There is no such thing as Freedom of Religion

Think of religion as the political parties of the gods. In this country you are free to join any party you wish. You can even switch parties as often as you like.

One could make the argument that government is social captivity. It is much more difficult to switch governments.

 

That doesn't make it a monotheistic religion, just a complicated one. Anyway, as I understand it, Vishnu has a thousand names, but none of them overlap with the thousand names of Shiva, for example. There are various numbers of gods given for Hinduism, from 3 to 33 to 330 million. The Vedas refer to 33 frequently.

 

By the Israelites. The New Testament Jesus gives you the option of accepting or rejecting him, and predicts that most will reject him. Sounds like freedom of belief to me. (There are consequences, of course.)

 

That there are consequences automatically NEGATES freedom of/from religion.

 

*smirks* You fail to understand freedom if you don't understand that every choice comes with consequences. You're free to go to the university of your choice, or not go at all, but there are consequences that arise from that decision. You're free to live in earthquake-prone, hurricane-prone, or blizzard-prone areas, but there are consequences that arise from that decision. You're free to play croquet when all the upper echelon of your company play golf, but there are consequences from that decision. Etc., etc. The same is true of religion. If you fail to worship Vishnu, you may end up being reincarnated as a roach or a rat. If you fail to follow Buddha's eight-fold path, you may end up being reincarnated over and over rather than reaching nirvana. If you fail to worship Allah, you may end up in hell rather than being greeted by doe-eyed virgins. If you fail to worship Jehovah as the Witnesses do, you may end up being annihilated rather than joining them on a Garden of Eden earth, being a farmer. You can't escape consequences just by yelling, "freedom!"

 

Thank you for proving my point that religions do not support freedom of/from religion.

 

It is monotheistic in the same way Christianity is, you know, God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost. The point I was making is that the Hindus can and often do accept Jesus as God in that he could have simply been yet another avatar of Vishnu. They're pretty accommodating that way.

 

XW's point seems that if you choose the wrong faith then there could be consequences not that any faith requires you to follow it. It could be added that if you do any of the above then you may have wasted much time worshiping/praising/fearing a deity that does not exist. That takes care of the from.

 

Thanks for clarifying.

So to sum this up all of the religions quoted by XW threaten consequences for failing to adhere to their unprovable dogma but atheism does not threaten any consequences whatsoever if you choose to waste your time on religion.

In essence only atheism actually supports freedom of religion WITHOUT consequences.

 

Not exactly. Faith is a belief that one of the religions is right. If it should turn out to be the case that one of the religions is right, and you'll maybe find out when you die, then the atheists face the consequences of not adhering to whichever one was right.

 

That is the fallacy of Pascal's Wager. If you assume that only one religion, out of thousands, is right then atheists won't have to answer the charge of worshipping a false deity.

But that is a digression from the OP topic.

If the topic is that there is no such thing as freedom of religion then only secular atheism/agnosticism provides actual freedom of religion to those who choose to belong to any of the thousands of religions without consequences from atheism/agnoticism being imposed.

 

That is indeed an interesting argument, and well written, I may add.
however, there is also some quid-pro-quo in the mix...
But I very much like the fact that you took time to explain what you think about freedom and consequences.
That makes you a thinking poster, something I always like.

 

This is also an interesting argument and also worth reading more than once.
Being a Jew who is convinced that ALL religions, including my own, have it wrong on at least one, if not many, points, I can read both arguments and find something worthy of consumption.

Well done.

 

The problem is that your point is nothing but a giant red herring to the concept of freedom of/from religion. Freedom of religion is a civil concept not a religious one. Therefore trying to argue that there cannot not be freedom of/from religion because religions do not allow it, is like arguing we must use PEMDAS for math because water is wet.

 

My position directly relates to the context of the OP!

If you want to introduce the red herring of the legal concept then that is not my problem.

 

You have no idea.

 

And, apparently, neither does atheism.

 

Alllow me to rephrase then. Both your point and the OP's are red herrings at worse and based upon a faulty premise at best. Freedom of religion is a civil concept period. Whatever happened on the religious side of things has no bearing upon that civil concept.

 

So you cannot refute the facts as established by the OP and instead are just trying to derail the thread?

Got it!

 

I'm late to the party, but I'm also a little confused. Why do religions need to support freedom of religions? Each religion thinks theirs is right. The government needs to be the one who supports freedom of religion. Not the religion itself...right?

 

You are correct that the SECULAR government of We the People has a duty to uphold the individual right to freedom from religion and freedom of religious choice.

The OP is arguing that religions in themselves do not embrace the concept of freedom of religion because it violates the dogma (eg thou shalt have no other gods...) of the religion itself. Once someone is within the "social capture" of a religion the concept of "freedom of religion" is meaningless.

To take this to the extreme ISIS is enforcing the lack of freedom of religion within it's own fundamentalist beliefs by killing those who don't embrace it. There are similar passages in the OT as I recall. From a fundamentalist POV religions do not support the concept of freedom of religion for their own faithful or for those who don't embrace their religion.

It was this lack of tolerance within religions that caused the Founding Fathers to enact the concept of Freedom of/from Religion because it just does NOT exist within any religion.

 

What facts are you talking about.
He says there's no such thing as freedom of religion, which is a crock of ****. That very concept is inshrined in our constitution.

 

Thank you for the explanation. That makes perfect sense to me.

 

So, people have the right to choose to worship as they please, which means there is freedom of religion.

Good job.

 

The OP is making the point that the concept of freedom of religion does NOT exist within religions themselves.