^Augsburg "Peace"? Oh, sure. That specific thing was more a product of central Europe, I believe, but I think the general concept was fairly commonplace (although, as with England, there were plenty of Catholic plots to affect politics, which was what Liz was so legitimately worried about). But yeah, the religious turmoil tore central Europe apart, so it was decided that princely privilege would include telling everyone how to worship for the sake of "unity." Of course that settled nothing.
In any event, the Thirty Years War kind of stemmed from that, and it interrupted the work of one of my heroes: Johan Kepler. He figured out the Laws of Planetary Motion, then Newton later discovered the math behind those laws so as to explain them in natural, scientific terms. There was nothing mystical about them at all, but being religious, Kepler of course appealed to God to explain what he could not. I guess that "god" was Newton, haha.
You know, and then Milton railed against religion and government being so intertwined and so on. I like to look at Milton as a statesman more than a literary figure. He wrote beautiful, timeless treatises on divorce, religion and state, censorship, and other matters, and of course was on the side of progress.
As to the O.P., though, I mean, sure it's all gone too far - it went too far right from the beginning, but I think it's to be expected once religion is "de-centralized." You get pious hoaxers, scammers, deluded people masquerading as prophets, and so on.
