Freedom of religion: outmoded?

[Ruv Draba]

From a recent discussion in the Atheism and Non-Theistic Spiritual Writing forum:

Why does one need freedom of religion if one has freedom of association and expression?

I thought it was worth raising here for broader discussion.

Here's how freedom of religion appears in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/):
Article 18.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.There are numerous other clauses around religious non-descrimination elsewhere, but that's the core of it.

And for our US AWers, how it appears in the US constitution:

Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression (http://www.usconstitution.net/constnot.html#exp). Ratified (http://www.usconstitution.net/constamrat.html#BoR) 12/15/1791

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress (http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html#REDRESS) of grievances.

And because the world is not just the US, here it is again in the constitution of my own country:

116. The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

You get the gist.

So here are some 'for' arguments:

Historically, religious persecution has been rife. Freedom of religion is a humanitarian principle;
Religions are important to people and run deeper than just what we say and whom we hang with. It should be enshrined as a fundamental right;
If we didn't enshrine freedom of religion as a right, then it would give the state license to play favourites; and
If we didn't enshrine freedom of religion as a right then the state could compel whatever religion it wanted -- even if we were free to object to it.And here are some 'against' arguments:

The right to worship is already covered under the right to associate and express;
The right to think freely is broader than the right to worship, and includes the right to worship and not to worship;
Religion is hazy and ambiguous. It includes worship, beliefs, traditions, taboos, and customs -- some of which may be antisocial or harmful, and some of which are inflicted on children and the vulnerable. Freedom of religion prevents groups from being fully accountable for their social behaviour and the treatment of their at-risk members;
Freedom of religion has been cynically exploited by self-interested groups for both profit and power;
Many religions themselves have proscriptions against religious freedom in their dogmas. Why then does a right protect religions that don't protect the right?;
There's some evidence that freedom of religion hasn't prevented states from playing favourites with religions;
Numerous states seem not to want freedom of religion (and perhaps none of them really do); and
Is there any place today where freedom of religion is still working as intended?Over to you.

[Ruv Draba]

Further to this question, an excerpt from a recent Japan Times (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20090419a2.html) article (Apr 19, 2009):

Freedom of religion or freedom of speech?

PRINCETON N.J. — Last month, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning "defamation of religion" as a human rights violation. According to the text of the resolution, "Defamation of religion is a serious affront to human dignity" that leads to "a restriction on the freedom of [religions'] adherents."

The resolution was originally proposed by the 56-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), and was put to the Human Rights Council by Pakistan. It supports that it was aimed at such things as the derogatory cartoons of the prophet Mohammad published in a Danish newspaper three years ago.

Germany opposed the resolution. Speaking on behalf of the European Union, a German spokesperson rejected the concept of "defamation of religion" as not valid in a human rights context, because human rights belonged to individuals, not to institutions or religions.

Many nongovernment organizations, both secular and religious, also opposed the resolution. Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, said that that body saw the resolution as weakening "the rights of individuals to express their views."

This seems like a sound argument. While attempts to stir up hatred against adherents of a religion, or to incite violence against them, may legitimately be suppressed, criticism of religion as such should not be.
While this addresses broader questions than just this topic (e.g. freedom of expression vs religious vilification), it also speaks to one of the things implicitly enshrined in freedom of religion: religious taboos. An argument that puts freedom of religion in contention with freedom of expression is simply this:

My religion is sacred to me -- more sacred than my life or liberty. If I have the right to worship and the right to my taboos then I also have the right to fight any attack on my taboos -- whether that attack comes in expression, education, legislation or individual transgressions. And in fighting any attack on my taboos I have the right to use any lawful means necessary, including pressing for legislation to curb other, infringing rights. After all, no matter how antisocial my actions may seem to others, my rights are inalienable. That's what makes them my rights.

[Ruv Draba]

A commentary excerpt by the Cornell University Law School on the development of the First Amendment to US constitution:

Madison’s original proposal for a bill of rights provision concerning religion read: “The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretence, infringed.”1 The language was altered in the House to read: “Congress shall make no law establishing religion, or to prevent the free exercise thereof, or to infringe the rights of conscience.”2 In the Senate, the section adopted read: “Congress shall make no law establishing articles of faith, or a mode of worship, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion, . . .”3

[...]

“Probably,” Story also wrote, “at the time of the adoption of the constitution and of the amendment to it, now under consideration, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.”8 The object, then, of the religion clauses in this view was not to prevent general governmental encouragement of religion, of Christianity, but to prevent religious persecution and to prevent a national establishment.9

This interpretation has long since been abandoned by the Court, beginning, at least, with Everson v. Board of Education,10 in which the Court, without dissent on this point, declared that the Establishment Clause forbids not only practices that “aid one religion” or “prefer one religion over another,” but as well those that “aid all religions.” Recently, in reliance on published scholarly research and original sources, Court dissenters have recurred to the argument that what the religion clauses, principally the Establishment Clause, prevent is “preferential” governmental promotion of some religions, allowing general governmental promotion of all religion in general.11 The Court has not responded, though Justice Souter in a major concurring opinion did undertake to rebut the argument and to restate the Everson position.12

The interesting thing here is that there's evidence that the original intention in the US constitution (one of the older modern legislations in which freedom of religion was enshrined) has mutated from a vision in which a State-encouraged religion created the social glue in which other religions could participate (if not dominate), to a vision in which the State has to be hands-off, and the social glue may therefore grow crumbly.

Which raises the question: is the glue growing crumbly? And should one strengthen it, or replace it? And how?

[citymouse]

RUV, May I suggest a modest revision of your test question?
As I read the the US Constitution the people are guaranteed Freedom Of Speech and Freedom FROM Religion, not Freedom OF Religion.

The founder's intent was to divorce religion (any religion) from governance. They knew all too well the horrors of European strife caused by religious factions and they wanted no possible repetition of those disasters here.
The result was/is the freedom to worship or not to worship without any interference from the state. The state of a person's soul is no concern to the state.

As for the glue part. The founders fully expected the glue of their new society be a "more perfect union". A union of people. No mention of a god or of a religion as the binder for that union. As it turns out we've done quite well.
C

[Higgins]

The interesting thing here is that there's evidence that the original intention in the US constitution (one of the older modern legislations in which freedom of religion was enshrined) has mutated from a vision in which a State-encouraged religion created the social glue in which other religions could participate (if not dominate), to a vision in which the State has to be hands-off, and the social glue may therefore grow crumbly.

Which raises the question: is the glue growing crumbly? And should one strengthen it, or replace it? And how?

I think for reasonably educated people in the 21st century there is a reluctant acceptance that "Culture" has crumbled to bits and that it seems to be a good thing. I suspect the authors of the US constitution were aware of the crumbliness of culture and well aware of new modes of association that were in some respects non-cultural (eg. science and/or corporate bodies).
I've suggested from time to time that the real fiction in science fiction is the coherence of culture: hence the need for outsiders out there in "space" -- "space" and the outsiders the "completely alien" aliens are an image that suggests that there is some common human culture.
The crumbliness of culture produces other weird effects and I've described some of those in my discussions of "classical art" -- ie aspects of "culture" that are effectively set apart from whatever the "mainstream" thinks that it is (which of course it isn't if culture is crumbly).

And really, for elites, culture has been crumbly for a long time. When things can go in and out of fashion pretty quickly (as they could among the elites of the ancient world or even the elites of their barbarian neighbors), that is a sign of a certain amount of crumbliness in the cultures involved.

[Higgins]

I think for reasonably educated people in the 21st century there is a reluctant acceptance that "Culture" has crumbled to bits and that it seems to be a good thing.

For example, Bourdieu calls the supposed coherence of society/culture "symbolic violence"...I think he's wrong because I think most people most of the time don't really care that much about the amount of cultural coherence they see and probably often experience the incoherence as pleasurable. I suppose some ideologies propose some set of ideological evaluations that for example, postulate the coherence of their values with some imaginary socio-cultural realm and the incoherence of these values with other areas such as scientific work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_reproduction

[Shadow_Ferret]

RUV, May I suggest a modest revision of your test question?
As I read the the US Constitution the people are guaranteed Freedom Of Speech and Freedom FROM Religion, not Freedom OF Religion.


What? Freedom FROM religion? Um, no. It's never been FROM religion. Not sure what Amendment you're reading. The intent was to worship freely and escape religious persecution. They didn't want the creation of a state-sanctioned church.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

[AMCrenshaw]

What? Freedom FROM religion? Um, no. It's never been FROM religion. Not sure what Amendment you're reading. The intent was to worship freely and escape religious persecution. They didn't want the creation of a state-sanctioned church.

Actually I share the same reading as Citymouse:

The result was/is the freedom to worship or not to worship without any interference from the state. The state of a person's soul is no concern to the state.


I think that's most accurate. The idea being that the state could never legally endorse a specific religion that would demand worship from the entire nation. Freedom from.

AMC

[Ruv Draba]

May I suggest a modest revision of your test question?
As I read the the US Constitution the people are guaranteed Freedom Of Speech and Freedom FROM Religion, not Freedom OF Religion.I'm not an authority on the US constitution and in fact my question extends more broadly than US jurisdiction (please note the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights that preceded my US excerpt). However, my understanding (e.g. from my reading of the Cornell Law School article) is that the intention of the US First amendment may have been somewhat different. Not conspiracy-theory different, but a different vision to the one you describe.

Meanwhile, if your view were correct then wouldn't that render the religious slogan on US currency unconstitutional? Here's (http://www.treas.gov/education/fact-sheets/currency/in-god-we-trust.shtml) an informative article from US Treasury on "In God We Trust", and below is the text of the letter in 1861 from Secretary Chase instructing the Mint at Philadelphia to change the coins:
Dear Sir:

No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins.

You will cause a device to be prepared without unnecessary delay with a motto expressing in the fewest and tersest words possible this national recognition.
And subsequently:
A law passed by the 84th Congress (P.L. 84-140) and approved by the President on July 30, 1956, the President approved a Joint Resolution of the 84th Congress, declaring IN GOD WE TRUST the national motto of the United States.
Freedom from religion? Individually perhaps, but a specific faith seems to be well-enshrined in US official identity. The nature of the intended glue seems fairly evident. There may not be a state-imposed religion in the US, but can anyone really claim that there's not a state-sanctioned one?


Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we're mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.
Did this US president claim that every atheist, agnostic, pagan and shamanistic constituent was coarse, immoral and undemocratic? And if that belief is common, how might it affect civil perception of such a person's fitness for citizenship? For parental custody? Or for public office? If the enshrined national standard is one particular faith, and if failing to conform to that standard requires you to prove your basic human decency against the slurs of official commentary, then are you really free from that religion?

The founders fully expected the glue of their new society be a "more perfect union". A union of people. No mention of a god or of a religion as the binder for that union.The Cornell Law School has a different opinion, as have holders of high office. And since the people of the US have tolerated state-sanctioned religion for over a century, presumably they broadly support it too. :)

[Ruv Draba]

I think for reasonably educated people in the 21st century there is a reluctant acceptance that "Culture" has crumbled to bits and that it seems to be a good thing.I don't know whether I'm reasonably educated (I'm certainly educated, but were they reasonable about it?) but I don't believe that culture has crumbled to bits, except maybe among 'militant' postmodernists (whom I see as a funny little subculture of their own :D).

But while we're on culture, it might be worth differentiating nationhood and statehood before we go much further. The following definitions from Wikipedia:

a nation is a body of people who share a real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin, who typically inhabit a particular country or territory;
a sovereign state is a political association with effective sovereignty over a geographic area and representing a populationIt's long been true that religious groups can share nationhood even when they reside in different states. Many also share nationhood regardless of ethnicity. It's also long been true that states have multiple nations represented within them.

Legally, rights are conferred by your membership of a state, not your membership of a nation. But in practically, the way we interpret rights day-to-day may depend more on our sense of nationhood than statehood.

I think we can see this difference in the Reagan quotation I put up earlier. There, I think he's speaking as the leader of a nation (a nation of American Christians), but not actually as the head of state (because what head of state can be publicly disrespectful of lawful citizens?)

I doubt that he was even aware of the difference because in his mind (and in the minds of those who changed the currency and adopted the current US national motto, and perhaps in the minds of the founders) I think he saw the USA as a de facto Christian nation-state: meaning that Christians glue the nationhood to the statehood and non-Christians are grudgingly tolerated, as long as they don't get so powerful that Christian nation-statehood gets unstuck.

But if that's the dominant view (and if we can judge from the currency, the national motto, and the oaths of public office it is) then does the US really want freedom of religion? Would it be fairer to say that what the US wants broadly is freedom of religious expression, but not the freedom of non-Christian beliefs to be substantially represented in public office? Are there many avowed non-Christians in the US legislature? According to my research, there's a smattering of Jewish-American politicians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_American_politicians), and the first avowedly atheist congressman (http://www.secular.org/news/pete_stark_070312.html) appeared in 2007, and a Muslim congressman (http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200611150004) was elected in 2006.

Does freedom of religion require equity in representation? One might imagine so. But one atheist in over two hundred years of statehood?

"If the number of nontheists in Congress reflected the percentage of nontheists in the population," Lori Lipman Brown, director of the Secular Coalition, observes, "there would be 53-54 nontheistic Congress members instead of one."

CNN's Beck to first-ever Muslim congressman: "[W]hat I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies' "Apparently in the eyes of some portions of the media, non-Christian nationhood is presumed incompatible with state loyalty -- much the same as Reagan argued. So the idea of the US -- 'the Leader of the Free World' -- as a Christian nation-state is still going strong into the 21st century.

Back to your point, Higgins: I don't think that culture is crumbling to bits at all -- families still build culture, friends still build common culture, forums like AW help build common culture, religions do and apparently pop-star funerals do too. What I think is under challenge though is nation-statehood -- the idea that state citizenship is national identity.

I think that there has been a tension between the wording of freedom of religion as state legislation (not just in the US but elsewhere) and national interpretations of what that means. That tension may be growing as national identities grow more complicated and national representation grows more diverse. In my own country of Australia I think we've about given up on nation-statehood defined by religion or ethnicity; the US seems to no longer believe in nation-statehood defined by ethnicity, and now seems to be increasingly tested on nation-statehood defined by religion.

And depending on the results of that test, the interpretation -- or perhaps even the wording? -- of US freedom of religion legislation may change.

[AMCrenshaw]

Meanwhile, if your view were correct then wouldn't that render the religious slogan on US currency unconstitutional?

Yes. Not to mention the volunteer Put Your Hand On The Bible in courts-- yes, even or especially the supreme ones. Correct me if I'm wrong about that, anyone. Not to mention the Pledge of Allegiance every morning in however many public schools.

But that doesn't comment on the law itself so much as the government's lack of adherence to it. Who complains though? Enough people for In God We Trust to be taken off our currency or for the ten commandments to be extracted from plaques in court houses? Not yet, despite the fact it's essentially unconstitutional.

AMC

[Ruv Draba]

Even if the USA were viewed as a Christian nation-state, I don't much mind. I'm not a Christian and I don't live there, though I feel sympathy for whatever citizens might be alienated by that arrangement. For reasons of interest I just finished reading the Iranian constitution (http://www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/ir00000_.html). Readers might be interested to know that it enshrines many of the same sorts of freedoms you find in modern Western constitutions: freedom of expression, of assembly, religion, association and the press. But it does so within a religious context and I think that makes it a very different proposition.

Time and again the freedoms are qualified with the term 'within the criteria of Islam'. In other words, you are free to express whatever you want, be whoever you want -- as long as it doesn't unstick the designated favoured nation from the notion of statehood. That's my present understanding of the US intention too -- though the Iranian constitution is very blunt about it. Candid even, with few weasel words. It is set up to look after Iranians in a state of fixed boundaries with no expansionist ambitions but overtly supporting the propagation of its favoured religion, and offering some tolerance for other religions of The Book, but no guarantees for anyone else; a strong isolationist policy rejecting external influences and if you don't like it, don't visit. It's clean, simple, unambiguous. Eminently attractive if you're of that nation and favour the nation's values.

If you replaced Islam with Christianity, is not that much the same sort of view espoused by Reagan in his quote? We are who we are. If you don't like it, don't visit.

