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First, I don't think France does enjoy all three of your categories, mostly because, as I understand it, sects such as the Jehovah's Witnesses are considered cults and do not enjoy the same institutional benefits of other religious organizations. Compare that to the US where the state explicitly makes no presumptions about the validity or not of anyone's attempts to organize for faith-based purposes.  Cults are as legal as the Presbyterian Church in the US, while this is not the case in much of the rest of the world.

But, thinking about Asia, I don't really think we can point to differences between east and west as far as your categories are concerned.  To the extent that they are valid in Chinese or Hindu regions, I can't really think of anything other than state-specific variances from Judeo-Christian or Muslim regions.  It may well be that the issues of secularization, freedom of conscience, and church-state separation have more to do with resolving the historical problems of governing multi-ethnic/multi-religious polities than anything else.

by santiago on Thu Sep 6th, 2012 at 01:48:02 PM EST

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