>The world didn't end. In fact, the main effect of state-sponsored
>religion has
>been to saddle the Church of England with a crippling financial burden of
>having to maintain national coverage of churches and vicars and weaken it
>forever. Also, I maintain my view that having compulsory RE in schools is
>entirely beneficial, since it exposes the bright and questioning kids early on
>to the fact that there are some adults out there who talk the most astonishing
>rubbish, and the other sort are lost anyway so who cares.
This touches on the genius of the American system, which is to give the appearance of freedom while accomplishing a high degree of constraint. So we have no formal censorship, a bill of rights, and permissive libel laws (cf. England), yet we have the most servile press around. And we have a constitution that guarantees separation of church and state and a fairly secular gang of "Founding Fathers," yet we have the most religion-saturated politics in the First World.
Somehow - maybe I'll figure out exactly how when I go pump some iron in a few minutes - this must be related to the fact that we have the most income-polarized society in the First World, yet the weakest class politics, thanks to a bogus myth of mobility.
Doug