Does expressing freedom of religion within the vision of a religiously-defined nation-state change its interpretation? The example of Iran certainly shows that it does. The example of the USA perhaps indicates that it does too -- even if the intentions aren't explicitly articulated.

What then does it mean in a multinational, United Nations context? I'm still trying to understand.

[Higgins]

I don't know whether I'm reasonably educated (I'm certainly educated, but were they reasonable about it?) but I don't believe that culture has crumbled to bits, except maybe among 'militant' postmodernists (whom I see as a funny little subculture of their own :D).

Back to your point, Higgins: I don't think that culture is crumbling to bits at all -- families still build culture, friends still build common culture, forums like AW help build common culture, religions do and apparently pop-star funerals do too. What I think is under challenge though is nation-statehood -- the idea that state citizenship is national identity.


Modern States and nations are very recent conventions compared to cultural behaviors. When I say culture is crumbly (and always has been) I mean that the multitude of "subcultures" (ie more or less cultures in the cultural sense) don't align at all with the state or nations or anything subject to rules and laws. As a militant post-modernist I think nearly any set of subcultural signs and symbols and messages has more power over an individual's behavior than any amount of ideology or state organization or terrorists or nationalisms or the religious police. You can see this in Iran where the Bajjis have to beat up students even though it just makes more trouble and the students have to use twitter to "fight" even though a few hundred car bombs would work better. In Iran "subcultures" are in conflict and the official religious culture can't do much about it except figure out who to shoot and even then the Bajjis make a mess of any coherent religious policy.
The few places where subcultures meet (such as MJ's funeral or AWWC or scientific projects) are relatively rare and interesting.

[Ruv Draba]

Modern States and nations are very recent conventions compared to cultural behaviors.The Republic model of the US and France is around 2700 years old. The colonial model underpinning my own country's legislature has been around in one form or another for perhaps a shade longer. The fuzziness of nations must've been around longer still though, judging by the social challenges facing the empires of Egypt, and subsequently Greece and Rome. The longer I look at this stuff the more I question how much of a 'modern' state is actually new.

As a militant post-modernist I think nearly any set of subcultural signs and symbols and messages has more power over an individual's behavior than any amount of ideology or state organization or terrorists or nationalisms or the religious police.As a non-militant neomodernist (is that even a real term?) I think you're right. There seems to be what we write in our legislation and there seems to be what we do, and our words clearly don't lead our deeds all that much, and sometimes not at all.
You can see this in Iran where the Bajjis have to beat up students even though it just makes more trouble and the students have to use twitter to "fight" even though a few hundred car bombs would work better.It's easy to pick on Iran, but also unfair. Iran is just doing explicitly what France, the UK and the US have tried to do implicitly at various times, and unquestionably my own country has too, through policy if not founding legislation.

Iran's religious nation-state constitution is only 30 years old. When my country's constitution was 30 years old we were still committing genocide, and our non-white, non-Christian population (including Indigenous Australians, Chinese, Afghans and Pacific islanders imported for their labour) wasn't allowed to vote, and some weren't even allowed to marry. We did that without ever actually saying in our Constitution that we wanted to be an isolationist, genocidal monocultural nation-state. (Clever, weren't we?)

Iran isn't doing anything that Australia wasn't doing within living memory. Iran's persecution of the Bahá'í faith has echoes in my own nation's persecution of the aforementioned ethnicities, and which in local cases continues today.

Back to my earlier question: does any nation really want freedom of religion? Or only freedom within certain (often implicit) political parameters that preserve a dominant nation's control?

[citymouse]

I am absolutely opposed to mixing government and religion in any form.

That said, the other day I was listening to a coronation anthem by GF Handel To me, these words express what I hope any leader would aspire to. And of course they were sung in a cathedral glittering with crowned and mitered heads.

Let thy hand be strengthened and thy right hand be exalted. Let justice and judgment be the preparation of thy seat! Let mercy and truth go before thy face.


Can't beat that with a stick!
C

[Higgins]

The Republic model of the US and France is around 2700 years old.

What? Are you counting from the foundation of Rome?
They had Etruscan Kings for the first 200 years (right?)...I think that is a bit different from a modern state based on universal sufferage (and French women only got the right to vote after WWII)? The modern state based on theoretically universial citizenship has only been around since 1920 in the US (when women could vote) or the Fourth Republic in France (after 1944).You could argue that the US didn't manage to approach Etruscan levels of Republican virtue until the Voting rights act of 1964.
No, I'm pretty sure we are making this all up as we go along. There is no model for the stresses and strains of the world as it is: overpopulated, with resources falling fast and the environment falling apart in all kinds of ways. But, in fact all the models for every society there has ever been were flawed. The blood of Mayan kings did not really let them communicate with their ancestors, but some Mayan Kingdoms ran for a few hundred years while conforming to that assumption.

So what does that mean? That insanely flawed social models can produce societies that are relatively functional? It means that fortunately cultures and societies are not the regimented entities that we think they are, that norms and ideologies don't actually determine very much behavior. That the end of the world can happen without even being noticed until it is too late.

[Higgins]

I am absolutely opposed to mixing government and religion in any form.



I'm all for it in the case where I am God-Emperor.

[Shadow_Ferret]

I think that's most accurate. The idea being that the state could never legally endorse a specific religion that would demand worship from the entire nation. Freedom from.

AMC
Um, again, if you're going to use that phrasing, continue it with freedome from "a state-sanctioned" religion.

Which is essentially freedom of choice in religion.

I don't believe the forefathers, the majority all men of god, meant freedom from ALL religion, they we talking about having the freedom to choose how you worship.

[Higgins]

The longer I look at this stuff the more I question how much of a 'modern' state is actually new.


The state is not particularly new in the sense that there have been powerful elites backed by religious convention and armies and taxes and wars and temples and bureaucracies and human sacrifice for thousands of years. The idea that the state has some practical responsibility for the well-being of its inhabitants is a more recent idea. At some point having the Divine state order ensure the fertility of the planet began to seem a bit far-fetched and you began to have light infantry and conscription and column tactics and the practicality of Prince Henry of Prussia versus the pompous evil of Voltaire and Frederick the Great. Eventually the civil light of Teddy Roosevelt comes unto mankind and the state becomes somewhat modern.

[Higgins]

Um, again, if you're going to use that phrasing, continue it with freedome from "a state-sanctioned" religion.

Which is essentially freedom of choice in religion.

I don't believe the forefathers, the majority all men of god, meant freedom from ALL religion, they we talking about having the freedom to choose how you worship.

But notice that this works in reverse as well: a state that doesn't push some religion becomes de-sacralized state. Up until the US Constitution, the state was part of a Divine order that guaranteed the coherence of the cosmos. Pull out that sacred aspect and the next thing you know you have birth control and an ever-increasing decrease in the size of harems and so on.

[Shadow_Ferret]

What?

[Higgins]

What?

If you remove religion as a state function, the state is no longer part of a Divine Cosmic Order and eventually women will be voting.

In the past religion was a state function. As women participate more in altering the social world (eg. in Iran), the Divine Cosmic order has to send vigilante's to beat them up. I think this sort of backfires. for example in Iran women can be beaten for wearing the wrong scarves...so they are used to be assaulted for religious reasons in the streets so they are pretty good at standing up to the Divine Cosmic order. Which eventually has to just shoot them. And then the women will come back with car bombs and the Divine Cosmic order will go away.

[Higgins]

Back to my earlier question: does any nation really want freedom of religion? Or only freedom within certain (often implicit) political parameters that preserve a dominant nation's control?

Obviously complete religious freedom is absolutely impossible. No state on earth today would allow Aztec Sun priests to errect gigantic pyramids and do thousands of human sacrifices a year. Okay North Korea might threaten to do that, but even they might not be able to feed the sacrifices long enough to make them acceptable to the Sun Priests. Remember! The sacrificed individual represents a god and has to be well-fed and prefereably sexually satiated, drunk and on mildly pleasant hallucinagens. Not that any god would ever be like that at any time. Unless he just wanted to. For some reason in North Korea. Seems unlikely. Like I said.

[Ruv Draba]

What? Are you counting from the foundation of Rome?I counted from the first Greek city-states, which also held a republic-style model, circa 700BCE.
I'm pretty sure we are making this all up as we go along. There is no model for the stresses and strains of the world as it is: overpopulated, with resources falling fast and the environment falling apart in all kinds of ways.Certainly, historical states have suffered such things in the past -- it destroyed some of them. I need to find the references, but there are the archaeological ruins of an early agrarian city that died by environmental degradation -- deforestation resulted in loss of wood for fuel and construction; over-hunting meant loss of protein-sources; skeletal-pitting showed calcium depletion from relying too much on grain for food. After hundreds of years of thriving, the surviving population just left. Wish I could recall its name.

It means that fortunately cultures and societies are not the regimented entities that we think they are, that norms and ideologies don't actually determine very much behavior. That the end of the world can happen without even being noticed until it is too late.For some, it clearly did. We certainly have examples from which to build models to understand how states fragment under strain, how populations sleepwalk into environmental problems and how they react when they finally realise that problems aren't going away.

The slogan "The economy, stupid" was coined for Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign for presidency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_the_economy,_stupid), but it's had resonance well beyond his term. Stability of statehood seems to rest on the economy much of the time and the economy in turn rests on other things like environmental security, justice, domestic and foreign security and also feeds those things to some degree.

I believe that religious freedoms tend to grow in expanding economies simply because they must. More trade and a demand for more labour causes a state to reach beyond its traditional national composition for trading partners to swell its coffers, and immigrants to swell its workforce. In doing so, it has to make concessions to accommodate its changing population and the tastes of the other nations it begins to call its friends. Expanding economies create pluralism; Pluralism creates demand for religious freedoms.

What's interesting to me for the purpose of this discussion is that despite having constitutions that enshrine religious freedoms it seems that many states around the world aren't actually ready to honour them. We can tell because of how much difficulty they're having with pluralism. My reading of it is that the nations comprising the political strength in those states really don't want pluralism in the first place.

Your point I think Higgins is that in the long run, nation is stronger than state (though still weaker than economic or environmental necessities). I suspect that may be true.

So does that make the ideal of religious freedom outmoded? Arguably, nations don't want it and arguably what most states want is simply a stable society with abundant labour and stable trading partners -- because It's the Economy, Stupid. Is the present formulation of the right to religious freedom simply too strong to be met in more than lip-service in most places?

It seems to me that most of the Islamic nations have already voted explicitly on this -- they'll be tolerant as long as Islam is in charge and not brought into disrepute. Many of the Christian nation-states have voted with their deeds more than their words for centuries: they'll be tolerant as long as Christianianity (or the preferred Christian sect) is dominant. I'm still researching Israel's approach (that state doesn't have a constitution, so it means poking into specific laws and customs), but I think that its history and foreign policy are indicators.

In the developed and developing Asian nations ethnicity often seems to count more than religion, but of course religion ties closely to ethnicity anyway. In my personal experience, Japan is tolerant of foreign religious curios as long as the Japanese (and not the resident Koreans or Chinese or the smattering of remaining Ainu) are in charge -- an issue which has never come into question because of its isolationism. Reports from Taiwan (http://michaelturton.blogspot.com/2005/06/religious-tolerance-in-taiwan.html) indicate a high level of religious tolerance there, but I haven't looked into it much yet. Mainland China has both issues of ethnicity and religious tolerance to manage. India seeks religious tolerance (actually desperately needs it for economic and social stability), but seems to be still struggling to find a social model in which religious and ethnic tolerance work. In my experience of South-east Asia (mainly Thailand and Cambodia and Singapore) the questions are more ethnic than religious, and they're not resolved.

In my experience of Australia and Canada, religious tolerance is effected by a sort of apathetic indifference to religion in the first place; our concerns seem mainly to be ones of ethnic tolerance.

States like France and Turkey seem to be trying to find the balance between secular government and religious nationhood, but I don't imagine either would say that they're close to finding it. Russia and most of the former USSR have both ethnic and religious contention that shows little sign of resolving. Most of Scandanavia (or the bits I've looked into) have a dominant religion that sees no sign of changing, and might well ask what the problem is in the first place. :)

I don't know too much about South America, but I understand that Pope Alexander VI sorted out its religious profile back in the 15th century, and it hasn't greatly changed since.

So my question remains: religious tolerance? Really? Says who? Sure, the states all talk about it -- they have to, to accommodate their economic needs. But which nations really want it? And if the major nations of the world don't want it, how can states give it anything more than lip-service?

[Ruv Draba]

Obviously complete religious freedom is absolutely impossible.Or put another way, every state has to place some secular rights above religious rights -- such as the right to life. And multilateral assemblies of states like the UN have to do so too.

But the balance of secular and religious rights is exactly the question. Iran's constitution makes it very clear where that balance lies. To my eyes at least, the US constitution doesn't. And moreover, custom and legislation seem to be at odds.

I mention the US because it's a familiar example, but not because it's peculiar -- the UK has freedom of religion too, but the head of state is also the head of the sanctioned church. How does that lead to equity? Here's Clinton Bennet (http://www.religiousfreedom.com/Conference/Germany/bennett.htm)from Oxford University commenting on it:

A government publication, Aspects of Britain: Religion (1992) claims that “Britain has a long history of religious tolerance” (p 3). I think that this tolerance is comparatively new. This same publication understates the degree to which the established church in England, the Church of England, enjoys privileges, which not even the established church of Scotland enjoys.

[...]
The Bishop of Birmingham, speaking in the Lords, has recently stated,
We are concerned not for privileges but for the protection of conscience, a proper pluralism in our society and the proper integrity and autonomy of the churches and other religious traditions in this country.
Equity in conscience then, but not privilege. Or put another way, the Anglicans will be tolerant while the Anglicans can stay in charge. Bennet then goes on to acknowledge that the Anglicans are quite tolerant, though they're not willing to yield or share their privilege.

[Higgins]

Certainly, historical states have suffered such things in the past -- it destroyed some of them. I need to find the references, but there are the archaeological ruins of an early agrarian city that died by environmental degradation -- deforestation resulted in loss of wood for fuel and construction; over-hunting meant loss of protein-sources; skeletal-pitting showed calcium depletion from relying too much on grain for food. After hundreds of years of thriving, the surviving population just left. Wish I could recall its name.


It's pretty common from what I've seen. A museum I was woking in in the early 1980s did an exhibit that showed some population over time in an arid area of the American SW. People walked into an okay area and farmed it and over used it and over a period of about 100 years they suffered more and more malnutrition and got shorter and shorter until they gave up and their little town disappeared leaving nothing but a few structures, some pitted bones and an interesting mosaic made of semi-precious stones.

[ColoradoGuy]

Yes. Not to mention the volunteer Put Your Hand On The Bible in courts-- yes, even or especially the supreme ones. Correct me if I'm wrong about that, anyone.
Okay, with only a small point to add to this interesting discussion. My work requires me to testify in court now and then and, by long tradition, Quakers do not swear oaths. The standard formula is that I am asked "to affirm" that I will tell the truth. That's all. I'm not asked to put my hand on anything.

Regarding the constitutional debate, since I'm not an Originalist (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/interp.html) in my view of the Constitution, I agree with the legal interpretation in Ruv's post (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3780535&postcount=3).

[robeiae]

Did some one say "constitutional"?

Just to note a couple of things:

1) The Constitution address religion in Article VI. To whit:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

And in respect of Quakerdom, we see--indeed--a specific allowance for "affirmations."

Now, the idea here was that religious authority and secular authority should not be linked, at all.

2) Madison didn't want a Bill of Rights. Beyond the above specific clause in the Constitution, proper, (which destroys the establishment of a state religion, all on it's own) there was no need to address this topic, since the Feds were not given any authority over established religions and established religions were not given any authority over the Feds.

That is all. Carry on.

[benbradley]

...

Did this US president claim that every atheist, agnostic, pagan and shamanistic constituent was coarse, immoral and undemocratic?
If so, he may not be the only One, Bush Senior, while serving as Reagan's VP, is alleged to have said something similar:
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=13314

[Sean D. Schaffer]

I chose "Right Idea, But It Has Problems."

My reason is that some religions (including the one I used to belong to) believe in their right to go to people's houses and challenge their religious beliefs at their own doorstep. I do not believe that any religion should have the right to solicit their beliefs to others without first being expressly allowed to do so by the people they intend to convert.

