Well, I can’t go to the Jefferson Memorial, but I was under the impression that he was one of the key guys after John Locke the British philosopher who was a proponent of the concept…so I went over to wikipedia and this what it says:
The phrase “separation of church and state” is derived from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to a group identifying themselves as the Danbury Baptists. In that letter, referencing the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Jefferson writes:
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.
No idea where this went, but my original post was just bringing in Jefferson’s exposure to that concept during his tenure in Paris in the 1780’s leading up to the French Revolution.
You can read the entire article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/…_of_church_and_state
I’m not saying that one form is better than others. Note the entire removal of any form of spiritual expression in modern Chinese society, vs a so called secular states such as India or Israel, which are by definition secular, but where the local religious majority’s customs and morals largely drive the daily machinery of those nations and how they operate…and then you have Great Britain where the Queen is head of govt and Church of England.
Dev