text: Interesting that the writer brings up the thoughts of David Hume, the 18th century Scottish philosopher. He lived at a time when the city of Edinburgh had been ruled in rapid succession by the presbyterians, then the Catholic forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie, then the protestants again. Each change of religion resulted in the persecution of the other. Indeed an 18 year old schoolboy had recently been hanged in Edinburgh for blasphemy. He had wondered aloud whether God actually existed. 
  
  Hume and other philosophers including Adam Smith (and even the poet Robert Burns) realized that government could not work to the benefit of all people unless it was secular, and began to form the first ideas that shaped  our Western society, where we believe that church and state are separate, and all religions are expected to accept this.