Agreement was slow to come, but in contemporary democratic countries there is now a general consensus on the desirability of a distinction, a separation between the political and the religious realms. For the state and for individuals in those countries, religious belief is a private matter separate from their political opinions or public status as citizens. The problem, however is that dissociation between the two realms is never complete. It is still undeniable that religious beliefs often have played and still play a role in the formation of individual and social consciousness and in the creation of an ethical consensus that affects action.