There is also the issue of raising a child to follow the same religion that the rest of the family follows. I think that is extremely unfair to the child, because they should have the right to decide for themselves what they believe. If Freedom of Religion really means Freedom of Religion, then that should include the rights of children to make their own decisions about what religion they follow even when living in their parents' house. They should be allowed to study whatever religion they have the desire to study, and should not be forced to become a follower of the same religion their parents follow because, "Well, you live in my house and you will do as I say." An attitude that forces children to be what their parents want them to be can make the child feel angry and hurt, and it can also bring greater strife in the long run if they finally do decide that the family's religion is not right for them. Such was the case with me, and I don't want to see it happen to other people.

[Ruv Draba]

Beyond the above specific clause in the Constitution, proper, (which destroys the establishment of a state religion, all on it's own) there was no need to address this topic.In your opinion does the US constitution do its intended job in this respect? Is it effective at keeping religious nationhood from seizing control of statehood, and from keeping statehood from selectively cultivating religious nationhood?

(Actually, following CG's excellent link about originalism I begin to question whether anything can.)

[Ruv Draba]

I do not believe that any religion should have the right to solicit their beliefs to others without first being expressly allowed to do so by the people they intend to convert.As an atheist who does his civic best to be civil to an unending stream of well-intentioned but unwelcome and sometimes unscrupulous doorknockers, I like the idea that people who care about one another try to help one another -- but I don't like such help to be brought unasked to my door or stuffed unsolicited in my letterbox. My personal thought is that if my friends or acquaintances want to make suggestions I'll entertain them. If the state does, I'll entertain it too. But when strangers do, I think they're overreaching their competence and civic privilege.

There is also the issue of raising a child to follow the same religion that the rest of the family follows. I think that is extremely unfair to the child, because they should have the right to decide for themselves what they believe.Civicly, the right to life normally vests in an infant from some time before birth. The rights to freedom of speech, association and assembly tend to be hazier though. They certainly vest in an individual at majority, but do they vest at any time before that?

Likewise with freedom of religion. When does that freedom vest legislatively? When do you think it should vest ethically?

Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier is attributed with the quotation (http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/36315.html) Give me the children until they are seven and anyone may have them afterwards. Some have used that to signify a parents right to raise a child according to tribal belief until middle childhood, but can it also convey a child's right to be raised in open-mindedness until at least middle childhood?

it can also bring greater strife in the long run if they finally do decide that the family's religion is not right for them. Such was the case with me, and I don't want to see it happen to other people.My mother, who's been an atheist all the time I've known her, often listed her religion as Anglican (perhaps for fear of censure), and sent me to against my wishes to Anglican religious classes, which to this day reminds me of the punchline of an old IRA joke: "Ah, but are you a Catholic or a Protestant atheist?"

I think that what was in her mind was Pascal's Wager (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager): what if she's wrong? Perhaps too she didn't want to see me censured for not being of a more respectable creed. But I think too that at heart she was a very Anglican atheist. When it came to rejecting religion, Anglicanism was the one she most preferred to reject. On matters of law and social order she voted with her Anglican tribe. On matters of the quality of people, she preferred to ignore tribe and take them as they come -- this long before it was fashionable to do so.

As a child with a rationalistic temperament, well-read in ancient Greek mythologies, being sent to a class to be told that Abrahamic mythologies were undeniable truths was outrageous to me. What made it traumatic was that I felt obliged to respect the teachers who told me this. Anyway, although I went to religious classes a few times I came back furious about it. After I insisted to my mother that the teachers were fools and liars, she never sent me again. (I think that she was afraid that I'd lose my love for school and respect for authority entirely.)

With an adult's perspective I think child-Ruv could have greatly enjoyed religious education if it hadn't been taught as religion but as myth, and if it weren't the same patriarchal, desert-shuffling Abrahamic fare every time. No matter how sententious they got, I'd still go home and bury my nose in the Greek pagans: better settings, better characters, and much better humour -- so I felt, anyway.

So child-Ruv would happily vote for no religion at all before middle childhood, but plenty of mythology. I can't imagine that any state run by a religious nation would support that though -- what, no baptism? No bris? No prayers before bed?

To which I feel like saying: Freedom of religion? Really? When your genitals can be ritually mutilated in infancy? When you can be led through rituals of consecration and dedication before you even understand them? When you can be terrorised by threats you can't even critique, and taught that 60% or more of the world is inferior to you?

Maybe as adult-Ruv I could be comfortable for families to raise their children according to custom if there were no oaths, threats, mutilations or xenophobia before puberty.

If we're to view freedom of religion as an individual freedom and not some protection of tribal privilege, then shouldn't it begin with freedom of thought? Or if freedom of religion is not really an individual protection, but a protection of tribal privilege against state interference, then shouldn't it be rephrased and reframed?

[FOTSGreg]

Ruv Draba asked, In your opinion does the US constitution do its intended job? Is it effective at keeping religious nationhood from seizing control of statehood, and from keeping statehood from selectively cultivating religious nationhood?


In a word, Yes.

The idea that there is a humongous national religious movement in the United States that is hellbent on turning this country into a theological fascist state aking to Iran is a completely false idea drummed up and made popular by the media, particularly the left wing media.

I am a conservative Republican, do not attend any particular church, and do not particularly celebrate any religious holidays. I know a great many religious and non-religious people in this country, across the legnth and breadth of it because I go on driving vacations (or used to ) from California to Pennsylvania, and all over the midwest. Now, living in Oklahoma, and having been in more than 40 of the lower 48 states, I can positively affirm to anyone who wants to know that no one I have ever spoken to wants a religious or religion-oriented government in this country. It just isn't true. It's a myth put forward by a select media with its own agenda and a select few others with their own as well.

The US Constitution does its job very, very, very well. It specifically mandates a separation between church and state, not a ban on church and state relationships.

Basically, it states that no state nor the federal government shall recognize nor mandate a state or federally-recognized religion of any sort.

Period.

However, certain media organizations and individuals on both sides would have you ignore what the Constitution really says and believe what they say about what it says. They have their own religious agendas they want to put forward even when they state that they don't believe in organized religion.

I would personally take up arms against any government institution or faction that tried to mandate a state or federal religion and most of the people I've met across this country lead me to believe they'd do the same. No one tells us what to believe, how or who to worship, or what, where, or why.

Take that as you will.

[Ruv Draba]

I would personally take up arms against any government institution or faction that tried to mandate a state or federal religion and most of the people I've met across this country lead me to believe they'd do the same. No one tells us what to believe, how or who to worship, or what, where, or why.

Take that as you will.I'll take it as you wrote it, Greg, and thank you for your contribution.

How do you feel about Judaeo-Christian slogans appearing on state material? What are your views on inequity of representation of belief in legislative bodies? Is it tolerable to you, or do you feel like you want to take up arms over it? Or do you think it's desireable -- that a state needs some sort of cohesion to its belief, even if there's individual dissent?

[robeiae]

In your opinion does the US constitution do its intended job in this respect? Is it effective at keeping religious nationhood from seizing control of statehood, and from keeping statehood from selectively cultivating religious nationhood?

(Actually, following CG's excellent link about originalism I begin to question whether anything can.)
The Bill of Rights has made the job more difficult, as it allows multiple interpretations--as evidenced in this thread--with regard to the government's role in protecting/mandating/enforcing "rights." And it allows the government to assume authority of matters that it was never given authority over.

It's funny to me that men like Madison certainly could never have predicted the future, anticipated things like the internet, TV, etc, yet had a pretty good idea about the basics of human nature and way governments work, based on what powers they are granted.

But I pretty much agree with Greg: the US is in no real danger of becoming a religion-based nation. There will be motion towards and away from such a thing, across time. That's to be expected.

[Ruv Draba]

I pretty much agree with Greg: the US is in no real danger of becoming a religion-based nation. There will be motion towards and away from such a thing, across time. That's to be expected.As an atheist living in a religiously-apathetic state, the US has always seemed religiously-based to me. (Of course, some other states call it godless, so perhaps it's a matter of perspective.) I can say though that I've never felt pressure to lie about my atheism while visiting Asia or Europe, but I've felt that pressure with the US (and would probably feel it even more strongly in those states that consider the US to be godless. :D)

[robeiae]

Social pressures are a product of, well, the society you are in. I don't find much in the way of religious pressure at all, where I live. I don't recall any growing up, either (and that was a very different place). And the area I grew up in was WASP-dominated. Yet, the most prominent local politician was Jewish. I worked for his campaign and my mother worked for him. Again, religion never really came up as an issue.

In contrast, the local country club was very much exclusionary. I don't think that was a good thing, at all. Yet, I don't see it as a failure of the Constitution, but rather a failure of the local population.

[Ruv Draba]

I don't think that was a good thing, at all. Yet, I don't see it as a failure of the Constitution, but rather a failure of the local population.Fair enough, and I'll ask you a tailored version of the same question I asked Greg:

Is putting a religious motto on US state material a civic failure? If it is, is it a failure of people or the legislation? Or if it's not a failure is it just an idiosyncracy perhaps, or a virtue? And since the practice is over a century old, do you feel that it's transient -- part of the ebb and flow of fashion -- or a long-term symbol of statehood like the flag and coat of arms?

Further, how do you think it affects external perceptions of the US in the ~69% of the world who are not Judaeo-Christian? What message do you believe that "In God We Trust" delivers to the ~19% of US citizens who are not Judaeo-Christian?

I suppose that what I'm trying to get at is this: if the US state is truly meant to be separate from religion and the US constitution is unflawed then how has one tribe managed to put its religious brand on the state for a century and a half? And is the branding consistent with official state values, or merely the one it has to live with for reasons of internal politics?

(Demographics sourced from Wikipedia here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religions), here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population)and here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_America#Religion).)

[Ruv Draba]

The idea that there is a humongous national religious movement in the United States that is hellbent on turning this country into a theological fascist state aking to Iran is a completely false idea drummed up and made popular by the media, particularly the left wing media.
I'm not a conspiracy-theorist about this, and I don't see much reporting of any kind on US religious freedoms. I'm more interested on a global human basis.
I don't find much in the way of religious pressure at all, where I live.
It might not just be me. From here (http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=167):

Religion is much more important to Americans than to people living in other wealthy nations. Six-in-ten (59%) people in the U.S. say religion plays a very important role in their lives. This is roughly twice the percentage of self-avowed religious people in Canada (30%), and an even higher proportion when compared with Japan and Western Europe. Americans' views are closer to people in developing nations than to the publics of developed nations.

The US does look like a curio among developed countries, but my question applies just as much to France (which has been wrestling over veils in schools), or Turkey (trying to reconcile its secular legislation with a popular desire for more Muslim expression), or my own front doorstep (my door-mat has more footprints of Jehovah's Witnesses on it than it has of my neighbours).

In the US, it seems that "In God 60% of Us Trust". But enough people seem to believe that those 60% are the real Americans for the state itself to bear their branding. Is that constitutional? Ethical? Beneficial? As I said earlier, I don't live in the US and I don't greatly mind. But it does raise some interesting questions.

My initial thoughts have been that there are definitely problems with the way that the principle of freedom of religion is codified and put into practice -- but I also suspect that there are problems with the way it's conceived. It would take more than just a US example to demonstrate that, but the US is a very interesting example nonetheless.

[robeiae]

Fair enough, and I'll ask you a tailored version of the same question I asked Greg:

Is putting a religious motto on US state material a civic failure? If it is, is it a failure of people or the legislation? Or if it's not a failure is it just an idiosyncracy perhaps, or a virtue? And since the practice is over a century old, do you feel that it's transient -- part of the ebb and flow of fashion -- or a long-term symbol of statehood like the flag and coat of arms?I think tradition has a role to play in nationhood and historical awareness. And I think that's part of the human condition. Personally, I wouldn't bat an eye if the motto was removed. But I'm not everyman.

Further, how do you think it affects external perceptions of the US in the ~69% of the world who are not Judaeo-Christian? What message do you believe that "In God We Trust" delivers to the ~19% of US citizens who are not Judaeo-Christian?I think you're overstating these things. Most people in the rest of the world don't consider this, at all.

I suppose that what I'm trying to get at is this: if the US state is truly meant to be separate from religion and the US constitution is unflawed then how has one tribe managed to put its religious brand on the state for a century and a half? And is the branding consistent with official state values, or merely the one it has to live with for reasons of internal politics?Re the Constitution: I've already noted that the Bill of Rights made things worse, imo. So, I'm hardly saying it's "unflawed."

Re "tribe": you sound angry. I'm not a part of a tribe. I don't clap other "members" of such on the back and say "ha, we've still got OUR brand on things."

[Ruv Draba]

I think you're overstating these things. Most people in the rest of the world don't consider this, at all.Really? Evidence? As a single datum I know three state mottos without googling: US, French and UK (my own country doesn't have one). Two are religious. Only one is rendered in English. Two came from history books; one came from Hollywood -- I didn't study much US history in school.

I'd say that the branding is international. Not as strong as Coke, say, but stronger than the Redsox.

Re the Constitution: I've already noted that the Bill of Rights made things worse, imo. So, I'm hardly saying it's "unflawed."So it's the constitution and the people? Or just the constitution? I'm not trying to be picky but I am trying to be clear.
Re "tribe": you sound angry. I'm not a part of a tribe.
I meant tribe in the anthropological sense (from Wikipedia):
A tribe, is a social group (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Social_group) of humans connected by a shared system (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/System) of values and organized for mutual care, defense, and survival beyond that which could be attained by a lone individual or family (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Family). A 'tribe' is defined in anthropology (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Anthropology). When viewed historically or developmentally, a tribe is a mutual care system which, unlike a kingdom (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Monarchy) or state (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Sovereign_state) or other schema, is oriented around kinship (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Kinship) and shared beliefs.
I believe that it's the anthropologically correct term here, and anthropologists would say that you probably are part of a tribe -- though whether it's the tribe I was talking about, I don't know.

I don't clap other "members" of such on the back and say "ha, we've still got OUR brand on things."I don't know whether it's your brand Rob, but it does seem to be a tribal brand. You've said that you wouldn't mind losing it, but my questions were: Is it ethical? Is it constitutional and is it beneficial over-all?

Again, I'm not picking on the US here. The UK motto is "Dieu et Mon Droit" ("God and My Right"). It's said to date back to King Henry V in the 15th century and it'd hard to get more tribal. It refers to the blood of kingship, the divine right of rule and it's rendered in the language of the Norman conquerors. It leaves nobody in any doubt at all what sort of state is being discussed.

Ah, with effort I remembered Bhinneka Tunggal Ika -- the motto of Indonesia, from my Bahasa classes. It's rendered in Old Javanese and means much the same as E Pluribus Unum. Which reminds me...

Why not E Pluribus Unum? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pluribus_unum) It was on the seal of the US since 1776 and was the de facto motto for 180 years. Someone had to go to effort to gazump it. Is God more important than unity then? That's really the heart of the question, isn't it?

[robeiae]

Really? Evidence? As a single datum I know three state mottos without googling: US, French and UK (my own country doesn't have one). Two are religious. Only one is rendered in English. Two came from history books; one came from Hollywood -- I didn't study much US history in school.Well, there are a lot of people in the world. I tend to think that most of them aren't too worried about the US national motto.
So it's the constitution and the people? Or just the constitution? I'm not trying to be picky but I am trying to be clear.That what? Are responsible for the way things are?


I meant tribe in the anthropological sense (from Wikipedia):

I believe that it's the anthropologically correct term here, and anthropologists would say that you probably are part of a tribe -- though whether it's the tribe I was talking about, I don't know.
Well see, in an anthropological sense I would say that my tribe includes people that are atheists, deists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc. The lines are not drawn in the way you are suggesting, across the US. In limited communities? Sure. But not all of them, at all.


The shared value system is more about customs and norms. Are some these influenced by the dominant religion? No doubt. But the dominant religion is also influenced by the customs and norms--which change over time.

