A secular state is great, because it allows all people, regardless of their religion to be equally part of the country. There is no institutional discrimination against a religious minority. It also opens up the road to determining laws through scientific and philosophical thinking. By removing the option to implement laws based off a religious stance, people who create laws are forced to think them through and provide arguments that surpass religious thinking and can be applied to all people equally without fear of discriminating against someone who isn’t of the same religion.One “down-side” of a secular state to some people is the fact that the religious lose some of their power. But the power they lose isn’t a right, but instead a privilege that they may feel is due to them from being members of the “one true religion”. Not all religious people, even those who are the majority in their country believe this way. An anti-religion state is something completely different though. An anti-religion state is one where people are often discriminated against because they are religious. There aren’t many of these, but a good example is the old USSR regime under Stalin. The regime itself wasn’t standing for any established religion and instead tried to replace peoples belief in a god(s) with a belief in the state. By trying to force people to believe a certain way, the anti-religion state is actually really similar to a theocracy (religious state).A theocracy is also never a good thing in the long run. There isn’t a single country where everyone believes exactly the same. By forcing others to live by your rules, you’re running all over their rights.By having a state religion, you automatically make enemies with countries who have differing state religions (see Israel vs. Palestine to see how well that goes down). There’s also the cost of enforcing religious rules. Say for example your states religion is anti-pork, and decides to make that law, they would have to 1) remove all the already slaughtered pork. 2) Shut down all the pork farms. 3) Find a way to prevent individuals who own pigs from slaughtering and eating their own pork. 4) if the country has a food shortage, they would have to worsen the situation in the name of the states faith. That’s just one small law. Imagine trying to apply all the religious laws in any the religious text of your choice to an entire country. Not to mention the different interpretations within each religion. Simply put, a state shouldn’t try to force people to believe in a certain way. A countries power should only extend to the ability to defend peoples rights and to serve the people of the country. If they still have extra capacity, they can also extend help to other countries, but not before protecting and taking care of their own people.
