Does God support the separation of Church and State?

[emilynghiem]

You cannot prove that God exists either. But, I am not going to debate with you the existence of God. Such a discussion is pointless, in my experience. It is a decision the individual makes, to accept or not the existence of a diety. No one can be argued out of it or into it. My point was that you seemed to make an assumption that religion/theology was the only way to think deeply about the human condition. I disagree, I believe philosophers do, writers do, artists do. They don't need to look at life through the scope of one or another of the religions or through spirituality to consider in depth, way beyond the superficial and insigificant, the issues involved in the human condition. That's the only thing I wanted to say. I have no desire to discuss with anyone or to question their personal belief system.

Hi Esmeralda I agree that there is little use or good in debating or trying to change people's faith or beliefs and especially what system they ascribe to.

However, I do believe we can prove a consensus on God, in terms of what God means; even where God means different things to different people, seeing that all these point to the same source of all truth and love in life, though represented in different terms.
by first focusing on what Jesus means in terms of "Justice", resolving issues preventing reconciliation, and then by default arriving at some agreed understanding in the process, of how our diverse views fit togtether to describe or reflect one source of universal truth/laws despite these different representations that don't have to be all the same after all. That isn't necessary for consensus.
We can all speak different languages and focus on different aspects, and still agree there is one universal truth encompassing all.

If you are interested, I invite you to join a thread I will post on Consensus on God and try to have different moderators work with people or with teams to address different issues preventing consensus between (a) people who are atheist/nontheist and people who are theist/christian believers etc. (b) people of conflicting religious beliefs (c) and also people with opposing political beliefs and see if the focus on mutual "forgiveness and correction" for the sake of truth and justice, and spiritual healing of relations, can help the process along of arriving at a consensus on the meaning of God/Jesus even as we remain different in our beliefs/words/approaches.

We may change our perception or interpretation, but that doesn't mean we drop our core beliefs and suddenly convert to something else. It will more likely be that we expand on or grow from where we are, to more fully apply our beliefs consistently and ADD to it greater understanding of others that no longer contradicts our own system as we feared. So the past conflicts are resolved by changing perceptions to include all. Our beliefs and preferences for which system we use will likely stay the same, as our identity.

Are you interested in that, if the purpose is to explore and explain the meaning behind them,
not to try to coerce or change people from their views which I agree is not going to work anyway.