The tie that saved Rome. Do Western nations need a State Religion?

[Greatest I am]

The tie that saved Rome. Do Western nations need a State Religion?

The Western nations of today, like Rome in the days of Constantine, are being fractured by the plethora of religious and racial factions the emigration is causing. The Western nations are again being inundated by various religious militias and no go zones set up by religious and racial factions.  

All countries and large coalitions of countries need something to unite the populations and have it all move in the same direction when required. Religion is a good tool for uniting a country.

Constantine was looking for stability and peace for Rome and decided that a State Religion was the way to unify Rome and its allies. He chose the least barbaric and belligerent religion in his day, Christianity, to be the tie that would bind the empire and other countries together.

I see the Western religious forces of today doing the same as in Constantine’s day, fracturing the country and being an enemy to unity and peace.

A house divided cannot stand, --- and history is repeating itself.

To insure the survival of the Western ideology, in these times of religious strife and division, should the present Western political powers follow Constantine’s example and choose a State Religion?

I am not suggesting that we send out this new religion to convert by the sword the way Christianity did.  I think that we are intelligent enough today to debate the morality of the various religions to determine which is the most moral and the best for nations and the individuals within them.

Constantine chose strength by numbers and not by ideology and I think we are mature enough today to choose by worthy morality and ideology.

Is creating a State Religion the way to peace?

Regards
DL

[Zarn]

No

[dead0man]

no

[Greatest I am]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIQynsWpBpQ

Gods war.

You people must love war too much.

Regards
DL

[Santander]

I prefer an established church, but I do not think one is necessary.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

If anything, being a State religion typically has a bad effect on at least the religion.  People tend to forget the reason for separation of church and state is not to protect the state from the church, but the church from the state.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I love how he structures his OP's like some absurd think piece you'd see shared by the bottom half of Facebook users (and, within that group, adored by the stupid-enough-to-think-they're-smart types). He always has the most sizzling of #hottakes.

[user12345]

Yeah, no. You quoted "A house divided cannot stand, --- and history is repeating itself." but I don't think you understand the division a state religion would cause. Which denomination of Christianity would we choose? We have so many different sects of Christianity in this county so choosing one isn't an option that will bring people together. A state religion would make people of other faiths and those without a faith feel less worth in their contribution to society and most of all it violates the Constitution.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Constitution shmomstitution--history shows anything can be made constitutional--it's simply infeasible.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I hope you realize that no country would ever choose Gnostic Christianity as their State religion.

[DC Al Fine]

I hope you realize that no country would ever choose Gnostic Christianity as their State religion.

I love the logic here. Need to unify the country around a religion. Better choose a dead one that will piss off both the secularists and the largest religion in the country. You'd have better luck with Atenism or Roman Paganism.

[Devout Centrist]

The West is doing fine. The problems and debates of today have been going on for centuries in one form or another.

[Greatest I am]

I prefer an established church, but I do not think one is necessary.

So do I, in the sense that many people need the fellowship that a church provides.

Churches can tell the truth though and not constantly lie about a God they say is unknowable, just before telling us all they know of God. Scratch head.

Churches are lousy at teaching about God, as they are mostly idol worshipers, but they are good for community activity and spirit.

If we were to get rid of all the churches and mosques, we would likely need to replace them with community centers of some kind.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

If anything, being a State religion typically has a bad effect on at least the religion.  People tend to forget the reason for separation of church and state is not to protect the state from the church, but the church from the state.

I see it as churches having a bad effect on the state as the state stands for equality of all while churches are homophobic and misogynous and do not really believe in equality.

That is why the state has acted against Christians who discriminate against gays because they are against gay marriage.

Remember that baker who would not bake a wedding cake for a gay couple.

Love your neighbor, but not if he or she is gay is hardly a good Christian value.

Islam is worse. They stone gays when they can.

Regards
DL

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

So do you want the state religion to be the UCC or nah?

[Greatest I am]

Yeah, no. You quoted "A house divided cannot stand, --- and history is repeating itself." but I don't think you understand the division a state religion would cause. Which denomination of Christianity would we choose? We have so many different sects of Christianity in this county so choosing one isn't an option that will bring people together. A state religion would make people of other faiths and those without a faith feel less worth in their contribution to society and most of all it violates the Constitution.

What is important, the faith you have or the morality within the faith you have?

If the morality is trumped by the faith, then you are following a satanic religion as morality should trump the faith.

Most people are not familiar with the immoral tenets that most religions follow and an open political debate on all the religions would open a lot of eyes and show which faith is worthy for the people and which should be outlawed for it's poor moral tenets.

All people deserve the best God that money can buy. Right?

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Constitution shmomstitution--history shows anything can be made constitutional--it's simply infeasible.

Nothing is impossible and it is just as feasible today as it was in Constantine's day.

In fact, knowing the mistakes of the past, we can do a lot better.

Other countries are outlawing what they feel are immoral religions and the West can also do it.

We can use a bit of freedom from those same immoral religions as well.

Regards
DL
 

[Greatest I am]

I hope you realize that no country would ever choose Gnostic Christianity as their State religion.

If the choosing was by moral merit, I disagree.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

The West is doing fine. The problems and debates of today have been going on for centuries in one form or another.

True that we have brought Christianity to heel. But have you read the FGM stats coming out of Europe.

Doing nothing about such antics from the religious is us doing nothing against evil and for our own citizens who should enjoy the protections that the state says it offers to all citizens.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

So do you want the state religion to be the UCC or nah?

I want the most moral creed regardless of what faith has it.

Regards
DL

[Indy Texas]

The insistence on having a state religion is part of the reason Christianity is so irrelevant in Europe these days.

[Ebsy]

What a stupid idea.

[The Mikado]

The failure of historicity here is amazing.

First, Constantine did not establish a state religion in Rome, Theodosius did seventy years later.
Secondly, none (and I do mean none) of the problems of the Tetrarchy era were caused by the multiplicity of gods worshipped in the Empire.  The only religious tension that existed was between the state and Christianity, or to a lesser extent, between the state and Zoroastrianism/Manicheanism, and in the former case, it was a question of patriotism first and foremost (Christians are unwilling to pray to the Emperor as a God or worship at the Altar of Victory: does that mean that they hate the Emperor and oppose Victory?).
Thirdly, In whose crazed, fevered imagination did the institutionalization of Christianity help Rome in the short term? It would eventually become a pretty solid foundational bedrock of the Eastern Roman/Byzantine state, but to get there, it required nearly three hundred years of violent purges, counterpurges, and doctrinal disputes (can't get to One Emperor Ruling One People Under One God without suppressing all the people with varying ideas of that One God that might undermine the One Emperor part). The doctrinal disputes destabilized the Empire consistently for three hundred years and only really stopped doing so after the rise of Islam and the fall of all the heavily Monophysite areas like Syria and Egypt to the Caliphate, leaving the Romans de facto spiritually homogeneous through loss of the heretical areas.

[Blue3]

What a stupid idea.

[Person Man]

The fact that they had tried to institutionalize the church probably caused the Fall of the Western Empire. This entire dynamic of extreme social engineering probably caused the French Revolution to fail (them creating a new state religion) and for France to be a much weakened nation. There were attempts between Constantine and Theodosius to find the right mix of tolerance between the Indo-European pantheons and the Church but eventually what happened happened. The 4th century was a relatively stable period between the chaos of the 3rd and the death spiral of the 5th. Could the fact that both traditions had various levels of tolerance kept society relatively stable?