| | In one of my classes last week, someone asked “how do we tell the difference between religion and a regular belief?” This question gets to the heart of something I’ve thought about a lot – why do we accord special protection to beliefs we deem “religious” but not to other, secular beliefs?
As someone who is not religious, tends to be skeptical of religion in general, but also tries to remain open-minded, I find it frustrating when religious beliefs are given immunity or sanctity above other beliefs. I realize the importance of freedom to believe, and of having state-supported rights to associate based on belief, and of knowing that you will not be persecuted for religion. However, I think that having strictly “religious” freedom might be illogical and underinclusive. | | | As for the power, well, L. Ron Hubbard put it best: "You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion."
-- MikeAbend - 30 Jun 2010 | |
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The Establishment Clause was included in the Bill of Rights to protect citizens from the creation of a national religion like the Church of England. There was a huge fear of religious persecution at the hands of the state...think of the Puritans, etc.
The matter was complicated, though, in that six US states had state-sponsored religions when the US was founded. The establishment clause was eventually (and mercifully) extended to the states a number of decades later, ending state churches.
Corollary to the Establishment Clause, the Free Exercise Clause created a positive right to "practice" "religion." What these words mean, in terms of limits placed on what kinds of beliefs and actions can be privileged, I really have no idea.
Also, the Free Exercise Clause gets really tricky when you don't believe, a priori, in the truth of any religion. Why should one class of illogical and potentially harmful beliefs be preferenced over other classes of similarly illogical beliefs (ie that it is best for children to work in factories rather than go to school)?
I was raised by my parents to be very religious (I'm an atheist now, for whatever that's worth). In middle school, I wrote a paper advocating Christianity as the only true religion, which paper the other students had to read and edit as part of an assignment. My teacher confiscated the paper, finding it inappropriate for public school, and gave me an F. In retrospect, the content probably was out of place, since the state would be forcing religious propoganda on other kids. Perhaps the paper should have been permitted as an exercise of free speech, but, in this instance, it seems like freedom of speech conflicted with separation of church and state. From a legal standpoint, I'm not quite sure what to make of the whole thing.
The counter-factual, illogical, and anti-historical nature of religious beliefs means that they will naturally conflict with one another. Given the large membership of many religions in the US, and the fercor of many fundamentalist groups, attempts by one group (probably Protestant Christians) to dominate other groups would seem to be inevitable. Freedom of religion addresses this rather nicely.
On the other hand, I'm not sure how useful it would be to have an expanded, generalized freedom of belief, for the simple reason that, as things stand, I don't think it's possible to make a law controlling what anyone believes. There are no thought police, and you can only be liable if you open your mouth and someone listens. It does seem odd, though, that faith healers and the like do not go to jail for fraud when their followers are injured by false promises of divine intervention. Even the act of collecting tithes for a purpose that doesn't exist - the "glory of god," or whatever - seems to be something the law should prevent. I wonder whether any such cases have succeeded.
-- SamWells - 06 Jul 2010 | | | |
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