Eighty-five percent of Americans claim some form of religious affiliation. The public display of religious symbols, though, is always controversial, whether we’re talking about the Ten Commandments in a courthouse or nativity scenes in a park. In the ongoing debate about religious imagery’s proper place, where do we draw the line between private faith and public religious expression?
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Yes, if ...
Symbols
Most things humans do are symbolic of something or other. In the U.S. we have ''freedom of religion'', not ''freedom from religion''.
- CharlieBravo
October 13, 2008 11:49PM
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A Non-Issue ...
I used to think that one does indeed have freedom from religion until I realized that we each have a highly individualized religion assembled one piece at a time over the span of our lives. Religion, after all, is simply the practical expression of what one believes and loves and there is an incredible diversity of beliefs and loves at any one time among the collected individuals of the United States and of the world.
It is now my belief that "freedom from religion" is a non-issue because one certainly has a religion, whether or not one calls it that. The name of one's practice need not be called a religion, certainly not in the same sense the word "religion" is popularly used. Suffice to call it one's personal "way of life". No, "freedom from religion" is rather nonsensical out of context. In truth, it neither exists nor is desirable to anyone who loves their life and wishes for it to continue. What one has, wants, needs and must rightly demand in the United States, and I dare say everywhere there are individual human beings, is freedom from the forced involuntary intrusion of the religion of another to replace your own. I, you and every human being must be free to adopt whatever religion or "way of life according to my beliefs" we like. What neither of us has the right to do is to force our respective religions onto the religion freely chosen by each other or another. This is freedom of speech, freedom of choice, freedom to believe and practice what one wishes provided we respect that freedom in others. This is precisely why these two - freedom of speech and freedom of religion - are grouped together in the way they are. They are equal to free will with respect to the free will of others.
What we have and must have is freedom to live respectfully according to our own choices. Religion, in its broader meaning, is simply the manner in which one lives what life one has until one no longer has it.
There is only one way to be "free of religion" and that is to no longer have life. Nevertheless, the way to be free of the religion of another is for them to be respectful of your private choices, and you of theirs.
- Naumadd
October 16, 2008 7:54PM
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