Religion, The State and Decay

[Lemonjello]

Thinking about the influence on the Catholic Church on the Fall of Rome, I happened upon a thought as to how best control to influence of particularly large, autonomous religious bodies. Now, your isolated churches without any sort of organized leadership are of no concern to the edifices of the state. However, large, united religions such as the Catholic Church are able to exert considerable influence (not so much nowadays as most Catholics are either wild eyed zealots or they attend mass as if a chore). How should the state deal with the harmful influence of religion? One option is to throroughly and totally incorporate religion into the state with the king serving as the church's head, and stamp out all others so that reverence of Christ and the saints will not incite men to revolt. However, this flat soda of a religion may not work, or at any rate will continue to oppress the masses.

How can the state reconcile freedom while protecting itself against the insidious influence of a large, organized religion with its own king (i.e., the pope)?

[Chlodwig I.]

Intresting Question
Western societies grant Religous freedom


In my country that religous freedom is limited to a certain point
your freedom ends where the freedom of another person starts.

Every Religous Group has to accept the rule of law and humanrights
they can pray what they want as long as its not against the rule of law and the laws of the country.

If a religious group acts openly against the law (promoting openly hatecrimes, telling to kill non believers etc.) then the state has the right to defend its citizens against this religous group.

A State is a society, a group of people, acting together, living under the same law, so they have the right to defend themselfs against dangers
inside or outside