As a practical matter, by the late seventeenth century, it was apparent that neither Catholicism nor Protestantism could swipe the other away through the sword. More importantly, certainly in the long run, Enlightenment philosophy, and with it the view that all humans have a right to certain fundamental freedoms, including freedom of conscience, slowly began to have an influence. This was a secular philosophy and it gave birth to the first secular state, namely the United States.
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