REPLY

 1) From the early development of The United States of America, religion has remained the very foundation of its structure. Though the religious nature brought in the 17^th century would eventually shift to different beliefs, the government was built with a spiritual recognition (“Religion and the…”). Despite this fact and the fact that the United States still engages in some religion based practices including the use of a bible when taking oath or the using the motto, “In God We Trust,” the U.S. Constitution gives the American people the freedom and the right to follow the religion of their choice (“First Amendment”). Having that said, it is important to fully understand the terms secular and secularization to recognize the direction American society is being driven. Simply defined, secular is a term to describe something such as an organization that has a non-religious or non-spiritual nature. It also suggests that a group is controlled by a government rather than a church (“Secular”). Becoming a secular society requires the process of secularization at which religion starts taking the “backseat” in a culture or society (“Secularization”).