I'll give an example: how people dress. It used to be that everyone dressed up to go to Church. Not so, today. And the same is true for airline flights (people would dress well for such things). And going out to dinner. And lots of other things. This is--really--a chicken or the egg problem. But the point is, Christianity is not as dominant a factor as some would like to suppose.
I don't know whether it's your brand Rob, but it does seem to be a tribal brand. You've said that you wouldn't mind losing it, but my questions were: Is it ethical? Is it constitutional and is it beneficial over-all?That's a judgement you can only make in the moment, imo (aside from the constitutionality).

Is God more important than unity then? That's really the heart of the question, isn't it?
Again. I think you're overstating it. It's not an issue that vexes me, at all.

[Ruv Draba]

Well see, in an anthropological sense I would say that my tribe includes people that are atheists, deists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc. The lines are not drawn in the way you are suggesting, across the US. In limited communities? Sure. But not all of them, at all.That's probably objectively testable, Rob... A tribe is built around mutual support. If you draw and give support regardless of religion then religion doesn't factor into your tribe. I think that the acid test would be where you choose to direct your dollars/resources/time and from whence you accept such things, rather than how the government spends such things for you.

I think it's possible to have tribes that span religions. I'm an atheist and direct some charity dollars to Christian and Buddhist societies, so I'd back you in that.

But at the state level it's not about individuals so much as population behaviour. I'm not sure what evidence you'd accept that religion creates tribe, or that tribe tries to shape state. Your objections have been what I call the Twain Rebuttal (Shania, not Mark -- aka "That Don't Impress Me Much (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SOh6mSEZss)"). Well, okay -- but what would? :D

[robeiae]

That's probably objectively testable, Rob... A tribe is built around mutual support. If you draw and give support regardless of religion then religion doesn't factor into your tribe. I think that the acid test would be where you choose to direct your dollars/resources/time and from whence you accept such things, rather than how the government spends such things for you.I agree.

In many cases, I don't even know the religion--if there is one--of the people from which I draw support. In the cases that I do, it is as I have said, already.

But at the state level it's not about individuals so much as population behaviour. I'm not sure what evidence you'd accept that religion creates tribe, or that tribe tries to shape state. Your objections have been what I call the Twain Rebuttal (Shania, not Mark -- aka "That Don't Impress Me Much (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SOh6mSEZss)"). Well, okay -- but what would? :DReligion can create tribes. Or maybe tribes can creae religion. Either way, the US is too varied across the board for me to accept that religion is doing a whole lot of shaping, anymore. If anything, some "hard core" religious types are trying to hold on to the limited influence of religion. I don't actually see them having much success, at the end of the day. But again, things don't occur on a straight line.

Of course, I could also argue that the decline in importance of things like religion create a vacuum of sorts for a source of societal cohesion. The consequences of such are not always good things.

[Ruv Draba]

Either way, the US is too varied across the board for me to accept that religion is doing a whole lot of shaping, anymore.The US is indeed varied, but is the variance across the board? It doesn't seem visible in legislature, where an atheist or Muslim on Capitol Hill is still newsworthy. So arguably religious expectation was shaping candidacy for federal office up through the present terms, but is the argument that within the last few years it has ceased?

I'll pull the Twain Rebuttal here myself: One Muslim and One Atheist? That Don't Impress Me Much. What would impress me is near-proportional representation, a politician's religion not being newsworthy, and recognition that even if deistic slogans are constitutionally permissible, they're only desireable in an overtly religious state.

The strongest denial-argument I think one can muster from the present situation is that religious tribalism is losing its political power in the US; I don't think one can marshall a case that there isn't any. "I don't see it" is an easy argument to make if you're on the inside. Back to my earlier question: what sort of evidence would it take to get you to see it?

Between posts I've been looking more into In God We Trust because it's so strangely contradictory. I've discovered a term called "Ceremonial Deism", which is apparently a pseudotheology to which US citizens are mandatorily enrolled by virtue of their citizenship, but which exists in a parallel universe to real theology. It's not meaningful, argue the defenders of In God We Trust. Therefore it's not state-sanctioned religion.
The motto is opposed for a variety of reasons, but is still widely supported by Americans.[11] (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/#cite_note-10) According to a 2003 Gallup Poll, 90% of Americans approve of the inscription on U.S. coins.[12] (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/#cite_note-11) The Establishment Clause (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Establishment_Clause) of the First Amendment (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) states that congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Critics contend that the motto's placement on money constitutes the establishment of a religion or a church by the government. The Supreme Court has upheld the motto because it has "lost through rote repetition any significant religious content"[13] (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/#cite_note-12); so-called acts of "ceremonial deism (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Ceremonial_deism)" that have lost their "history, character, and context".[14] (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/#cite_note-13) In such related decisions as Zorach v. Clauson (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Zorach_v._Clauson), the Supreme Court has also held that the nation's "institutions presuppose a Supreme Being" and that government recognition of God (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/God) does not constitute the establishment of such a state church as the Constitution's authors intended to prohibit.
That begs the question: if it's not meaningful then why have it? Why enshrine it into law? And 'the nation's institutions presuppose a Supreme Being?' Really? 'Oh, God definitely exists and the State expects you to worship Him; we're just not allowed to tell you how.'

Separation of church and state, not religion and state? So freedom of church but not religion?
Of course, I could also argue that the decline in importance of things like religion create a vacuum of sorts for a source of societal cohesion. The consequences of such are not always good things.Actually I think there's a real argument there, and if it's what you think I wish that you'd argue it. It'd surely be a better argument than the doublethink of Ceremonial Deism. Would Americans accept an argument of Ceremonial Sexism or Ceremonial Racism? Why then a discriminatory Ceremonial Deism?

[Ruv Draba]

This topic has been up for a week now; the poll is stable at about 50:50 and yet I still feel that the discussion is barely engaged. Is it really a non-issue, are contributors still thinking it through, or are they afraid to post what they really think?

A week later, here's what I'm currently thinking...

Religious tolerance is undeniably an issue everywhere. Even if we thought we had it right in the largely Christian West, we're now being forced to re-consider as our populations change.

At the moment I don't think that we have religious freedom at birth or childhood, in marriage or in the disposal of our dead. I don't think we even have it in our choice of clothes, skin-markings and ornaments. A smattering of examples to illustrate...

A child like myself who grew up to be an atheist had to do so against a weight of tradition that required baptism and an exclusively Christian education. A Jewish boy who is circumcised as an infant but then wants to live as an uncircumcised gentile is frankly out of luck: once a Jew, always a Jew. A growing number of adults report that religious educations with their threat of eschatorial torture, are actually traumatic to kids.
Apparently, we're to believe that our states' objections to polygamy and gay marriage are entirely secular. (I just haven't heard what the secular arguments are yet; what I hear are religious arguments given the weight of secular tradition).
We can bury or cremate our dead, but we can't eat them or expose them to the sky, no matter how carefully, hygeinically and respectfully we did so.
Many of us still aren't sure about Muslim veils in schools; we're actively witch-hunting for signs of abuse in the wearing of the burqa, and if you're silly enough to have Polynesian tribal tattoos on your face then good luck getting a job anywhere in a Western city.Whatever it says on paper, I don't think that freedom of religion has ever been a right and I don't think it's even an aspiration in any state I know of. What I think we have, and will continue to have is freedom of church -- and here I mean church in its broad sense: kyriake "Lord's house". "Lodge", let's say, to avoid a purely Christian association.

A state doesn't need its population to have freedom of religion. What it wants is for its major nations to be happy, work hard and get along together. That leads states to accord major lodges certain privileges; it doesn't lead states to protect the rights of "foreign lodges", or to protect the rights of individuals against the wishes of the lodges to which they were born. States show little intention of stripping older tribal lodges of their privileges, and our tribes show no intention of voluntarily giving them up.

But the lodges are gradually changing as new tribes come to live in our states, and existing tribes find new directions. I don't find it hard to imagine a future US or Australia in which gay marriage and polygamy are accepted, or where there's a Tower of Silence out in a desert somewhere, for bereaved Zoroastrians to consign their dead to the sky. I do however find it hard to imagine a future where kids are brought up outside their lodges -- where initiation into tribal custom and indoctrination into tribal taboo are deferred until they're old enough to criticise it.

Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I think that tribes aren't just protective about their kids -- they're possessive about them too.

No, it doesn't make me angry but from a humanitarian and humanistic perspective it does bother me. My interest is actually not in freedom of religion or freedom of church, but something I consider to be more fundamental: freedom of thought. I know that lodges give comfort and social cohesion, but in my own little perversity-riddled perspective, they make me twitch. Especially in that we seem not to realise that we have them.

Anyway, that's my thinking so far. Thanks to everyone who's contributed to date -- even if it's just to the poll.

[AMCrenshaw]

OK, Ruv, you discussed "free will" in another thread, remember. Free from what was your preliminary question. I'd ask that to you, here, except we have examples-- a lot of them-- of what we could be free from.

What you discuss here, something more fundamental, "freedom of thought" is something that'll go way beyond religious influence, the likes of which I simply do not deny. So I'm wondering if you're beginning point, freedom of religion: outmoded?, is really one starting place among many (off the top of my head, I think about U.S. advertising, idealized/phony history in school, distant parenting).

Freedom of thought is hard to measure, but one way is some kind of equitable representation in media -- that is, as opposed to representation in policy or legislation. I can speak about the U.S. since I live here. Democratic policy is supposed to derive from consensus, majority; we vote for people who in turn act on our behalf (ha!). When 80+% of the population is self-identified as being religious in some way, we can't expect for any minority to be represented. Not immediately.

The legislation, in my opinion, is fine, but the legislation was never the issue in the first place.



People who seek freedom of thought need to express their thought freely and I would think listen to other thought just as freely.

I do however find it hard to imagine a future where kids are brought up outside their lodges -- where initiation into tribal custom and indoctrination into tribal taboo are deferred until they're old enough to criticise it.

Right, yet this is precisely where freedom of thought should begin.



AMC

[Ruv Draba]

What you discuss here, something more fundamental, "freedom of thought" is something that'll go way beyond religious influence, the likes of which I simply do not deny.It does, and this is a comparative religious philosophy discussion so I've kept it about religion. But freedom of religion is worth discussing in its own right, because it links to morality, custom, mythology, tribal identity, social order and taboos -- so it covers quite a lot.

The legislation, in my opinion, is fine, but the legislation was never the issue in the first place.That was Rob's point and it's a fair one. But I'd ask the counter-question: if people can't make the legislation work and don't really want to, are you sure it's the right legislation? Why are you sure?

I took the view that it's the wrong legislation with good intentions, not the right legislation with a few implementation problems. I believe that because I feel that if there's no intention to follow it or even aspire to it, then there's no reason to have it. If it's the idea of a good that we don't mean to pursue then why not articulate the good that we do mean to pursue instead?

What might that look like? I have two versions in mind: the one I'd personally like to see but which I don't think can sell, and the one that I think most people want, but which they probably wouldn't admit to. But perhaps there's a third one that's still better than the current articulation -- which is murky and I feel, overcooked and only meaningful to the majority lodges who don't really need it in the first place.

[Higgins]

This topic has been up for a week now; the poll is stable at about 50:50 and yet I still feel that the discussion is barely engaged. Is it really a non-issue, are contributors still thinking it through, or are they afraid to post what they really think?



It's a difficult topic because it involves discarding plenty of evaluations that are "well grounded" in fairly standardized ways. For example, what is up with the idea that you can hate specific qualites/notions/propensities/behaviors but excuse the person who has the behavior? This is baffling to me but everyone else seems to think it makes perfect sense. I also am baffled by the use of "faith" to refer to anyone's expectation of anything at all.
These elementry difficulties of mine (of which the above is a random sample) make it very hard to contribute
productively to threads that hang by some baffling (to me)model of the relation of individual ideas and behaviors to overall taboos and/or behaviors that are rather quaintly called "hate behaviors"...for example.

[Higgins]

What you discuss here, something more fundamental, "freedom of thought" is something that'll go way beyond religious influence, the likes of which I simply do not deny. So I'm wondering if you're beginning point, freedom of religion: outmoded?, is really one starting place among many (off the top of my head, I think about U.S. advertising, idealized/phony history in school, distant parenting).




I'll contribute a possibly unproductive idea: freedom of thought and religion actually amount to freedom of expression for subcultures. However that kind of full freedom is impossible partly due to the fact that there is a lot of division of labor in advanced societies. One subculture is science. Do we really want science to be able to freely express its concerns? The problem is not that it would not be constructive but that:

1) who would have liesure time for all that expressiveness?
2) a lot of it is just plain disturbing, scary stuff
3) how much productive time would anyone want to sacrifice to that particular subculture?

Going to church, while not as enlightening, would certainly be less time-consuming since religious discourse is relatively simple, repetitive and undisturbing. You can see that religious subcultures are perhaps better adapted to not taking up too much of people's time than say the scientific subculture wherein you might easily waste all your free time and money and only go to 2% of the important conferences.

[Sean D. Schaffer]

Hey Ruv,

Sorry I haven't gotten back to you about your questions concerning my own post. I've been really busy dealing with some personal issues.

I'll see about posting something soon, but I'm going through too much right now to add anything to this discussion. Sorry.

[AMCrenshaw]

I'll contribute a possibly unproductive idea: freedom of thought and religion actually amount to freedom of expression for subcultures. However that kind of full freedom is impossible partly due to the fact that there is a lot of division of labor in advanced societies. One subculture is science. Do we really want science to be able to freely express its concerns? The problem is not that it would not be constructive but that:

1) who would have liesure time for all that expressiveness?
2) a lot of it is just plain disturbing, scary stuff
3) how much productive time would anyone want to sacrifice to that particular subculture?

Going to church, while not as enlightening, would certainly be less time-consuming since religious discourse is relatively simple, repetitive and undisturbing. You can see that religious subcultures are perhaps better adapted to not taking up too much of people's time than say the scientific subculture wherein you might easily waste all your free time and money and only go to 2% of the important conferences.

And I don't think any further legislation could change that while actually protecting "freedoms of thought".


AMC

[AMCrenshaw]

But I'd ask the counter-question: if people can't make the legislation work and don't really want to, are you sure it's the right legislation? Why are you sure?

Like I said, legislation is supposed to derive from the desires of the majority: 80+% are religious so the religiosity of courtrooms doesn't, as a general rule of thumb, bother them (and it might please them) so much as it might the minority: atheists or religious persons who don't want State connections to their religion.

So is it the legislation that alientates or marginalizes people? I don't think so. And let's say we do change the legislation, my question to you is: How do you know that will change a thing? Can such policy at the same time protect freedom of thought?



AMC

[Higgins]

And I don't think any further legislation could change that while actually protecting "freedoms of thought".


AMC

Legislation could provide mechanisms for funding more local science conference centers or mandate that people get two months off a year to go to scientific conferences.
Or there could be more scientists in the schools programs or schools could have more open-ended student time devoted to pursuing scientific projects.

[AMCrenshaw]

Legislation could provide mechanisms for funding more local science conference centers

Those mechanisms already exist don't they? Aren't grants available to anybody with the wherewithal to apply for them? Particularly now, I hear. I'd run into an analogous problem in the arts-- who's got the time and money for art?

Or there could be more scientists in the schools programs or schools could have more open-ended student time devoted to pursuing scientific projects.

And even in my poor public school, we had two different extracurricular groups (for a graduating class of 199 that's a lot) devoted to students' science projects. My alma mater has a winter and summer program that pays students $2-4k to do scientific research. Since that school's basically broke all the time, I can only imagine what other colleges and universities do.

or mandate that people get two months off a year to go to scientific conferences

And if they don't want to go to scientific conferences? Or maybe we get two months off a year to explore whatever the hell we want!


AMC

[Higgins]

Those mechanisms already exist don't they? Aren't grants available to anybody with the wherewithal to apply for them? Particularly now, I hear. I'd run into an analogous problem in the arts-- who's got the time and money for art?



And even in my poor public school, we had two different extracurricular groups (for a graduating class of 199 that's a lot) devoted to students' science projects. My alma mater has a winter and summer program that pays students $2-4k to do scientific research. Since that school's basically broke all the time, I can only imagine what other colleges and universities do.



And if they don't want to go to scientific conferences? Or maybe we get two months off a year to explore whatever the hell we want!


AMC

I'm just saying you could legislate a lot more room for various types of expressive behavior. Art and Science being very similar in perhaps needing a little shove here and there...

