favour of trying (dismally) to scratch a living so I’ll leave it to fitter minds like yourself to grapple with it.