I remember the first time (as a student in 8th grade) I discovered that the "separation of church and state" was not in the Constitution. A public school teacher taught me (correctly!) that it was the "separation of the state from the Church" (not the other way around). I always get a bit queasy when someone refers to the "disestablishment clause" as the exact opposite of what it says.
While reading on a different subject, I came across this great quote once again:
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or one god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. […] To suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion…is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty.
(Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1779)
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