[Ruv Draba]

For example, what is up with the idea that you can hate specific qualites/notions/propensities/behaviors but excuse the person who has the behavior?There's a popular belief that every human mind is somehow equivalent, and that it's just learning that produces different behaviour. If we're all equivalent, says this belief, then we have no right to condemn anyone for what they do; we should just try and teach them differently.

I haven't seen any evidence that this belief is true, and a lot of evidence that it's not. Minds seem to form differently in their capabilities, their motivations, their learning, how they make decisions, how they evaluate them. Different kinds of minds create very different behaviours for very different reasons. If everyone's mind really was equivalent then it'd be a lot easier to understand them.

Among scientists for instance, non-theism is much more highly represented than in the general population and among our top scientists it's even higher still, with figures at around 73% ten years ago (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002a.html) and probably rising, compared with around 16% (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States#No_religion) in the general US population and perhaps 12% world-wide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Demographics). While some have used that as an argument for 'smart people don't believe in religion', I think that the truth is slightly different. Some kinds of minds are naturally skeptical, analytical, indifferent to authority, and more persuaded by objective facts than feelings. Such people tend not to be very religious; the smarter of them also make very good scientists.

I haven't seen a study but I strongly suspect that if the same sort of thing were done with artists we'd find very high levels of religiosity and spirituality. I suspect that the same sort of mind that leads people to religion, in more creative and expressive people also makes for great artists -- and certainly much of the world's finest art has been on religious themes.

If that's true then other than at the margins the devout may well be wasting their time trying to proselytise the skeptical just as the skeptical may be wasting their time trying to dissuade the devout. The devout might find more luck getting converts from other faiths than from no faith, and the skeptical might just have to get used to living as a minority.

It may also be true then that some minds are more xenophobic, others more xenophilic; some more punitive, others more forgiving; some quick to make judgements, others preferring to gradually build perceptions; some very concerned about What Ought to Be, others more concerned with getting along. That might actually just be part of human diversity too.

So perhaps when some people say 'I hate the behaviour but don't hate the person' it's actually true. Perhaps when others say it, it's not.

This is baffling to me but everyone else seems to think it makes perfect sense.Perhaps not everyone, but just enough others to make it feel strange. :)

I also am baffled by the use of "faith" to refer to anyone's expectation of anything at all.Sometimes 'faith' just means 'stuff I feel that I can't explain to you'. Only certain kinds of minds are good at dissecting themselves; to others their own operation remains a mystery. Also, which parts of our own minds we're aware of may itself be a varying property of mind. My scientist friends never have difficulty telling me why they think something, but often have great difficulty telling me how they feel -- even when how they feel may be obvious by their behaviour. My artist friends are the reverse: they never have difficulty expressing their feelings, but they often can't explain why their thoughts occur in the first place.

It may be then that when we're talking about hate we're not talking about one phenomenon, but several, e.g: xenophobia, punitivism, tribal protectionism, tribal conformity, or displaced anger. If that's true then efforts to be more inclusive (say) won't necessarily eliminate hate -- and I believe that for many, it doesn't.

[Ruv Draba]

I'll contribute a possibly unproductive idea: freedom of thought and religion actually amount to freedom of expression for subcultures.That's an interesting thought and it was a thought much like that which prompted me to post in the first place. My original question was: if you have freedom of expression and association, do you really need freedom of religion at all?

Perhaps you don't. Perhaps you just need freedom from religion. But then you have to say what that means.

Does it mean that the state can't impose religion on you, but your tribe or parents can? Does it mean that the state can't impose religion on you but it can 'nudge' you to conform along traditional state lines? (Apparently in the US at least, that's exactly what it means.)

And what do we mean by religion? Does it have to be a belief system involving some sort of magic, or can it be any tribal ideology? Does it have to be tribal? Could it simply be individual? And does religion include atheism say? Or secular humanism? Most people would say that a state shouldn't impose atheism on its people, but I can see a strong case for legislators imposing secular humanism -- other than the religious nation-states, most states are inherently secular anyway, and the more egalitarian states like France tend to be humanistic. But many of the devout don't want secular humanism; they'd rather have moral absolutism inspired by their sacred dogma.

I came to the conclusion that other than places like Iran, whose constitution is very prescriptive, states don't actually know what 'freedom of religion' means. I also came to the conclusion that virtually nobody wants what it literally means anyway -- most people want it to mean something else. :)

Going to church, while not as enlightening, would certainly be less time-consuming since religious discourse is relatively simple, repetitive and undisturbing.That's a great attraction of religion. It makes for very effective social glue, and although religious mythology may be very complex, the basic moral and ethical principles generally aren't -- even kids can learn them. Perhaps that's partly why religion is so appealing in difficult times.

By comparison, secular law is immensely complex, and secular moral codes like secular humanism are fuzzy at best. You do have to spend much more time with them to make any sense of them.

There's an interesting trend coming out of the UK, which is a compromise between fuzzy and complex secular morality and the simple if sometimes constrictive religious morality -- and that's to give each person a choice on civil matters: do you want to apply secular law, or tribal/religious law? The UK has a large and growing Muslim population, for example, and last year was considering adding Sharia law as an option on marital cases. I don't think it got up (a lot of the UK population was shocked at the idea), but I think it's still a very interesting notion. The same has already been done with indigenous populations in various parts of the world, including in my own country. In many examples it actually creates better stability than if you try and just apply secular law.

But that suggests a very different idea of 'freedom of religion'; it begins to mean 'choice in social order'. That's something that states may be forced to consider as their populations get bigger and more diverse. What might it be like if being an American literally depended on where in America you lived, or to which American tribe you belonged? That's certainly true for the European Union at the moment, and arguably it's already true to some degree in the US -- it just hasn't been legitimised.

[Ruv Draba]

Like I said, legislation is supposed to derive from the desires of the majority:Actually I'd say that this is emphatically not true.

Legislation is supposed to derive from the needs of the state (and here I mean its people, not its government of the day). How it's formulated and interpreted is a political matter but democratic legislation is meant to serve everyone, not just the biggest tribe. Else you get a multi-tier citizenship arrangement, much the way that Iran has -- with Iranian Muslims sitting on the top, Zoroastrian, Christian and Jewish Iranians sitting beneath, and non-Iranians and peoples of other faiths sitting on the bottom.

There's no doubt that certain tribes actually want that -- it's easy to see those sorts of pressures in the US and my own country. But democratic states generally try and resist it (except perhaps at the margins when they print religious slogans on their currency. :))

So is it the legislation that alientates or marginalizes people?Again, Rob made this point too -- he felt that the legislation is flawed, but it's the people who are screwing it up.

My view is a bit different. I think that tribes will always vie for power and tribal lodges will always amass privilege. The state has to do a balancing act that looks after the state and not just the biggest, loudest tribe. I think that clever policy-making can really help there. I also think that 'freedom of religion' in its current formulation is not an example of clever policy-making. But (for example) giving tribes an option of tribal law in civil matters, could be.

[AMCrenshaw]

Actually I'd say that this is emphatically not true.

Legislation is supposed to derive from the needs of the state

And who, do you think, determines what those needs are, Ruv?


AMC

[Ruv Draba]

And who, do you think, determines what those needs are, Ruv?In a functioning democracy any constituent can approach his elected representative with problems and concerns. When representatives serve their constituencies responsibly they serve all their constituents, including minority groups.

You're presumably alluding to what I've already stipulated, which is that the big, loud tribal lodges in a constituency get more sway on contentious issues. Of course that's true, but I think it's more reason to have an effective constitution rather than accept an ineffective one. Constitutions say what must be done and must never be done. They're a blunt instrument and they don't always hold against widespread popular opinion, but I think that they're a necessary tool in the equity toolbox.

One of the reasons that minority groups get any say is the horse-trading that goes on. If a low priority issue for me is a high priority issue for you and vice-versa, we can engage in a commerce of support: I'll back your position on your Important Issue if you'll back mine.

Minority groups often have to bide their time and pick their fights, but they tend to get heard eventually on their most important concerns. This happens a lot more quickly though when they have representatives who reflect their views than when they don't. Hence my concern about (for instance) the lack of representation of atheists in the US federal government. If you lock out representation federally then the horse-trading has to filter up through local and state levels, and that takes a lot longer.

Arguably, the principal reason that the US may have breached its own constitution in putting religious slogans on government material is that its atheists and non-Judaeo-Christians haven't been fairly represented at the federal level. If you trace back to why they haven't, I doubt that it's because they can't field good candidates. I suspect that it may have to do with the way that campaigns are funded.

Regardless though, the argument that Ceremonial Deism is innocuous begins to look specious when you consider the inequity in federal representation. "In God We Trust" is a campaign slogan for any Judaeo-Christian candidate, and against any avowedly atheistic or non-JC one. Does the US Federal government really want to condone using public funds to campaign for one tribal lodge? Eventually someone will get a clue about this, I suspect; it'll get tested as a democratic equity issue and the constitutional doublethink will fall on its face.

[AMCrenshaw]

Minority groups often have to bide their time and pick their fights, but they tend to get heard eventually on their most important concerns.

Yeah and my worry is that it'll be difficult to convey the importance of this particular battle, as one of "Freedom of thought" as opposed to "freedom of or from religion," if that makes any sense. Like, if atheists, say, argue from the separation of church and state point of view, they are sure to lose since there is already legislation that is supposed to avoid that. But on the other hand, if the aim is in elucidating how "In God We Trust" and the ten commandments in courtrooms stifle "freedom of thought" there is a better chance of success. Is this part of your point?

This happens a lot more quickly though when they have representatives who reflect their views than when they don't. Hence my concern about (for instance) the lack of representation of atheists in the US federal government.

That's what I'm saying from the beginning: how do people get elected in the first place? By majority, right? So those who represent all, including the minority, are elected necessarily by a majority-- statistically speaking, that's not a good thing for atheists or even secular humanists, regardless of religiosity.

Eventually someone will get a clue about this, I suspect; it'll get tested as a democratic equity issue and the constitutional doublethink will fall on its face.

And I imagine roughly 10% or more of the US population already has a clue about this. It's maybe unfortunate for a number of reasons that it hasn't been a priority to this US population. But I think you're right, at any rate, or I hope so.


AMC

[Higgins]

So perhaps when some people say 'I hate the behaviour but don't hate the person' it's actually true. Perhaps when others say it, it's not.



I think "hate" is just another one of those terms that have accidently gotten sucked into the ideological pulp-ing machinery. It used to mean something specific, real and more or less connected to something in the real world, but now it is just another unlucky word that got accidently pulled into the spinning vortex of ideological goo...to the point that "hate" (supposedly a strong emotion of some kind) is directed at things it is impossible to have any genuine response to...let alone a strong emotion. In ideological uses individual people can somehow "hate" whole civilizations. Oddly enough they wake up every day it seems and somehow always hate the same whole civilization. Apparently nobody in Al-Qaeda wakes up and says "Good Grief, I'm sick of Rastafarians. I guess I hate them." Which is lucky for Al-Qaeda.

[Higgins]

That's an interesting thought and it was a thought much like that which prompted me to post in the first place. My original question was: if you have freedom of expression and association, do you really need freedom of religion at all?

Perhaps you don't. Perhaps you just need freedom from religion. But then you have to say what that means.



There may be some hidden circularity in your question...which might explain why the answer can seem ellusive when perhaps it really isn't.

Here's the circularity that I see:

Let's say Religion X and State Y (for our purposes we can model these on Zororastrianism and the various Persian empires over time) get started at roughly the same time (or even more interestingly, let's suppose the generalizable morality of Zoroastrianism enables the Persian state to escape the ethnocentric theocracies that have dominated things up till say 600 BC)...In the earliest situation, subcultures exist, but there is no mass media and no really tight administrative mechanisms either. Nobody really cares about freedom from religion -- they care about freedom from being enslaved to Ashur the God of Assyria.
Eventually, administrations are tightened and mass media emerges and gigantic ideologies stuffed with the accumulated iconologies of the last 4000 years roll through the world 2600 years later. Every subculture (and in fact all culture) is threatened by these gigantic ideologies and the 4000 years of momentum behind them. It is worth noting that all religions feel threatened by aspects of the gigantic ideologies. They are perhaps far more threatened than subcultures that have more elaborate adaptive mechanisms such as for example the Arts and Sciences who have built-in ideological avoidance. A religion may be so poorly adapted to live in the world of gigantic ideologies that it can probably be completely appropriated by a gigantic ideology and not even notice it.
So...for any subculture, what a subculture needs is not freedom from some other subculture, but from pseudo-subcultures such as religions that have been taken over by gigantic ideologies. In terms of the Terminator mythology: Skynet (the gigantic ideology) is scary, but what can be really deadly is a subculture (the humanoid terminator), such as an ideologically-appropriated religion that is just the surgically destructive agency of the gigantic ideology.
The circularity is that to notice the role of subcultures is to note that they need to work on their freedom of expression to survive and part of that is to note that there are subcultures and so on...

[Ruv Draba]

if atheists, say, argue from the separation of church and state point of view, they are sure to lose since there is already legislation that is supposed to avoid that. But on the other hand, if the aim is in elucidating how "In God We Trust" and the ten commandments in courtrooms stifle "freedom of thought" there is a better chance of success. Is this part of your point?I think the 'state sponsored electoral campaigning' argument is a stronger one. 'In God We Trust, so Vote for Fred; He's Not an Atheist' is something that anyone can understand. :)

If freedom of religion seems murky to me, freedom of thought seems even murkier. How can you prove that such a freedom is being breached by advertising? And if it's being breached by one kind of advertising what about the other kinds? Moreover, there's no provision to protect thought -- neither multilaterally nor in the constitution of any state I know of. I personally prize my freedom to think what I want, but I trust me. :) I'm not sure I'd actually defend other peoples' freedoms to think something stupid -- especially when I felt that such thought was dangerous.

And I imagine roughly 10% or more of the US population already has a clue about this.I meant get a clue that Ceremonial Deism is easy to overturn.

[Ruv Draba]

The circularity is that to notice the role of subcultures is to note that they need to work on their freedom of expression to survive and part of that is to note that there are subcultures and so on...My criteria for culture/subculture are that people meet on common ground, sacrifice and compromise for common purpose and propagate common ends. From this, other cultural artifacts like language, arts, customs, mythology emerge.

Under those criteria, I'd consider religions to be cultures. Indeed, 'cult' and 'culture' both come from the same root colere (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=cult&searchmode=none) meaning 'to tend, guard, cultivate, till'.

I don't know that states need cultures; I think they just get them anyway. At minimum I think a state needs laws, an economy and a language of governance. Those laws may exist to serve culture and often do -- but they don't strictly have to. It's also enormously beneficial to a state if people have common ground and motive to sacrifice and compromise for state good -- but not strictly necessary either.

But I think I'm just reiterating an earlier point that states benefit from the glue of culture. The glue of culture can be religious but doesn't have to be. I think that part of the thinking behind the notion that freedom of religion should just be freedom of church is that religion is the best glue for a state.

But is it? The people who want 'In God We Trust' on US currency seem to think so -- and apparently in the US it's a majority opinion. Yet nobody here is arguing for it, which I take to mean that everyone thinks it shouldn't be there, or nobody is game to argue the pro- case, or nobody but AMC and me actually care. :D

So let me try to sketch possible pro- and con- arguments for state religion (including the model where a state religion can have multiple churches).

Possible 'pro' arguments include:

The benefit of an absolute moral authority;
Common reasons for community support for charities and other public good;
Common ceremonies enhancing community connectivity;
Community standards and not just laws;
Continuity of standards between generations;
A mythic enemy -- though it might be just a fictional one; and
The 'Nobody got sacked for buying IBM' argument: politicians never lose votes for being sanctimonious about the sacred.Some possible 'con' arguments include:

A moral authority isn't really absolute if its interpretation is fallible;
There isn't an established religion on earth that's not riven by political factions and differences in ideology;
Ceremonies can be expensive and cost productivity;
Religion helps the privileged amass yet more privilege;
Mythic enmities can become witch-hunts;
Standards can become taboos and phobias;
When generations differ over economy, they tend to differ over religion too;
Distraction from practical issues to the point of some practical matters not being solved at all; and
Alienation of foreign trade and immigrants.

