Duality

The fact that religion is innately political does not justify politics being innately religious.

One is a system for governance, designed with a specific agenda. Whether it's the betterment of the populace, or the advancement of the regime's ideals is almost wholly dependant upon which version you favor, and even that is a matter of where you were born and how you were raised. The other is religion, which is simply a matter of what your favorite superstitions are, and how you can best apply them for personal gain.

Both can be detrimental.

Both.

To rule iron-fisted, with fundamental adherence to one or more ancient documents (regardless of their source) impedes progress more than any other thing. Differences of opinion can be debated, discussed, or even summarily quashed, depending on your preferred methods (still talking about both). The election of leaders is always more a matter of who has fondled whose junk with more supplication and grace (yes, still both) than objectively deciding who is most qualified to lead. Add to that the inherent bestowing of favors, pardons, and dispensations on the ruling faction's pets, and the outcry of oppression from the losing party's members, and there is a nearly blinding symmetry.

Here is where some of we Americans are different (if you can see us through the embarrassing hordes): We have a code, a living document for governance, called the Constitution. Not only does it lay out ideals toward which the country should aspire, it provides for adjustment and adaptation to progress.

Progress, I have every intention of reminding you, is not defined as staunch and stubborn clinging to old ways. If it were, we'd be sacrificing virgins to Hermes in hopes of getting out of debt.

The only way forward is to drop one of these systems, and the best way forward is to drop the one that favors blind obedience more than reason and logic.

If, however, anyone can point out a single reference to God in the Constitution of the United States of America... just one... I will gladly move on to other things, and never speak of this again.

On that, you have my word.