Freedom of religion is freedom from religion
Atheist billboards and bus signs are spreading like a wildfire across North America so I suppose it’s about time some Christian said something so intensely stupid you just know they haven’t given two seconds of thought to what they said.
The Christian I write about is Bryan Fischer, executive director of Idaho Values Alliance, who issued a statement about the FFRF’s “Beware of Dogma” billboard going up in Boise, Idaho.
Here’s the stupid thing he said:
“The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.”
The truth of the matter is that you can’t have freedom of religion without freedom from religion. No one, including Fischer, can practice their religion of choice if they are not free from other religions.
Think about it for a moment. Would a Christian woman have freedom of religion if she was not free to run around bareheaded? Would Jews have freedom of religion if they were required to show up for Mass? Would a Muslim have freedom of religion if he was required to eat pork?
Of course not.
There’s actually a problem with the concept of freedom of religion as illustrated in your examples. If the legal prohibition against killing comes in conflict with a person’s religion, it’s the religion that loses.
I would say that, under this broad conception of freedom of religion, there is no true freedom of religion anywhere. It’s really only “freedom of religion when the religion doesn’t command previously illegal things” or something similar.
I think that, in a very real sense, the original intent of the founding fathers (or at least Thomas Jefferson’s, since I’ve actually read some of his stuff) is more accurately described as a “freedom from religion”. Specifically, freedom from government imposition of religion. It seems to me that their biggest concerns weren’t that people were practicing different religions, but rather that they were sick of the government sticking their nose into their religious business.
I like your point and your wording. I frequently hear the “it’s not freedom FROM religion” argument and find it annoying. To this point, it was just an annoying semantic argument, but not you’ve given me a nice counter for it. Thanks.