I found a few more 'con' arguments than 'pro' but that could just be me. Did I miss some?

[Ruv Draba]

I think "hate" is just another one of those terms that have accidently gotten sucked into the ideological pulp-ing machinery. It used to mean something specific, real and more or less connected to something in the real world, but now it is just another unlucky word that got accidently pulled into the spinning vortex of ideological goo...Really? Xenophobia has been documented all through recorded history. It's not often that people fought wars against folk they adored. Some of our most colourful historical documents are rhapsodies in hatred for the foe.

And what is it that's hated most of all? If the surviving literature is any indication it's not their maggotty food, their stupid dances, their stinking sandals or even what they look like, but their ideas, attitudes and customs. Gotta exterminate 'em cos of all that bad thinkin they do.

[Higgins]

Really? Xenophobia has been documented all through recorded history. It's not often that people fought wars against folk they adored. Some of our most colourful historical documents are rhapsodies in hatred for the foe.

And what is it that's hated most of all? If the surviving literature is any indication it's not their maggotty food, their stupid dances, their stinking sandals or even what they look like, but their ideas, attitudes and customs. Gotta exterminate 'em cos of all that bad thinkin they do.

Is "hate" the same as Xenophobia? Is fear of outsiders the same as "hating" deviants? I think ideologically all that has gotten completely scrambled. I doubt anyone can recall why exactly they are supposed to hate/not hate/forgive/tolerate anything in particular.
Also, like most appeals to "but we have done it for thousands of years"....the idea falls appart under any scruitiny. In archaeology, valued items come from far away, the land of the more or less deviant by definition other and elites are people who have regular contacts with far away elites, there are customs governing the treament of guests etc. etc. Anyway I think ideologically concocted hate is a quite recent invention.

[Ruv Draba]

Is "hate" the same as Xenophobia? Is fear of outsiders the same as "hating" deviants? I think ideologically all that has gotten completely scrambled.I've argued elsewhere (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3872412&postcount=155) that fear of difference is not hatred of type. The one can create the other, but fear is not the only cause of hatred, nor does fear always result in hatred.

I doubt anyone can recall why exactly they are supposed to hate/not hate/forgive/tolerate anything in particular.People who hate strongly generally have stories to justify their hate, but I suspect that the stories change. In my experience, once we commit to hating we'll find endless reasons to justify why we do; similarly when we commit to loving we can found a thousand reasons to love.

I think ideologically concocted hate is a quite recent invention.I suspect that hate-shaped ideology has been around for as long as there have been tribes. After all, the key nature of a tribe is to be nicer to its members than to non-members. If that's so then the reverse -- ideologically-justified hate -- has probably been around for just as long.

There aren't too many religions in the world which say 'Our deity loves non-members of our religion just as much as members'. Until that happens, I suspect that religious mythologies will always hold some sort of tribal bigotry at their core.

[Higgins]

.

I suspect that hate-shaped ideology has been around for as long as there have been tribes. After all, the key nature of a tribe is to be nicer to its members than to non-members.

In anthropology "tribe" can have a pretty specific meaning: a group larger than a band or village that is a unit for some purposes, or in some other way (eg. territory, common traditions, marriage, blood vengeance) is set up as a group. In that context and meaning tribes have no ideology, they just have some things they do and the boundary can be pretty indefinite. At the cheifdom level (ie something more organized than a tribe and having some kind of heirarchy of prestige and permanent offices of some kind), then you would get some ideology, but probably nothing resembling "hate" as it is currently (and rather obsessively) orchestrated as a specialized form of entertainment for people who like their massive doses of ideology enlivened by actual potential for slaughter.

[Ruv Draba]

In that context and meaning tribes have no ideology, they just have some things they do and the boundary can be pretty indefinite.Many tribes have myths supporting their common aims and ways. What are such myths if not seeds of ideology?

I don't insist that all tribes have an ideology, but here we're talking about tribes bound by common religion (and possibly by other things too).

Religion often idealises battle; battle is often seen as religious sacrifice. Religion and conflict have had a long and dark love-affair. I think that the same is true of religion and hate.

This comes to one of the prongs of my question -- freedom of religion seems to include the entitlement to teach whatever you like about other tribes, no matter how hateful and no matter how wrong you get it. To consider them inferior, corrupt, contaminated, taboo, unworthy of life. To vilify them, foment hate against them, to propagate myths about how they'll all be exterminated in a final cleansing, or be forced to bow to your superior morality, and to dance and sing for joy at the prospect. To breed supremacism, intolerance, misunderstanding and outright deceit about other people.

Is that what the conceivers of such freedoms intended? I'd argue that it's not, that in fact it's the opposite of what was intended.

My contention is that a pluralistic state can't afford to support schools of thought that embrace hate and genocide as ideals -- or to put it more cynically, not if the target victims of such hate and genocide are a substantial proportion of its own population. This is why I think we see such an odd asymmetry in who's allowed to say and think what at the moment... Supremacist Muslim clerics in the West are finding it harder to talk about a glorious time when pop music will be eradicated and Christendom will be winnowed until it bows to the naturally superior Islam, while supremacist Christian clerics are still frothing at their pulpits happily vilifying Muslims, Atheists, the secular and everything but their own sect of Christianity.

With that said, I don't believe that all thought is equally good, or that all religions are equally good and I don't know anyone who can credibly defend the proposition that they are. So what I'm wondering is:


What articulation of freedom of religion and freedom of thought allows genuine discussion and debate about religion and morality while not supporting the propagation of hate-myths?
Or... do we like our hate-myths too much to divest ourselves of them? Should we make it open slather, and continue to let people invent calumnies about one other, and foment secret hates while smiling politely and pretending to respect each other? (Where is National Brotherhood Week (http://www.youtube.com/user/6funswede) when you need it? :D)
Or... should states try and stick to one religion or a set of mutually-friendly religions and not try for broad pluralism?

[STKlingaman]

Religion is the single biggest problem
man/womankind has, next is language.

Have your beliefs, they're yours and
shouldn't need to be shared with others.

Have your relationship with the deity of
your choice, it should be yours and yours
alone, and will be uniquely yours. It does not
need to be shared with anyone, sharing your
unique bond with your deity will can only
lead to misunderstanding, and argument.
No two people can have the exact same
relationship with god. Keep it between you
and your God, cherish it, allow it to grow,
and keep it solely yours.

Church is like a country club, where people
with like interest go to socialize.

Don't confuse; religion, god, faith, belief
and church they are very different things.

[semilargeintestine]

Don't confuse; religion, god, faith, belief
and church they are very different things.

Pretty much none of what you said applies to an Orthodox Jewish community.

[STKlingaman]

Pretty much none of what you said applies to an Orthodox Jewish community.

Thank you for making my point.

[AMCrenshaw]

or to me, I am infallible! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discordianism)



AMC

[semilargeintestine]

Thank you for making my point.

I am unclear how that proves your point, or really what your point is.

[Ruv Draba]

Religion is the single biggest problem
man/womankind has, next is language.I don't agree with that, and I'm an atheist. :)

Don't confuse; religion, god, faith, belief
and church they are very different things.For some, church, religion, faith and divinity are all inseparably connected. For others, certain bits are separable. For me, I don't at all mind but I do care about beliefs and how they lead people to treat one another.

[Higgins]

Many tribes have myths supporting their common aims and ways. What are such myths if not seeds of ideology?



It seems to me that it ought to be possible to keep some anthropological terms (such as tribe in some contexts) in roughly their methodological meanings at least when discussing actual tribes (the 18th century Navaho being an instructive case of this). The Navaho identity emerged when a set of Athapaskan bands allied themselves with a set of refugee pueblo village units.
These outsiders were incorporated by bringing in many of their mythic and ceremonial elements, but explicitly subordinating them to an overall identity that was invented for that purpose. So you have a tribe, an identity, and even bits of institutionalized ascription of inferiority to others (though the Pueblos do still have the notorious "non-sunlight-struck maidens" even at the worst/best in Navaho mythology), but no Cheifs or other structures for mobilization and so no ideology. The burden of demonstrating ideological mechanisms should be on the demonstration of mechanisms and not on people (like me) who don't see every human thought as an ideological moment. After all if you assume ideology or its seeds are always everywhere then you are putting forward a vast notion that is very hard to define at all as something separate with any logic or particular mode of action.

[Ruv Draba]

It seems to me that it ought to be possible to keep some anthropological terms (such as tribe in some contexts) in roughly their methodological meanings at least when discussing actual tribesI agree, except where anthropology is used for politics and not science (and I don't think you're trying to), or where it's so abstruse as to be unhelpful to general discussion (and I don't think it is).

To help it along, let me explain that I've been using 'tribe' to mean a collection of people often but not always bound by kinship, brought together on common ground (e.g. geography, customs, a common foe or belief in a common past), sacrificing and setting aside differences to perpetuate their common purpose and collective existence. They're a social entity but not necessarily a political one. They're more complex than family or band, but smaller and less complex than State (and may ignore State entirely). They're perhaps our smallest unit of culture other than family.

This usage is consistent with accepted anthropological usage I think. It's also consistent with the latin root tribus, and historical usage like 'The 12 Tribes of Israel'. I don't think this usage is a problem to you -- rather I think you're twitching about 'ideology' in a tribe, so let me press on.

The burden of demonstrating ideological mechanisms should be on the demonstration of mechanisms and not on people (like me) who don't see every human thought as an ideological moment.Actually it was you who introduced 'ideology' back here (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3785769&postcount=13), so I'd say the first burden is on you to define what you meant by it. :) I took you to mean a coherent but not necessarily formally-managed body of ideas, propagated in a group and not necessarily political in nature.

That being so, the myths underpinning tribal identity and ways could quite easily be an ideology, regardless of whether there's a chief. But if you don't like that then I don't really mind. I'll happily swap out your term and use 'lore', which I'd prefer anyway, because then I don't feel like Karl Marx is looking over my shoulder. :)

I'd also point out that if we insist that tribes are 'primitive social organisations' (and I'm not saying that you do) then we're being dumb and bigoted simultaneously. When literate, highly organised people with advanced ICT want to form a tribe there's nothing stopping them using their skills and technology to help shape and perpetuate it -- it will still perambulate and vocalise like a water-fowl. A group of football-team supporters is still a waddling, quacking tribe for all that it may be nucleated on a football club with a charter, authorised garments, cosmetics, merchandise, have its own branded credit-card, a Code of Conduct, a book of club history, club songs, tales of club heroes, and a league table, a web-site and recognition by the State. :D

Tribal identity happily incorporates xenophobia, grudges or hatred as part of its raison d'être. Where hatred exists there's no impediment to it being brought into lore and propagated in custom and myth. We see numerous examples of just that today in sports clubs.

Why must hatred follow ideology? That seems a political assertion, not a scientific observation. It's fairly evident that lore follows hate quite readily. For example, poor sportsmanship (http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Underarm%2081&rls=com.microsoft:en-au:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADBR&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#) causing the team to lose a final gets the whole crowd booing. Next minute it's become tribal lore, perpetuating the grudge (http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Underarm%2081&rls=com.microsoft:en-au:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADBR&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#) for generations.

[Higgins]

Actually it was you who introduced 'ideology' back here (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3785769&postcount=13), so I'd say the first burden is on you to define what you meant by it. :) I took you to mean a coherent but not necessarily formally-managed body of ideas, propagated in a group and not necessarily political in nature.


The only additional points I would make about ideology as a concept is that it has the social function (at least originally) of mobilizing a population (not a tribe, but a group under some heirarchy such as in a Cheifdom or a State). Since an ideology is whatever works to mobilize, it doesn't have to approximate any set of coherent ideas, it just has to be used to mobilize a population in ways outside of any real personal interest (so for example blood vengeance and the desire for plunder are not ideological at least originally).

[AMCrenshaw]

Tribal identity happily incorporates xenophobia, grudges or hatred as part of its raison d'être.

Necessarily? I'm on shaky ground here so please bear with me.

But as a gut reaction I don't think that to affirm one's own tribal identity means to place a symbolic value judgment on another tribe and I don't think xenophobia is absolutely inherent in tribes of modern connotation. Aren't there tribes built with the opposite in mind? That encourage transgression? That actively challenge custom? That actively question lore? Or ... is such a tribe not-a-tribe because myths do not underpin it?


AMC

[Higgins]

Necessarily? I'm on shaky ground here so please bear with me.

But as a gut reaction I don't think that to affirm one's own tribal identity means to place a symbolic value judgment on another tribe and I don't think xenophobia is absolutely inherent in tribes of modern connotation. Aren't there tribes built with the opposite in mind? That encourage transgression? That actively challenge custom? That actively question lore? Or ... is such a tribe not-a-tribe because myths do not underpin it?


AMC

I agree that tribal identity (at least in its original context) may have nothing at all to do with xenophobia. For example, Navaho tribal identity in the 18th century had to do with including Pueblo refugees. An identity had to be constructed that could do that.

[Ruv Draba]

The only additional points I would make about ideology as a concept is that it has the social function (at least originally) of mobilizing a population (not a tribe, but a group under some heirarchy such as in a Cheifdom or a State).I'm not entirely sure what you mean by mobilise, but I think you just said 'All ideology is the propaganda of a controlling elite' -- almost a Marxist view of ideology.

I see ideology as a coherent body of ideas. While propaganda (whether originating with an elite or not) can create it, so too can just exchanging questions, observations and views. To keep it on-topic, there are many religions and sects where people just share ideas without central management. I have some Quaker friends and Buddhist friends whose faiths work that way. They may respect certain people for their knowledge, but those people don't push dogma down their throats. Such groups have their own ideology, but it's often heavily contested and I'd never call it propaganda.

Since an ideology is whatever works to mobilize, it doesn't have to approximate any set of coherent ideasHere I think you're saying that 'propaganda doesn't have to be ideology', and I'd agree. It can just be outrageous and unconnected claims, like 'Canadians eat their own young' and 'Maple syrup is made from Canadian ear-wax'.

Which makes me want to ask: why are you talking about propaganda at all? It doesn't much create or sustain tribe but can goad them. It can sometimes support ideology but not always. And of course tribes use it when they're competing with other tribes. And... so what?

[Ruv Draba]

Necessarily?Not necessarily, but tribes do sometimes strengthen identity by hating other tribes. I'd also assert that even when they're not out to hate, tribes also find it very hard to be as fair and kind with other tribes as they are with their own.

Aren't there tribes built with the opposite in mind? That encourage transgression? That actively challenge custom?There are tribes that form around challenging dominant tribes... so counter-cultures form in opposition to cultures. But I think that they still hold their own values as a condition of membership. else they wouldn't be tribes. They might question their own lore, but I think that they do it in approved ways.

This has some relevance to me because although I'm an atheist I'm not a member of an atheist tribe. Atheism alone can't form tribe. We need to add something more -- and traditionally atheists never agree on what that thing should be. Thus, when tribes who hate atheists talk about us as though we're a tribe I just want to laugh, or shake them or both.

I think that I am a member of a humanist tribe though... it happens to include peoples of many religions and ethnicities. The acid test for me is that while as a humanist I have very warm regard for humanity, I save my best regard for fellow humanists. :) When I track my charity dollars I note that while they go to secular and sectarian recipients almost indiscriminately, they only go to groups that do work consistent with my humanistic values and beliefs. I try to be kind and sympathetic to groups who aren't humanistic, but my sympathy only stretches so far and then exhausts itself. Humanistically I want to love my fellow man equally, but when I look at it rationally, it's entirely beyond me. :D And when I talk to people of other beliefs, I end up seeing the same.

For me, freedom of religion is a humanistic principle but try as I might, I can't find a sensible way to extend it to faiths that embrace genocide, persecution or inequity for other religions. Given that the dogma of many popular religions either require, encourage or celebrate just that I'm forced to ask: what the heck is this Freedom trying to achieve?

[AMCrenshaw]

when I look at it rationally, it's entirely beyond me

I don't measure my relationship with any tribe based on charity dollars (I ain't got money, Ruv!) I give or receive from them, but I understand your thought. When I think about how we interact with people on a daily basis, however, I imagine our efforts probably go a relatively long way -- but yes we have limits to our every thing, including our kindness.

