Freedom of religion, or more
accurately freedom of belief and conscience, is fundamental but it does
not stand alone. It needs freedom from persecution based on gender,
culture, phenotype, or belief. If one is forced to live in a culture of injustice, making moral decisions becomes fatally distorted.
It needs freedom of access to information sufficient to determine truth or folly. Otherwise, one becomes a mere pawn of propaganda or the most persuasive fable. Religious truth withstands testing as well as truth in any other field.
It needs freedom from fear, want or illness. Practice of a religious life becomes impossible if in order to do so means dealing with threats to life, liberty or health.
Without these foundational rights, freedom of religion is reduced to the license of the sick and dying to hold their own delusions.
The West has a terrible record of abridgement of religious freedom: slave trade in the eighteenth century, imperial colonialism in the nineteenth century, genocides of Jews and Armenians in the twentieth century and materialist consumerism in the twenty first century.
We, as a culture have not learned that with religious freedom comes with a responsibility to be moderate and tolerant in its exercise. Religious freedom is not license to do as we believe without considering its consequences on others: there is no right to take from others that which we value for our selves. It includes providing for the freedom of conscience for others with whom we do not agree with in our religious principles. It includes provision for cultural space in which we may seek spiritual wisdom and fulfillment balanced with spaces for those who seek their wisdom and fulfillment is other ways. It includes a space for the use of peyote. It includes a space for those who would formalize same-gender marriages. It includes a space for polyandrous or polygynous marriage. It includes a space for open marriage. Unless we can tolerate these other beliefs in our culture, the cry for religious freedom will be understood only as another of our demands for dominance without just and equal rights for others and therefore just another attempt at unjust dominion.
When we condemn others for acts we consider immoral in our belief system, we cannot enforce penalties on those who are without our belief system unless we wish to return to a struggle based on who is most powerful to determine who may exercise their rights and who may not. Rights without justice is just a continuation of intolerance which denies rights to the majority in order to grant rights to a powerful minority.
Freedom of religious belief and practice is a foundational American right but one requiring knowledge and temperance to practice. It is not freedom to one (or a few) religions at the expense of others. Indeed, it requires recognition that mass ritual, mass worship, large buildings or hierarchies are not required to be considered as a religion. It separates the state from control of spiritual devotion but it also separates the organization from the individual: it is only in the individual that the right exists. Two individuals exercizing their rights does not outweigh one exercising her right. It is the ultimate form of anarchy for in its expression the person is as powerful as the state or church.
Consider this when you lobby for religious freedom. People have rights. Churches have privileges. Rights trump privileges. Your right to determine your religious belief and practice is only between yourself and the divine in civil law.
It needs freedom of access to information sufficient to determine truth or folly. Otherwise, one becomes a mere pawn of propaganda or the most persuasive fable. Religious truth withstands testing as well as truth in any other field.
It needs freedom from fear, want or illness. Practice of a religious life becomes impossible if in order to do so means dealing with threats to life, liberty or health.
Without these foundational rights, freedom of religion is reduced to the license of the sick and dying to hold their own delusions.
The West has a terrible record of abridgement of religious freedom: slave trade in the eighteenth century, imperial colonialism in the nineteenth century, genocides of Jews and Armenians in the twentieth century and materialist consumerism in the twenty first century.
We, as a culture have not learned that with religious freedom comes with a responsibility to be moderate and tolerant in its exercise. Religious freedom is not license to do as we believe without considering its consequences on others: there is no right to take from others that which we value for our selves. It includes providing for the freedom of conscience for others with whom we do not agree with in our religious principles. It includes provision for cultural space in which we may seek spiritual wisdom and fulfillment balanced with spaces for those who seek their wisdom and fulfillment is other ways. It includes a space for the use of peyote. It includes a space for those who would formalize same-gender marriages. It includes a space for polyandrous or polygynous marriage. It includes a space for open marriage. Unless we can tolerate these other beliefs in our culture, the cry for religious freedom will be understood only as another of our demands for dominance without just and equal rights for others and therefore just another attempt at unjust dominion.
When we condemn others for acts we consider immoral in our belief system, we cannot enforce penalties on those who are without our belief system unless we wish to return to a struggle based on who is most powerful to determine who may exercise their rights and who may not. Rights without justice is just a continuation of intolerance which denies rights to the majority in order to grant rights to a powerful minority.
Freedom of religious belief and practice is a foundational American right but one requiring knowledge and temperance to practice. It is not freedom to one (or a few) religions at the expense of others. Indeed, it requires recognition that mass ritual, mass worship, large buildings or hierarchies are not required to be considered as a religion. It separates the state from control of spiritual devotion but it also separates the organization from the individual: it is only in the individual that the right exists. Two individuals exercizing their rights does not outweigh one exercising her right. It is the ultimate form of anarchy for in its expression the person is as powerful as the state or church.
Consider this when you lobby for religious freedom. People have rights. Churches have privileges. Rights trump privileges. Your right to determine your religious belief and practice is only between yourself and the divine in civil law.
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