Practical Political Philosophy
Professional commentators on political and social matters writing in newspapers and magazines sometimes use the term civil religion or civic religion to refer to ritual expressions of patriotism of a sort practiced in all countries, not always including religion in the conventional sense of the word.
Although "God" is not mentioned in the Constitution of the United States of America, mention is specifically made of "Nature's God" in the opening sentence of the Declaration of Independence.
Among such practices are the following:
Read more about this topic: Civil Religion
Famous quotes containing the words practical, political and/or philosophy:
“Great statesmen seem to direct and rule by a sort of power to put themselves in the place of the nation over which they are set, and may thus be said to possess the souls of poets at the same time they display the coarser sense and the more vulgar sagacity of practical men of business.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“There seems no reason why patriotism and narrowness should go together, or why intellectual fairmindedness should be confounded with political trimming, or why serviceable truth should keep cloistered because not partisan.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“La superstition met le monde entier en flammes; la philosophie les éteint. Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)