Why Religious Freedom?
Michael Newdow is back in court, still trying to strip "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. Whatever - but this issue got me wondering again, why is religious freedom important? It IS important, but WHY is it important? It tends to get squashed into the same elevator as "free speech", and people ride that all the way to "freedom of conscience" as the truly important freedom.

But that's bunk: we use our conscience much more often, and with less cause or effect, than we speak uncomfortable truths, and most of us more often than we practice our religion. And the government impinges on the conscience of pacifists, death penalty opponents, and anti-abortion crusaders every day. You do, in fact, have to pay your taxes even if your conscience says "No" to war, or if the police you pay for refuse to arrest abortionists.

Religious freedom is important for the simple reason that most people believe in and many people pledge allegiance to a Higher Power than the state. The government can react only a few ways to this fact: ignore it (what Newdow would have us do), embrace it (and become some kind of theocracy, and beat down the people on the wrong side), or acknowledge it as a potential conflict of interest and yield when necessary. Religious freedom is important because some troublemakers are so infused with God that they will defy Caesar openly if pushed too far. There are not enough re-education camps in all the fantasies of Stalin to house all of us who believe our actions have cosmic moral import.

Either people have the right to pledge their highest allegiance to a Creator, or they don't. If the Creator exists, clearly we have the right to believe we owe everything to Him. And if the Creator exists, the possibility of an *enforceable* obligation to Him exists. Since the question of Existence is still open, the government can't stop people from trying to ally themselves with a Higher Power.

From this perspective, what exactly IS the religious freedom of an atheist? Explicit rejection of the idea of any enforceable higher obligation does not allow an atheist to choose his own conscience as the Higher Power. The religious person can find them self saying to the government, "If you make me do this, you are forcing me to choose a finite prison or an eternal punishment." The atheist cannot find himself trapped in this dilemma. So why should his claim to religious freedom be as strong as any other? After all, logically it should mean less to him....
- posted by Scott @ 12:37 AM