Just as a parting shot about religion and how it interacts with government....

Here are a couple of examples of secular governments that suppress all religious input.

1) The Soviet Union
2) China

Hmmm. Not exactly utopian societies, right?

Then we have some religious states.

1) Iran
2) Afganistan

Hmmm. They aren't much different are they?
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You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.
--Frank Zappa