What does separation of church and state actually mean?
It was coined by Thomas Paine, who is generally considered to be the primary instigator of the American Revolution, and is one of the founding fathers. He did not feel that religion had any place in a democratic government, and furthermore he specifically despised organized religion and didn’t feel it had value in the private sector, either. So he called for a “wall of separation between church and state” to prevent religion, which he found corrupt and undesirable, from influencing the governing of the nation. There are many powerful quotes from Paine on organized religion in general, but he specifically pointed to Christianity as a negative: “Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is none more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thing called Christianity.” Thomas Jefferson addressed any potential controversy over the scope of the protections in the first amendment with regard t
