Over the past years I've heard myself say "I don't care what people believe", which is true. How they act on their beliefs however, is a whole different story. Now, it's not up to me to tell anyone how to act. But as a society, there is certain behaviour we favor and most of us seem to agree that all humans have rights, that shouldn't be violated. Why do I mention this? Well... It does apply to religion aswell. 

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There are many different religions in the world, which I think is fine. But within those religions there is a prefered way of life. A set of rules, a moral code, those kind of things. And those might cause a conflict between the different religious beliefs and with worldviews that don't follow those religious beliefs. Because of these conflicts, you can't govern based on those religious beliefs. For example, you can't enforce Sabbath on sunday, when there are people who believe Sabbath is supposed to be on saturday, or people who believe there shouldn't be a Sabbath at all. 

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This is why, with regards to government, I prefer secularism. Todays society is highly multi-cultural. The different cultures have different values. Due to this you can't enforce the freedom of religion for one group without simultaneously infringing the religious freedom of another group. In order to avoid this conflict, religion and state must be separated.

 

To counter a misconception, secularism is not in any way opposed to religion. It just recognises that with differences between religions in a multi-cultural society, you can not favor one religion over the other, from a government stance. If we all want to live together, we need to respect eachothers morals, values and beliefs and not impose our own on others.