Do we know every person in our tribes (/is this part of the definition?)? I'm not convinced that's how we work on the whole, except maybe as a higher probability. Often the entirety of our individual efforts don't contribute even in our own comfort-zones.

AMC

[Higgins]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by mobilise, but I think you just said 'All ideology is the propaganda of a controlling elite' -- almost a Marxist view of ideology.



Well, its not that simple, I don't think. For example, in an idealized, purely tribal context, people have and use symbols in order to construct a relatively coherent system of symbols. Ie, one symbol leads symbolically to the next symbol and so one proceeds by thought from one set of symbolically connect symbols to the next.
But at some point some symbols are appropriated and there is a break between simple symbolic coherence and a socially appropriated symbol. In the 18th century the Navaho did this with the Athapaskan house form. they made it "more sacred" (clearly an ideological move) and arranged their ceremonial and social orders to radiate from this appropriated symbol. Now you can say this is propaganda, but I don't think it clarifies things and there is no elite involved either. This is the simplest case of ideological appropriation I can think of and it doesn't do a lot (affirms a tribal identity, excludes Pueblo symbols from the "most sacred"...but not from anything else). Note there is no elite and really no propaganda so I think elite control and propaganda are different from the basic operation of ideology, though obviously associated eventually.

[Ruv Draba]

I don't measure my relationship with any tribe based on charity dollars (I ain't got money, Ruv!) I give or receive from them, but I understand your thought.Well, it doesn't have to be dollars. It could be time or advice or just the support of our opinion. We tend to support our tribes more than the tribes of others.

Do we know every person in our tribes (/is this part of the definition?)?Tribes don't always have lists of names but they need ways of recognising their members. Religious tribes often have symbols and fetishes. Or there might be decorations or customs, or language.

I don't have very strong tribal bonds -- perhaps because my agreeability gland is so vestigial, but I do recognise certain symbols as being associated with people of my humanist tribe:

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/images/humanist.jpghttp://intepid.com/res/745.gifhttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Human_evolution_scheme.png

I don't carry such symbols myself, or seek them... in fact I normally pay more attention to how people think and behave than to what they display. But I do generally know when I'm in the company of a humanist fairly quickly, and it does sometimes lift the bar on what I'm willing to invest.

[Ruv Draba]

Well, its not that simple, I don't think. [...] I think elite control and propaganda are different from the basic operation of ideology, though obviously associated eventuallyWell, just because you didn't say what you actually meant but rather just hedged on my guess at it, I can't respond at all now. Instead, for anyone who, like me, didn't know what an Athapaskan was, here's a picture of the famous 'Athapasket gasket' -- an ingenious leather device that could serve as neck-wear, a privy-warmer and a tonsure template for Athapaskan monks.

http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/tresors/treasure/images/249_6.gif

[Higgins]

Well, just because you didn't say what you actually meant but rather just hedged on my guess at it, I can't respond at all now.


I was aiming at an snapshot of a moment that showed a tribe almost developing a tribal ideology. Instead it solidified an identity, but used only fortifications and ceremonials to defend it: ie the ideology didn't develop its own momentum, instead there was an elaboration in the ceremonial/ritual sphere.

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w119/californianative415/nicolefamilyshots1037.jpg

[Ruv Draba]

I was aiming at an snapshot of a moment that showed a tribe almost developing a tribal ideology. Instead it solidified an identity, but used only fortifications and ceremonials to defend it: ie the ideology didn't develop its own momentum, instead there was an elaboration in the ceremonial/ritual sphere.I got that. What I didn't get was the 'so what' part... join the dots for me please?

http://filipspagnoli.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/church-state.jpg

[Higgins]

I got that. What I didn't get was the 'so what' part...

I was thinking that one model for describing how tribes become Chiefdoms is that one aspect of the tribal ideology runs out of control. For example, everybody starts building mounds or piling up skulls or taking no prisoners or painting themselves blue.

[dclary]

Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
And because the world is not just the US, here it is again in the constitution of my own country:

116. The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.





Clause 116? LOL... how did that work. "All right, mates. We've got freedom of speech, freedom of breweries, rights to shoot wallabees and walkabout rules. We've declared Fosters the official beer, and we've condemned The Outback restaurant chain. What else should we have in the government? Oy?"

"What about that thing everyone does in England?"

"Piss off?"

"No, the other one."

"Church?"

"Yeah!"

"Oy! That's a great idea, mate!"

[Ruv Draba]

You forgot our national sport -- dunny-racing:

http://www.finda.com.au/media/img/news/2009/01/05/dunny.jpg

[Higgins]

You forgot our national sport --

And mine

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/2408/slide_2408_31622_large.jpg

[Ruv Draba]

I was thinking that one model for describing how tribes become Chiefdoms is that one aspect of the tribal ideology runs out of control. For example, everybody starts building mounds or piling up skulls or taking no prisoners or painting themselves blue.Leaders often tap into ideology to preserve power (that's the propaganda thing again), but does ideology necessarily sustain leaders? I think it depends.

We might adopt an ideology for many reasons but I'd like to pick on four particular psychologies (which I draw from Keirsey's Personality Types (http://www.keirsey.com/)):

Guardian: connection to history, tradition, ancestors, family, tribe. When I read Roger Carlson's posts in the religion forums, they're often about such connections.
Idealist: purity of thought, spiritual intensity of inspiration. I think of AM Crenshaw's posts when I think of this sort of engagement.
Rational: 'Can you prove it? Does it work? Is it efficient?' That'd be me, say. Just the facts, ma'am.
Artisan: Delight in the now, stimulation of the senses and exploration of the physical self as both a crafting and sensing being. Rock stars and chefs sometimes find religion in their craft. He doesn't post here often, but I think of Doomie's posts in this category.We might be drawn to an ideology for more than one of the above (and I'm not suggesting that Roger, AMC, Doomie or me have just one reason to like/dislike any belief), but often it'll be one motive above the others.

If you took a religious dogma and put it into our eight hands I think you'd quickly get four different faiths. Likewise, if we four were born into the same faith it'd be hard to imagine us agreeing on choice of leader -- or if we did, it probably wouldn't be for the same reasons. :D

I can also attest (though I can't prove it to you) that my rationalist psyche started forming at about the time I started learning language (I know this because of the kinds of questions I asked, and the way I viewed answers). It would have been extraordinarily difficult to try and make a traditionalist or an artisan out of me, and I don't think I'd have been comfortable as an idealist much past my teens.

All of which tells me that ideology alone doesn't sustain chiefdom -- I suspect that our psychology and situations pick our chiefs. Ideology may weigh into it one way or another, but I don't think it's the most important factor, because chiefs can be any of the above types.

Which leads me to the following thought:

I suspect that many religious conflicts are actually conflicts between traditionalism, idealism, rationalism and hedonism. It's easy to find examples within religions (e.g. the Platonic idealism of Eastern Orthodox Christianity vs. the Aristotelian rationalism of Catholic Christianity), or between religions (e.g. the traditionalism of fundamentalist Islam vs the growing hedonism of modern Christian thinking).

If that's so then I don't think that freedom of religion is sufficient to keep people of different faiths co-operating -- and it does nothing for people of the same faith but different psychologies. I think we need something deeper -- a sense of freedom of values that at the preserves a fundamental respect for human life and dignity while at the same time allowing people whose minds work very differently to our own, to live rich and fulfilling lives according to their own innate psychology.

The more I think about this the more I'd like to ditch freedom of religion in favour of freedom of thought and values -- within certain humanitarian limits.

[AMCrenshaw]

All along we're having inter-personality-type dialogue.

[AMCrenshaw]

Are these personality types inherent? Do they appear cross-culturally? Can ideologies create or destroy certain personality types?



AMC

[Ruv Draba]

Are these personality types inherent? Do they appear cross-culturally? Can ideologies create or destroy certain personality types?Keirsey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keirsey)'s personality typing builds on Myers-Briggs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-briggs) typing which builds on some foundational work by Jung (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jung). Rather than simply being boxes, the typing tries to answer certain key cognitive questions:

Where do you mostly get the energy from to sustain your endeavours -- yourself (Introverted) or others (Extravered)?
How do you best take in information -- by imagining (iNtuitive) or by doing (Sensate)?
How do you best evaluate options -- by Thinking or Feeling?
How do you best find next steps -- by Judging or Perceiving?Guardian types prefer to learn by doing and select next steps by judging (Sensate Judging). When a guardian wants to challenge or explore, they'll say 'Show Me. That's Right/That's Wrong'.

Idealist types prefer to learn by inspiration. They imagine their way through next steps according to their own feelings or those of others (Intuitive Feeling). 'How would I feel if...? Who would I be if?'

Rational types prefer to learn by imagining and to navigate by analysing the options (Intuitive Thinking). We're obsessed with logical truth -- consistency, consequence, inference. We'll say 'Prove It. That's Correct/Incorrect. That's Efficient/Inefficient.'

Artisan types learn by physical delight (Sensory Perceiving). 'Show me. That's cool/That's lame!'

To me, these 'types' look like learning/thinking strategies exercised to the point of differential strength. Within families you can get a diversity of types, but particular types often dominate.

Within populations, some types are more common than others. Within different occupations, certain types come strongly to the fore.

As we develop we acquire certain strategies at different periods in our lives. Eventually we tend toward a couple of really strong traits -- which presumably strengthen with use. We can train ourselves to be more balanced in later life but it's hard and most people don't try.

There are some other interesting characteristics of Keirsey's types. The Idealists and Guardians are called the Agreeables -- they make excellent social glue. Idealists care about feelings and being so they'll try to connect. Guardians care about tradition so they'll defend the status quo. The Rationals and Artisans are called the Pragmatists. They seek the useful over the sentimental or traditional.

Statistically the biggest predictor of what faith you have is the faith of your family and community. Whether that's because it's what we're taught or simply that it's far more beneficial to work within your community's values and beliefs, I don't know. But it's also recognised that certain faiths (or rather certain sects of certain faiths) favour certain personality types.

Guardians love tradition and ritual. You can tell the guardian types -- they're the one organising the feasts, keeping track of birthdays, dusting off the heirlooms, hoarding the family albums. This is critical social behaviour because it renews tribal bonds, provides continuity into the future. Faiths with strong, tangible traditions are a Rock of Ages for Guardians.

Idealists love emotional nuance and expression, delight in finding new inspiration, new ways of being, new meaning in old things, emotional connections between the otherwise unconnected. They write the most inspirational prose and poetry. A faith with a strong emotional individuality, with deep humanitarian principles will often appeal to an idealist (and if you don't offer them one, they'll often invent it themselves).

Rationals tend not to care about faith, except as an object of study. They'll either comply with the faith that they're born to -- often in a fairly cursory fashion -- or they'll reject it entirely and often not bother to replace it. There are more rational atheists and agnostics than any other kind, and strident atheists tend to be strident rationals who also happen not to believe in gods.

Artisans follow opportunity and coolth. If the religion is cool or can be made cool then they'll stick with it -- else they'll go with one that's cooler. They don't normally invent a religion, but they may borrow practices from other faiths if they add to the cachet or delight of the faith. Madonna embracing yoga and Cabalism while promoting sexual liberation and preserving the imagery of her Roman Catholic childhood, is an egregious example of artisan opportunism. :)

If you want to see just how big a gap there is in thought about these things, you only need to look at (say) my typical exchanges with GeorgeK. Here's the sort of back-and-forth we have:

GeorgeK (posting after having stared out of the window): Life is a box of chocolates.
Ruv (posting after having finished a diatrabe against Cloud Layer Computing): Huh? Prove it.
GeorgeK: What!? Prove it's not! They're both rich, warm and to be savoured. And when they're gone, they're gone. And.. hmm... am I the chocolate or the person eating the chocolate?
Ruv: Rat-haggis! Chocolate's a static, manufactured mixture of cocoa, fat and sugar. Human life is amino acids and water. It's dynamic, conceived and evolving. And you're using different meanings of 'rich' 'warm' and 'savoured'. And what has a box to do with anything? And before I'll consider a chocolate to be a person I want to see it win a Nobel prize. Geez dude, read some science and l2dictionary.
GeorgeK: Non sequitur. And clever sophistry so you can ignore what I've said.
Ruv: :crazy:
GeorgeK: :Shrug:
Ruv (edits a previous post to add three more arguments showing why Cloud Layer Computing enthusiasts are eight kinds of fool)
GeorgeK (goes back to staring out the window)

:roll::roll::roll:

Personality types are more resilient than ideologies. Example: After the Bolshevik revolution in early 20th century Russian religion was virtually stamped out and remained deprecated for most of the 20th century in favour of socialist materialism. But ten years after Perestroika, 65% of ethnic Russia was back to being Russian Orthodox. Why? Thank the Guardians -- who'd (perhaps secretly) preserved all those traditions and teachings in family and community for generations -- this despite whatever kids were taught in schools. Thank the Idealists too, for whom Being Russian means a deep connection to Russian ideals.

[AMCrenshaw]

Sorry for the tangent, but I'm an INTP (architect) on some tests and INFP (healer) on others. Again, I think it's the Gemini coming out -- one twin is T and the other F?


AMC

[Ruv Draba]

Sorry for the tangent, but I'm an INTP (architect) on some tests and INFP (healer) on others. Again, I think it's the Gemini coming out -- one twin is T and the other F?It might depend on mode, AMC. According to the theory, every INTP is a closet INFP and vice-versa. Einstein was a solid INTP with a soft, gooey INFP core -- and so was Newton. I'm a pretty solid INTP, but squeeze me real hard and I drip INFP too.

Not that I'm qualified or my opinion counts but in your posts I think your feelings lead and your thinking makes it coherent and effective. Pressed to choose between an ideal and pragmatics you'll choose the ideal and make it work. Likewise, you'll care to look after individuals while I'll generally steamroll them to make a highway. :D We're both equally scornful of tradition, which make us prime targets for Reeducation (or Disappearance) the next time the Guardians hold a Fundamentalist Purge. (Then again, in fairness to the Guardians they don't produce the worst dictators -- it's the Idealists who do. :D)

In consolation for producing Hitler and Pol Pot, the Idealists also produce some of the most inspirational spiritual folk in history. When the inspiration flies, it flies -- you get Gandhi and Oprah. Likewise, the Artisans have Michaelangelo and Elvis, the Rationals get Einstein and Ayn Rand, and the Guardians get George Washington and Mother Theresa. Essentially, every type produces something we need. But equally I think it'd be hard for Gandhi, Michelangelo, Einstein and mother Theresa to agree on the nature of man, much less religion. (And even harder for Oprah, Elvis, Washington and Rand to stay in the same room without shedding blood).

We're suck with that, I'm afraid.

(INTP indulgence: there is no credible scientific evidence that astrology is an effective diagnostic or predictive tool. Most scientists view it as an atavistic superstition and not to be mixed with psychology. Famous astrologers have been debunked more times than Robert Downey Jr has had drug-busts, suggesting that their devoted followers were finding their own personal meaning in cynical and deluded platitudes. Also, even mentioning astrology in a post about psychology pretty much flies the NF flag and shows the NF tattoo on your butt. Sorry, but I had to say it or else spend some time in the Quiet Room screaming to myself. :D)

[AMCrenshaw]

I agree with your opinion, actually -- and from the perspective that we should be trying to cultivate the virtues of each personality-type it only makes sense that we would move to enact some freedom of thought or freedom of expression policy. As an egalitarian measure, it would by definition include "freedom of religion." Why not the experimentation with the law?



AMC

* as a brownie point, I feel like we've set this exact thing as the intent for this subforum, a sub-section of a cyber (is there a special personality type for zoombie?) community and for the most part, followed up on that intent in practice. From my perspective that could mean that pragmatics sometimes yield a speculated or desired outcome, maybe rarely an ideal one. That the details of an ideal can be worked out and precipitated into action.

[Ruv Draba]

I agree with your opinion, actually -- and from the perspective that we should be trying to cultivate the virtues of each personality-type it only makes sense that we would move to enact some freedom of thought or freedom of expression policy. As an egalitarian measure, it would by definition include "freedom of religion." Why not the experimentation with the law?Law works better in protecting institutions than ideals. Institutions can be recognised by their bricks-and-mortar, or their officially registered identities. Freedom of religion can be administered because (in a legal sense) a religion is based on either a congregation -- an association of people that you can register -- or a church -- a 'house' that you can so designate for religious purpose, or some sort of ritual or behaviour.

