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:
“Though the railroad and the telegraph have been established on the shores of Maine, the Indian still looks out from her interior mountains over all these to the sea.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Deism is good sense not yet instructed by revelation, and other religions are good sense perverted by superstition. All sects differ, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because it comes from God.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down.... Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“You may melt your metals and cast them into the most beautiful moulds you can; they will never excite me like the forms which this molten earth flows out into. And not only it, but the institutions upon it are plastic like clay in the hands of the potter.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)