Current Texas senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz recently made a statement claiming that running the United States comes second to him, behind his devotion to Christianity and his God. Now this is nothing new: with a long history of religion weaving in and out of it, it’s safe to say religion is a sizable factor in modern politics. However, the separation of church and state is clearly defined in the Constitution, along with the freedom to worship the religion of your choosing. Though US citizens should have the right to worship whatever religion they choose, that religion should not be involved in our politics at all, meaning the separation of church and state should be fully completed.
It’s a problem that Christianity has been dominant among our American politicians. This focus is majorly discriminative towards other religions due to favor for a politician’s own religion. Religion has been the root of many wars for thousands of years, and even today it causes a massive amount of problems. The ignorance is fueled by the blind following of religion, giving people an excuse to act “in the name of God,” when in reality they are acting off their own desires. God is considered an omnipresent being, and giving someone with influence over other people this mentality of power never ends well. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Also, the morals of politics and religion are very different. Religion creates morals to live life by to ensure that you are happy. Governments are created to give structure to the people in that system and maintain order. One is for yourself and one is for everyone. Why allow someone’s religious ideals to effect the greater population, when a large majority of that population is not of that same religion? Not only is it unfair to the people, it is a selfish act, using the power you have to promote your religions ideals. We exist in this country together, we should do what is best for everyone, not just our own religion. Of course some of the morals intersect, but in completely different ways. Most major religions state you should not kill because God does not allow it and it corrupts your soul. Most major governments state that you should not kill because an individual should not have to power to decide whether or not someone lives.  They both cover different aspects of life and have no reason being together.
The Pledge of Allegiance is probably one of the grossest examples of this, using the line “one nation under God,” to promote the idea that God is the reason this country is held together. First off, this level of nationalism is beyond outdated. The fact that was have millions of children blindly pledging their faith to a country under a God sounds almost like Nazi Germany. Most of those children don’t have a choice in being here. They shouldn’t be forced to pledge allegiance to something they barely understand, it’s one of the creepiest things about this whole issue that still goes on. The fact that this allegiance involves religion makes it that much worse. I’ve had teacher who made kids say this even if they were of a different religion. That is a direct violation of their rights, and not only that, these kids are being put through the turmoil of having to actively go against their religion because some teacher has too much pride in their country.
This article could go on for days, with the amount of religious, specifically Christian, influence in American politics. I believe that they should be entirely separated, with no mention of the one by the other. The pope should not be visiting congress, and politicians should not be spewing their religious propaganda everywhere. The sooner we act like people on a planet, rather than people put on a planet by God, the sooner we realize just how lucky we have it.