Likewise with freedom of expression or association. An expression is something we declaim or publish. In associating we're seen to be in the company of others.

But how about a thought or a value? How can I tell what it is? What defines its scope and bounds? What defines its beginning and end?

From a legal perspective a religion is more or less what it does, who participates and what it owns. If you can't define those things it effectively has no status. I don't particularly care whether my secular humanistic beliefs are recognised as a religion, but if I wanted them to be I would have to associate them with a particular activity (rituals etc...), or a register of participants, or some property dedicated to humanism. Since ritualising secularism defeats the purpose, since 'secular humanist property' seems dumb (why not just rent a property for a specific secular purpose?), and since as secular humanist I happily associate with anyone who's doing something humanistic -- even if they don't share all my values... how do I define my edges? How is the right to secular humanistic thought preserved as the right to Christian or Muslim thought is preserved?

The short answer is: it's not. Secular humanism is frequently thought of and treated as an erosion of values, rather the construction and exercise of values. Humanism finds its strongest religious refuge in sectarian corners like Buddhism and Quakerism, while secular humanism finds its refuge in the sciences.

There are two problems with the latter:
1) The sciences are values-free, while secular humanism is rich in values;
2) Society is fickle about the sciences -- we only support them while they're doing something useful (and rightly so).

For this reason, it's rather frustrating to defend every secular humanist position on the basis that it feeds the poor or cures the sick. No sectarian belief-system in living memory has had to prove a miracle to justify a values-claim. These days it's enough to hide behind bricks-and-mortar and tribal ceremony, and call it sacred and inviolate. :)

In fairness too, this problem isn't confined to humanism. Communism is a values-based ideology that has had an atrocious run in certain places in the last 100 years. This despite the fact that many forms of communism are non-militant (like many forms of Islam) and benignly-intended. The McCarthy witch-hunts of the 1950s could never have occurred if freedom of thought and values were in place, rather than freedom of religion.
I feel like we've set this exact thing as the intent for this subforum, a sub-section of a cyber (is there a special personality type for zoombie?) community and for the most part, followed up on that intent in practice.It'd be easy to brand inclusiveness, mutual respect and a free exchange of ideas as humanistic but I think that would be a political stunt. I think that some participants don't particularly like humanism, yet still participate well here. Perhaps a better truth is that writing requires observation and reflection, and exposure to new ways of seeing and thinking about things -- some of that yields humanism, but some doesn't. Maybe what we have is a Writerist community. :D
From my perspective that could mean that pragmatics sometimes yield a speculated or desired outcome, maybe rarely an ideal one. That the details of an ideal can be worked out and precipitated into action.As a pragmatist with closet ideals I take a secret delight when efficient problem-solving yields elegant results. I also don't mind at all when an ideal also happens to be practical (though I'll test the butt off it first before acknowledging it). But an enormous amount of effective communication must also appeal to the Guardian and Artisan in all of us too. What else are crime-stories and James Bond thrillers about?

In the end I don't know that Oprah, Elvis, George Washington and Ayn Rand need to be the best of friends. I think it's sufficient if there's enough difference in perspective that each keeps the worst excesses of the others in check, enough respect for the strengths of each that they don't try and obliterate each other -- and enough variety that whatever the challenges are, one or another of them can solve it. :D It's that health that I'd like to see enshrined in Freedom of Thought -- though I still don't know how to do that. Regardless though, I don't believe that Freedom of Religion is necessary or sufficient to enshrine that health. Indeed, atrocities like the McCarthy witch-hunts, and flagrant abuses like religious motifs on government publications are proof to me that it's not.

[AMCrenshaw]

What else are crime-stories and James Bond thrillers about?

Nothing (that I can tell)*.

[C.bronco]

I don't think it's right to legislate or decree what others should believe. We were given free will for a reason.

[Ruv Draba]

I don't think it's right to legislate or decree what others should believe. We were given free will for a reason.In some countries the practice of certain beliefs is forbidden -- for instance in Iran, any non-Abrahamic faith is forbidden (along with non-theism). In Bolshevik Russia, Russian Orthodox clergy were shot, and Russian church properties were confiscated by the state, while devout churchgoers were sent to prison-camps.

But in many countries they persecute particular kinds of thought without even acknowledging that they do it. They don't do this using legislation to outlaw it; they do it by failing to provide adequate protections for the rights of minority beliefs in the first place. This lets sufficiently xenophobic majorities do whatever they can get away with. The persecution of Communists in the USA in the 1950s is an example -- their expression were protected under the First Amendment but their persecution was not for what they said but for what they might be thinking and with whom they might be associating. The same sometimes happens to Muslims today: the media sometimes challenge Muslims with: 'prove that you're a friend or I'll assume that you're an enemy'. Anti-atheistic discrimination has also been strong at times (not just because of 'Godless Communists' but because of a government-sanctioned sensibility that 'Godlessness is Unamerican')

[semilargeintestine]

Need I mention the dozens of countries that have forbidden Judaism over the millenia? Even today, you can be Jewish in Arab countries so long as you admit to being beneath Muslims (obviously not in all places in every Arab country, but I'd say it is true overall; it may even be true about Christians).

[Lhun]

In some countries the practice of certain beliefs is forbidden -- for instance in Iran, any non-Abrahamic faith is forbidden (along with non-theism). In Bolshevik Russia, Russian Orthodox clergy were shot, and Russian church properties were confiscated by the state, while devout churchgoers were sent to prison-camps.There is though, an important distinction to be made because of the motivations for outlawing religion(s) in these cases. Theocracies like many islamic countries outlaw religions other than their own, because they only wish to allow their one true religion to be followed. The totalitarian states like the USSR and china do not so much outlaw religions, as alternative power structures. Stalin certainly didn't care about beliefs, but he did not allow any kind of hierarchy with influence over the people than his own. Priests were shot as well as intellectuals (many of which were probably atheists) because no competition could be allowed to exist.

[Ruv Draba]

Even today, you can be Jewish in Arab countries so long as you admit to being beneath MuslimsMy reading of Islam indicates that the religion in its traditional form embraces other Abrahamic faiths, but considers Islam politically and morally superior -- not co-equal. That's certainly Iran's interpretation of Islam, as set out in its constitution. But that's my reading of traditional Christianity and Judaism too -- which means that my sympathy for devotees of one supremacist faith complaining about another is perforce limited.

I've previously expressed my humanitarian concern at supremacist religions in other posts, and won't repeat it here. I consider such dogma morally flawed, and those who uphold such dogma either dangerously naive or slightly deranged -- especially since there isn't a religion in the world that hasn't suffered at the hands of supremacism from one group or another.

The defenders of such positions often argue 'Yes, but our supremacism is right' -- which is unfortunately the defence of all supremacism, secular and sectarian. That fact alone makes the argument too specious to accept if it weren't already too amoral to consider in the first place.

As a secular humanist I don't object to religion one bit, though it's not for me. Indeed, I'm glad that we have it.

I do deeply challenge religious or secular supremacism of any kind though (including atheist and rationalist supremacism) on moral grounds. In my personal experience trying to prise the devout away from their supremacist tenets has been an especially difficult and sometimes personally painful experience.

What enheartens me is that every faith has moderates who embrace the faith and reject the supremacist dogma. Unfortunately, those who uphold the faith generally tolerate the supremacism even when they reject it personally -- so the default is that the supremacism remains unchallenged even though (as I feel) it's long past its use-by date.

Supremacism is frequently associated with fundamentalism and I think that the two are linked but not identical. I believe (though I've yet to see it demonstrated) that one can hold a religion to be fundamentally true without having to accept all of it as fundamentally correct or interpreted properly. But I think that requires a level of healthy questioning that fundamentalists often eschew -- indeed, in my experience if you try and raise the question they'll persecute you for it as an attack on their faith.

Ultimately I don't think that it's up to secular humanists to change someone else's religion. I think that it's up to the faithful to do so -- but that requires faithful moderates to have the courage of their convictions and challenge the faithful supremacists. I suppose that this leaves me to challenge the courage and integrity of the moderates -- which is in part the purpose of this thread.

Which of course leads me back to a facet of the original question: if we uphold Freedom of Religion on humanitarian grounds, can we defend and preserve a religion that holds supremacism as its central dogma?

My humanist perspective is that we can't. We can't defend supremacist dogma or supremacist adherents, even if they're otherwise of our faith. Freedom of thought does not extend to freedom to persecute, or freedom to tolerate persecution. We can't defend xenophobia of any kind, but we can defend everything else.

I don't believe religion, but I think that defence of religion is more than just a good humanitarian principle. I think that in defending religion (or rather, most of it) we're actually defending humanity's capacity to understand and do good. That capacity is not static; it's developing, which is why supremacism of any kind -- even traditional supremacism cannot be tolerated, even in our own tribes.

[Ruv Draba]

Stalin certainly didn't care about beliefs, but he did not allow any kind of hierarchy with influence over the people than his own.I don't know what Stalin personally thought but the historical evidence is that it wasn't just the clergy who were killed in Boleshevik Russia -- the faithful were killed and imprisoned. Not because of what they did, but because of what authorities feared they might do. I believe that he either authorised it or tolerated it -- and since it's Stalin my money's on him authorising it.

I don't personally know of a regime anywhere that cares about ideological power but not about ideology. Attacks on institutions inevitably spill into attacks on individuals. I feel stupid citing historical examples here because I can't think of a single exception... Anglican vs Catholic faith in the UK, Christian vs Judaism in Europe, Christian vs Islam vs Christian faith again..., Hindu vs Islam in the Khyber, Socialism vs Buddhism in Tibet. Ideological battle inevitably becomes tribal and personal.

This extends to our most enlightened democracies. The US has been repeatedly guilty of condoning faith-based persecutions in the past, and playing policy favourites with religious ideologies. It still is. The Communist witch-hunts are an example, as is present tolerance for anti-Muslim xenophobia and the anti-atheistic xenophobia that's over a century old.

In my experience, most people I talk to say that they are not personally xenophobic about other ideologies. Most people would respond to the poll in the original post in much the same way that the respondents here did -- yes, 'Freedom of Religion is a Good Thing' say the polls amost unanimously. I'm currently the only dissenter.

But I see extraordinary tolerance for other peoples' xenophobia hidden under the rug here. It seems inordinately hypocritical of us: 'I'm happy with these people being persecuted, as long as it's not me being caught doing it'. Or put another way: 'Problem? What problem?' And apparently it's never ourselves doing the supremacism -- it's always our neighbour.

Really? And who's letting them break the social compact we're supposed to have signed to?

Back to the courage of our convictions here: if we believe in freedom of thought as a fundamental human right then surely that right must take precendence over tribe. That being so, are we willing to challenge our tribal prejudices and tribal self-interest to protect it?

In my experience, the answer is no. 'There's no problem unless it affects me. Nothing to see here. Move on.'

Except that in our marrow we know differently now, don't we? For every Muslim jet-hijacking terrorist there's a score of Muslim moderates who knew that there was a problem and did nothing. Who tutted over it but didn't say 'This must never happen again'.

The Islamic community isn't special in this regard. Nearly all our communities are guilty of putting tribe before tolerance. For every US soldier in Afghanistan who desecrates a Muslim grave to draw out the Taliban, there were a half-dozen bystanders who disapproved but said nothing. And meanwhile Israelis deny the atrocity of Palestinian massacres and Hamas of course, do the same.

Freedom of Religion? Really? I think it's either a personal responsibility or it's just lip-service.

[Higgins]

The more I think about this the more I'd like to ditch freedom of religion in favour of freedom of thought and values -- within certain humanitarian limits.

You're in danger there of making everything free except for religion. The classic religion has a classic ideological relation with the classic state the classic case being the Anglican Church in England where every little theological twitch (or lack of theological twitch since for example Newton as a Arian had to swear to the 39 articles and so leave his theological twitching outside of his various government jobs such as being in charge of the Mint) could have political results -- the latitudianarians being my favorite....but with curiously little web-presence:

http://reformedtheology.org/SiteFiles/PublicLectures/DeVriesPL.html


It seems to me that for religion to excercise its full freedom of religion it needs a state to enforce that freedom on people.

[Higgins]

You're in danger there of making everything free except for religion. The classic religion has a classic ideological relation with the classic state the classic case being the Anglican Church in England where every little theological twitch (or lack of theological twitch since for example Newton as a Arian had to swear to the 39 articles and so leave his theological twitching outside of his various government jobs such as being in charge of the Mint) could have political results -- the latitudianarians being my favorite....but with curiously little web-presence:

http://reformedtheology.org/SiteFiles/PublicLectures/DeVriesPL.html


It seems to me that for religion to excercise its full freedom of religion it needs a state to enforce that freedom on people.

Here followeth a sketch of the 39 articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/39_Articles#Thirty-Nine_Articles_.281563.29

[Higgins]

You forgot our national sport --

And life-vest folding

http://www.pbase.com/vdtpictures/image/115374813/original.jpg (http://www.pbase.com/vdtpictures/image/115374813/original.jpg)

[Ruv Draba]

It seems to me that for religion to excercise its full freedom of religion it needs a state to enforce that freedom on people.I think that you're arguing that religion is incompatible with freedom to think and tolerance of dissenting thought. Historically, some religions have been, and apparently those intolerances are protected under Freedom of Religion (which makes me wonder what it's meant to achieve in the first place).

I don't accept your premise though. If religion were incompatible with dissent it'd never change. We'd also have no religious humanists (and in fact there are many). We'd have no religious scientists (because science grows by dissent). And if your premise were true, every religious sect would have to found its own state just to perpetuate itself. Clearly, they don't.

My thesis: religious tolerance requires ordinary people to actively oppose religious intolerance and religious supremacism. We can't trust secular law to accomplish that when the faithful themselves won't make the effort and the faithful administer the law. Freedom of Religion is largely meaningless until that occurs.

[Higgins]

I think that you're arguing that religion is incompatible with freedom to think and tolerance of dissenting thought.

No, I was just suggesting that in the classic case (the one the drafters of the US Constitution had in mind), to get the full force of the religiosity of a classic religion, it needs a state to back it up. I'm pointing this out because I think buried way down deep in some of the ever-turning gears of ideology, the imagery of the state as an (ideological) good and the imagery of religion as an (ideological) good are closely linked. For example, in a fairly imagistically sophisticated hagiography of Easy Company (US Parachute Infantry), this almost subliminal shuffling and interleaving of religious martyrdoom, religious confusion, and doing a good job under difficult circumstances, is addressed in a pretty up front way. Short of diving into full-blown film noire, there's no way to honestly represent the mass of imagery that suggests that in doing one's highest duty to the state one is also doing something highly religious. Of course if you wanted to be really noire about it you'd have to show the NAZIs having visions of being Seigfried and Gollum (sorry, mythical lapse) or Bosco the Dwarf (this is just going down hill)...or some other Wagnerian character...whilst doing heroic stuff.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/88/BoBWintersNixon.jpg (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/88/BoBWintersNixon.jpg)

[Ruv Draba]

No, I was just suggesting that in the classic case (the one the drafters of the US Constitution had in mind), to get the full force of the religiosity of a classic religion, it needs a state to back it up. I'm pointing this out because I think buried way down deep in some of the ever-turning gears of ideology, the imagery of the state as an (ideological) good and the imagery of religion as an (ideological) good are closely linked.I accept the premise -- that states and religions often like to create awe and submission in their adherents... and one will lean on the other to do that, but I think it occurs in both directions. Kings kill off dissident priests, and priests undermine apostatic kings, and both parties work up both material and symbolic pomp and circumstance to maintain their claim to supremacy.

Not all faiths seek to do that though.

For example, in a fairly imagistically sophisticated hagiography of Easy Company (US Parachute Infantry), this almost subliminal shuffling and interleaving of religious martyrdoom, religious confusion, and doing a good job under difficult circumstances, is addressed in a pretty up front way.Australia has something similar with its quasi-religious ANZAC myth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANZAC_spirit). Band of Brothers vs Mateship... I know whereof you speak (and like our religious myths, we even make free use of a donkey).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/CanberraSimpsonMemorial.jpg