We’re joined again this week by our friend Tom de Lorenzo for the second of two parts on the state and religion.

Following up from last week, we consider specifically how religion is being used to influence the ongoing wars around the world. From there we discuss what defines a nation as having a specific religion? Some people suggest it is appropriate to call the United States a Christian nation simply because the majority of Americans identify with that particular religion. This is often different from Islamic states whereby the state and religion are explicitly conflated.

Finally, we consider countries with larger atheist populations and examine how most came from communism whereby the state essentially acted as the deity.

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