marc9000 writes:
subbie writes:
Government has no more legitimate purpose in attacking religion than it does supporting it
It attacks religion when it puts forward the idea that naturalism is all there is. That humans are merely evolved animals and that all their studies and problem solving can be solved only on a naturalistic basis.
You are (still, again) missing the essential point in the whole "naturalism" vs. "spiritualism/theism/dogmatism" dichotomy. In a pluralistic society, where every individual is given the right to decide on their own whether they want to accept/adopt any sort of spiritualism/theism/dogmatism (and if so, which flavor they want), governance needs to be based solely on the things that reasonable people can agree on, regardless of their choice (or lack) of faith.
In order to establish a common basis for agreement on issues of governance, two things are needed: (1) a set of rules that are established and maintained with the consent of the governed, and (2) an objective (not dogmatic, not spiritual, not theistic) basis of evidence for substantiating relevant claims.
If the sole basis for a given claim (e.g. homosexuals should not be allowed to marry, or adulterers should be stoned to death) is a specific religious doctrine held only by a certain religious group (e.g. because that's how they interpret their chosen religious text), it would be unjust to enforce that claim as a law.
Why? Because there are other citizens, with equal rights, who won't accept that interpretation of the text -- and indeed won't even accept the text in any interpretation -- as binding or relevant to them. For the citizens who are not in that specific religious group, such a law would have no objective grounds for enforcement that all reasonable people could agree on as valid.
I'm not saying that all laws must be founded on matters of objective evidence (though I think it would be tremendous progress for us as a nation if this were the case). It's sufficient to establish the general consent of the governed, while (crucially) observing the necessary constraints imposed by the Bill of Rights to guarantee that minorities are not crushed.
But in order to get common consent in a pluralistic society, proposals and claims have to show common sense. Certainly, there is plenty of overlap between theistic people and non-theistic people in terms of what constitutes common sense. But if they happen to differ on matters where evidence can actually resolve the conflict, it has to be the evidence that decides the issue, not faith or dogma.
When objective evidence, common sense, the general consensus, and/or the Bill of Rights happen to be in conflict with a particular religious belief that you choose to hold, you might say that government is "attacking" your religion, but really the core of the problem here is your choice of religion, and your reason(s) for choosing it.
autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.
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