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Article: God & Caesar; Where lies the appropriate intersection of faith, politics in the United States? A religious people in a secular state.(NEWS)(OP EX)
- Article from:
- Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
- Article date:
- July 11, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Star Tribune Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Jim Boyd; Staff Writer
America has the anomalous nature of being both the most devotedly religious nation in the developed world and the most resolutely secularist state. As Susan Jacoby makes clear in her new book, "Freethinkers," the secularist part was by design: The Founding Fathers were determined the state they brought forth would be based not on "the laws of God," but on "the rights of man," or as we would say today, the rights of humankind. No, that definitional updating is not cheap political correctness; it is the application of reason that surely the fathers would welcome; they believed human beings had above all the ability to learn.
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