Just thought about this. Here in the United States, we don’t have a shared sense of the government-sponsored commons as is understood in countries where the majority of a population belong to a shared religious sect (i.e., a Catholic country). I think a few economists have tied this to why so many of us have an allergic reaction to government-promoted commons such as the Affordable Care Act.

“Not only are such commons being used by people who don’t look like us, but they are being used by people who don’t share the same ethical or religious cosmology as us.”

Religion plays a large socio-economic role in the lives of so many Americans because the government, by being nonsectarian and agnostic in a country populated by a multitude of religious allegiances, does not speak entirely in the language which so many of us are taught by our intimate such-and-such religion.

But what’s so undermining about our approach to religious diversity and its impact on the separation of religion and state is that our sense of religious diversity inherits the exclusivity of Abrahamic religions from the Middle East and Europe. “You can only be one sect of Christianity/Islam/Judaism”, according to their gatekeepers. “Nevermind those sinners in Latin America who practice Yoruba/Ife traditions and venerate the orisha while also venerating Catholic saints. They’re going to Hell for not following the exclusivity clause.”

Meanwhile, in East Asia, Buddhists can also practice folk religion, Confucianism, Daoism, all at the same time, in the same lifetime, and not think of them as contradictory but as complimentary. They have no problem with practicing more than one religion, and are still supportive of government-promoted commons.

So why do Americans have a problem with practicing more than one religion? And if we were more acknowledging of multi-religious practice, could that allow us to better support secular, government-sponsored common resources?