# data[].attributes.body
I believe in God so I don't believe we came about just because. We were created by him and he is intelligent. I think our purpose is to honor him and teach others about his word.

# data[].attributes.body
This is such a strong question and I am really having to think. Sometimes I think that maybe there isn't much of a purpose of living accept to just live. That's why people shouldn't be so hard on themselves sometimes. Have fun and enjoy the memories. Live for ourselves and not for a god. I am a Christian and putting my faith in God is very comforting to me but what if it's imaginary and religion has consumed us. I think everyone is looking for that purpose or reason to live but maybe we've got it all wrong. MYbe the reason to live is just to enjoy the time we have on earth with the people who surround us.

# data[].attributes.body
Cinco De Mayo is commonly thought to be the Mexican Independence Day, but that is incorrect. September 10th is the Mexican Independence Day. Cinco De Mayo is a celebration of when Mexico overthrew France in Puebla Mexico. Cinco De Mayo isn't celebrated all over Mexico; mainly just in Puebla. Cinco De Mayo has been largely americanized.

# data[].attributes.body
How did life with hundreds of specific proteins come about without intelligent design?

# data[].attributes.body
If religion isn't important and God isn't real then what purpose is there for our life?

# data[].attributes.body
In response to Niyana Johnson I agree that we need to stand up for what we believe in. Niyana was right by saying that we do have the right to stand up and say "NO" to saying the pledge. If the pledge really offends you then you will stand up for what you believe in. I agree with Niyana's statement "I bet when you use money for something to eat you dont really look at it and put it back in your pocket." I agree becasue I have never seen someone standing in line to buy something and then step out of line becasue they don't agree with what is on the back of the currency. Niyana was right; this will always be a debate. For those who aren't religious or don't believe in God then "One nation, under God" and "In God we trust" will definetely offend them in some manner.

# data[].attributes.body
When I see the picture of the stop sign I have very similar thought as you had, except in the opposite direction. That sign gives me hope that one day everyone will stop believing in friction books, and start seeing the world as it really is, the way science sees it. I think he fait of man kind depends on people believing and trusting science.

# data[].attributes.body
By: William James "Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact."

This quote resonates with me because my religion does make life worth living. As a Christian I get to spread the word of God to people and take advantage of the time I have here on earth. My belief grows stronger as I live my life because I get to see all of the wonderful things that God has created. Seeing mountains with snow on the tops and forests full of deer make me realize just how marvelous God is. I believe that life is worth living because as Christians we are supposed to be disciples for the Lord. We need to spread the gospel because it is what God wants us to do. My life is worth living because I want to live it for God.

# data[].attributes.body
This picture is encouraging for me because I don't want to stop believing in what I see as correct. The stop sign is a reminder to me that I need to stand up for what I believe in. My beliefs may not matter to others, but it matters to me. The sign reminds me that I don't need to stop believing in my right to my belief. I have the freedom to to believe in what I believe, so this sign for me is a way of saying "keep on with believing."

# data[].attributes.body
Who: Everyone who has a religion or is around a religion. Which is the entire world.

What: Your religion may be harmful.

When: Present day all over the world.

Where: All over the world. Because everyone is either involved with a religion, or is around a religion.

Why: To bring awareness to people that their religion may be harmful to those around them.

The writer shows bias by saying that some people are just cranky by nature, and do not want to take time to listen to someone who agrees with the other side of the religion topic.

The writer shows bias when he says "I’ve noticed that those who didn’t grow up in a strongly religious setting have the hardest time of all trying to identify with the religious mind because they’ve never spent any significant time looking at life through that lens themselves."

The writer puts spin on this topic when he says "If ad hominem is the best you’ve got, I can be forgiven for dismissing you without further thought (and so can everyone else). You’re not helping anyone."

The writer is telling the audience that if you aren't willing to hear the other side of the debate than he isn't going to waste his time with you. You need to stay true to what you believe, but also have the respect to hear the opposing sides's argument.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nonbelievers exhibit a wide array of reactions to the presence and influence of religion in public life ranging from cool indifference or mild disdain to highly vocal disgust and vitriolic public protest. Frans de Waal has reasonably hypothesized that each person's background probably plays a major role in determining the strength of his feelings toward the subject. "Possibly, the religion one leaves behind carries over into the sort of atheism one embraces...my thesis [is] that activist atheism reflects trauma. The stricter one's religious background, the greater the need to go against it and to replace old securities with new ones." Makes sense to me. I've noticed that those with the least patience for charitable dialogue with religious folks often come from the most controlling, most abusive religious contexts. They have good reason to be angry, and they feel a strong internal motivation to combat religion because they've seen its dark side.

A person's natural temperament probably plays a major role in this as well. Some people are just cranky by nature and are disinclined to spend much time trying to see things from another person's perspective, particularly if that perspective seems intellectually inferior. I've noticed that those who didn't grow up in a strongly religious setting have the hardest time of all trying to identify with the religious mind because they've never spent any significant time looking at life through that lens themselves. Conversely, those like me who have spent the majority of their lives inhabiting that world often find it much easier to sympathize with the mind of faith, even if they've grown more and more averse to its torturous rationalizations with each passing year. Whichever camp you fall into, you will not get much support from me if your primary mode of interaction with the religious is to name-call, insult, and personally belittle them for believing what they were raised to believe. You can disagree with them without acting like a turd. In fact, the way I see it, when you use personal attacks it tells me you don't have anything better to offer. If ad hominem is the best you've got, I can be forgiven for dismissing you without further thought (and so can everyone else). You're not helping anyone.

