To return to the thread -- assume for a moment that all citizens of the country have strongly felt religous beliefs, with the usual attachments (icons, moral guidelines, judgements of goodness and badness and so on). Assume further that you want to develop a country which promotes individual freedoms to the greatest extent possible.

Given those premises, I submit that Guest's proposal of taking all religous icons of any kind out of the public arena (such as dollar bills, public ceremonies, and so on) would be better for the country than it would be to have one or another of those many religions favored by some aspect of the establishment. Because to do otherwise automatically tends to minimize or trivialize the citizenship of those who have other beliefs. And doing that is counter to the goal.


A