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Religion And The State Of Rousseau

Decent Essays

Moran Levi
2/11/2016
Paper Proposal #1
Professor LeMoine

Peer Draft
Religion and the state
Rousseau
Every person has religions beliefs that inform their point of view. This affects how one acts in the world. For that reason, it is believed that a nations prevailing religious belief system affects its politics. this is accurate in countries that attempt to maintain the separation between the church and the state as well as countries that are openly theocratic. in order to get a better understanding of how a society functions it is essential to understand how religion impact the politics and governance of a society.
Rousseau starts off his writings about religion by informing us that he believes that there are two types of religions (that later turn into three). The first religion is the religion of the man, this religion is the “personal” religion which links the individual to god, and it is centered on the morality and worship of god. Rousseau praises this type of religion and has also confessed to practicing it but he states that this religion by it self will harm the state as a pure Christian is solely seeking spiritual and other blessings and there fore will happily endure hardships and failures for the sake of heavenly rewards. Rousseau gives the example of the Christianity of the Gospels.

The second religion that Rousseau states is the religion of the citizen which he likes to call the “civil religion” this religion is the religion of the country or nation, this

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