Established Religions and Religious Institutions
A state religion (or established church) is a religious body officially endorsed by the state. A theocracy is a form of government in which a God or a deity is recognized as the supreme civil ruler. The opposite are secular states, in which the government does not formally adopt a particular religion.
Read more about this topic: Religious Law
Famous quotes containing the words established, religions, religious and/or institutions:
“You do not become a critic until it has been completely established to your own satisfaction that you cannot be a poet.”
—Théophile Gautier (1811–1872)
“The ancients adorned their sarcophagi with the emblems of life and procreation, and even with obscene symbols; in the religions of antiquity the sacred and the obscene often lay very close together. These men knew how to pay homage to death. For death is worthy of homage as the cradle of life, as the womb of palingenesis.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“One of the duties which devolve upon women in the present interesting crisis, is to prepare themselves for more extensive usefulness, by making use of those religious and literary privileges and advantages that are within their reach, if they will only stretch out their hands and possess them.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“So far as laws and institutions avail, men should have equality of opportunity for happiness; that is, of education, wealth, power. These make happiness secure. An equal diffusion of happiness so far as laws and institutions avail.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)