Far too many governments aren’t really interested in liberty, freedom, dissension, or debate; but rather they are far more interested in their citizenry obeying, without issue, what that government believes that those citizens should be doing on behalf or in assistance to that government. While that is indeed many a government’s desire, this doesn’t necessarily mean that this actually occurs in the real world. Still, governments are prone to keep on trying to get that obedience from their citizens, of which, in order for this to more successfully occur, those governments often see the value in co-opting God for their own purposes, above all else.
The most meaningful thing about God, is that most people have respect for God, admitted to or not, and conveniently most of those people, don’t actually have a real good understanding of the true attributes of God. This thus signifies that clever governments can basically use God in such a way, that God can kind of do their dirty work for them; so that, in effect, God can be utilized as the way and means to help prop up governmental laws by backing such with God’s moral law as interpreted and propagated by that government.
This signifies that the government, essentially sees the value of working in conjunction with God, as the logical process to put the fear of God or the fear of government, or both, as thereby the effective force that will keep the people in line. Governments aren’t really interested in all the expense and trouble of having and maintaining a police state, but would strongly prefer that God plays the “heavy,” and that with the laws of God, as interpreted by that government, and subsequently judged by that government, this thereby serves to encourage that population to become more obedient to that government, by obeying God’s moral laws, which thereby makes for a compliant citizen.
To illuminate this in a different way, recognize that young children can be rather difficult for parents to control, of which, many a parent thereby has learned to lean upon a righteous God, as their tool to keep recalcitrant children in their place, by emphasizing that bad behavior, as seen by an all-knowing and an all-seeing God, will result in a just punishment, every single time, unless such behavior is changed to a different tune, and done so, right away.
The combination of government and God, as typically and corruptly so done, is the worst of all worlds, for citizens are caught between a rock and a hard place, of which they get no fair rest in this world, and apparently no fair rest in the world beyond, unless they properly behave and are obedient. This is why, God is so often invoked in governmental places that one wouldn’t think such would be necessary; such as when a person is solemnly sworn into a court of law, as if the mere threat of governmental punishment, is not a firm enough hand, to make a given person, speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Regrettably, the governmental co-opting of God, can create a type of unintended blowback, of turning thereby some good people against both God and government; of which, one of those parties may well deserve withering criticism, and the other, properly understood, never does