Analyzing the Separation of Church and State

I figure that during this exciting election year, these posts may get more on the political side, but we'll see. This year the Church-wide reading is the Book of Mormon, so I may pull from that as well.

For today, though, I going to take on the Separation of Church and State, which is enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ...

Our founding fathers desired to protect the people from two undesirable scenarios. One was a government that only allowed one church (an established state religion), and the other was a government governed by a religion (a theocracy). They wanted to instead protect the freedoms of every person in this new fledgling country.

The Book of Mormon (in Alma), also describes a government with both a religious leader and a civil leader, who would each be allowed to act independently. Another instance of Separation.

And my Church's 11th Article of Faith states:

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

It doesn't explicitly address Separation, but it seems to be implied.

Of the three examples above, two speak to the protection of religious freedoms. And the Alma example presents the idea of government acting independently of the religious. Similarly in the New Testament, Jesus suggests we render to Caesar the things that are of Caesar, and render to God the items of God.

So, Separation appears to be very important. But what exactly does this mean?

In set theory (math), there are two different kinds of separation: Mutual Exclusivity and Independence.

The first, Mutual Exclusivity, is easiest to understand. Imagine a group of cats, and a group of dogs. Those groups are entirely separate. If you're a cat, then you're not a dog, and vice versa. So each group is exclusive. Makes sense?

Independence is a little tougher to understand, because the groups can mix. Imagine one group who belongs to Race A, and another group who has Genetic Disease B. (Yeah -- I'm thinking like an actuary here.) It's possible to be in both groups. So exclusiveness is gone.

Let's say Race A makes of 15% of the entire population, and Genetic Disease B is 3%. If being members of both groups is Independent, that means that being a member of one group has nothing at all to do with being a member of the other group.

What this means in terms of math is: if we look at Race A, we would expect 3% of them to have Genetic Disease B. And if we look at Genetic Disease B, we would expect 15% of them to be in Race A. You can also multiply the two percentages to get 0.45% of the entire population belonging to both groups.

Makes sense? But what if we do some testing and find out that in Race A, 10% of them have Genetic Disease B. This would be significantly larger than the 3% we would expect, so we would conclude that Race A is more susceptible to Genetic Disease B. So, independence is gone. We would say there is correlation.

To be truly independent, two groups must have absolutely ZERO correlation.

So, what about "Separation of Church and State"? I believe that the founding fathers were going after Independence, while many today are pushing more of a Mutual Exclusivity.

For example: should prayers be allowed in school? "No, because of separation of Church and State. School is a State thing, so there should be no Religion. Likewise, State should stay out of Religion."

But Mutual Exclusivity is NOT Independence. Remember the dogs and cats? If one is a dog, that fact by itself guarantees that it is not a cat. Where Independence is ZERO correlation, Mutual Exclusivity is 100% correlation. In other words, Mutual Exclusivity is the EXACT OPPOSITE of Independence.

Or put in simple English: you can't have true independence if you try to force things to not coexist.

Think about it: is government totally hands-off with all religions? Heck no. Churches may be tax-free entities, but they still have to follow all the laws. Their buildings need to built to code. Each religion needs to fill out their own paperwork to be officially recognized. Each religion can still be punished for fraudulent activity. And get this ... my church is famous for owning for-profit businesses in their investment portfolio -- and guess what! They have to pay taxes on all the earnings from those businesses.

In other words, no entity can exist in a government without it being subjected to all the laws of the land.

And what about restricting prayer in schools? Is that Independence? Heck no -- because that's the State telling Church what they can't do. That is, if I want to pray in school, and I'm being told No, then my freedoms are being infringed upon because of where I am. This becomes even more pronounced when one is not allowed to wear religious clothing in certain places.

In my area, it becomes especially annoying when LDS teenagers try to find a place to hold daily seminary (like a bible study class), and the schools reject any requests to do so. Instead, these teenagers must travel to some other designated far away place in order to meet. And the simple act of supplying a room for that purpose at school does not by itself connote an establishment of a religion. These kids are just looking for a central place to meet. Other clubs get to meet in rooms. What's the difference, other than the topic being discussed?

Why is it no one seems to ask: why did our founding fathers, who wrote the First Amendment, allow prayers in their meetings? Huh? Huh? ... mmmm ....?

But while we're on this topic, we must address the opposite concern. What about only allowing Christian prayers in school? Would that be Independence? Heck no -- because that would be Church telling State what to do. Despite what some would like to believe, we're not a Christian nation. Believing such a notion is in outright contrast with the First Amendment -- nothing short of establishing a religion.

But wait -- we can't allow Christian prayers, because it tempts the establishment of a religion? If we don't allow the prayers, we're infringing. If we do allow them we might be establishing. Is there really no solution here?

Actually -- HECK YES. There's a solution, and it's called True Independence -- which is exactly what our Founding Fathers intended. So, how would this solution look like?

The reason I brought up math before, is I can now show with math how this thing would work. Actually -- if we were to simply let things happen naturally, this would happen on its own, but we can math this up anyway just to demonstrate.

Say there are 30 children in a classroom, where most are Christian -- a typical American classroom. Let's say 5 of them are Jewish. If a prayer were uttered in class each day, we would expect 16.7% (5 divided by 30) of the prayers to be Jewish. Now, let's say 1 of the kids is Wiccan or Satanist. Yeah -- I know -- we don't like these guys, right? But in order to have True Independence, the math must be satisfied. 3.3% of the prayers must be Satanist/Wiccan. And perhaps atheist/agnostic children may instead recite some good thoughts or even say: let's skip the prayer today.

But what about offending other people? You see, that's the nice thing about Independence -- because once it's fully realized, we're learning about other cultures. Could I listen to a Wiccan prayer and NOT get offended? Let's see -- I've heard the prayer, and I'm still standing here. I'm still alive. I must have survived. And I actually learned something about that kid's beliefs? How is this not a good thing? It's all too easy a thing to say: all prayers are forbidden, which then infringes on all our rights.

So yeah, we'd have to actually stop being precious snowflakes that fall apart at the smallest difference, but we are more than capable in getting this all to work. That's what grown-ups do. When people of different faiths reach out to each other, they end up helping each other, sometimes even financially (as I've witnessed).

So yeah -- I totally support the Separation of Church and State, as far as it is interpreted as Independence, and not Mutual Exclusivity. Let's fix this!