I must also interject here as I often do that there are forms of religion which are far less guilty of the trespasses I will enumerate below. The tenets of liberal Christianity, for example, focus on the same real-world needs which secular humanists seek to ameliorate such as poverty, social oppression, ignorance, hunger, famine, and disease. They do not discourage scientific discovery or innovation, nor do they labor to hinder (or sometimes reverse) social progress the way that some folks seem to want to do today. If Maggie, the protagonist from the story in my last post, had been brought up in a more liberal tradition, of if at least her husband had been from that camp, she would likely still be welcome in her own home today. Unfortunately for her, neither was the case and so her family has become a casualty of the ever-escalating culture wars which virtually dominate American life today.

I want to talk more about what ideological forces created such an insurmountable wedge between Josh and Maggie (please stop now and read their story if you haven't already), so as you keep reading I will address those places where the list touches on something relevant to their story. If you happen to be a "believer" yourself, please ask yourself as you as you go through this list: "Is there any chance my beliefs actually cause harm for myself or for others?" The extent to which different belief systems do so will vary, but one thing their adherents all have in common is that none of them thinks his or her particular beliefs are guilty of these things. If they did, they would likely be already on their way out of their religion as we speak. Perhaps you are one of those. If you are not, I imagine you'll find reasons to disagree with each of the points. The only way to know is to read on:
Your Religion May Be Harmful...
1) If it inspires inactivity when action is what is needed. This is one of religion's "silent killers" because you don't immediately see the harm that it does. There's no telling how many opportune moments pass by because people decided to "wait on God" for something which they should have just taken care of themselves. In Maggie's situation, this problem surfaced at least twice. First, Josh spent a great deal of time in prayer asking God to make Maggie believe again. Not only was this prayer not "answered," it also reinforced Josh's belief that it was Maggie-and Maggie alone-who needed to change. During their year of weekly counseling, a number of issues came up as they always do during intensive marital therapy. But instead of facing those issues head-on and doing the hard work of compromise (without which no marriage can truly be healthy), Josh's belief system encouraged him to see Maggie as the broken one who needed fixing. Ideally, the therapist in this situation should step in and mediate between the two opposite extremes; but in Maggie's case, the therapist shared views which were identical to Josh's. It was two against one. And in the ideological world of evangelicalism, compromise is a bad word anyway. Tough luck for Maggie. The second way this surfaced came when Josh had an opportunity to seek full-time employment in order to alleviate Maggie's exhausting work schedule. Instead of earnestly hunting for a job, he applied for only one dream position and then prayed and waited. When the prayer was denied, he took that as "God's will" and moved on. Maggie was left to take up the financial slack all by herself because Josh had trusted that God would "do something" and he didn't.

2) If it teaches you to accept things as they are when they should be changed. If you believe in a supreme being who is capable of doing whatever he chooses to do, then at some level that means that whatever happens is "God's will." Now, this continues to be a raging debate among believers who cannot agree on which events God actively causes and which ones he passively allows. But in the end this distinction is arbitrary. An all-powerful deity could step in to change something if he a) existed and b) chose to intervene. When this intervention doesn't come, it means one of those two things did not happen. So the believer is left with the nonsensical conclusion that whatever happened was somehow according to divine plan, no matter how it unfolded. This placating belief also affects one's outlook for the future. If you believe that someone or something invisible is at work guiding everything from personal experiences to world events, at some level that has to affect your judgment. You will change both what you do and how you think because of your belief that someone is going to magically make something happen. Josh was taught to believe that once people are "saved" they cannot ever get "unsaved." This gave him a false hope (which could be a separate point on my list) about his wife's trajectory, and it made him much slower to accept her for who she was. He spent a good deal of mental and emotional energy anticipating one thing when the opposite made far more sense under the circumstances. Both he and their therapist spent far too much time and energy looking to change Maggie back instead of learning to relate to her as she now was.

3) If it conditions you to overly rely on subjective sources of decision-making. Even the Bible teaches that "in the abundance of counselors there is safety." But important life decisions are still too often made based on a nebulous "feeling" which the believer supposes indicates that God is talking to him. This is exceedingly subjective and dangerous. It teaches you to look either inwardly to your own random thought processes or outwardly for "signs" which in reality are completely of your own making. The human mind is brilliant when it comes to fabricating meaning out of random things (consider just twenty minutes of nighttime dreaming if you don't believe me). Too often faith leads people to put more stock in something random or coincidental because they have been taught that "there are no coincidences." Similarly, they can sometimes put too much trust in the direction of a perceived spiritual authority figure or even a random acquaintance who persuasively claims that "God told me what you need to do." Even those who poke fun at this sensationalist kind of talk will turn around and do the same things themselves but then describe it with more subtle language. They will uncritically follow the leadership of their own perceived authorities; the only difference is that they don't admit out loud how willing they are to defer judgment to another person. Because Josh looked to his minister for what to do in his marriage, at times he even went against what felt natural in his relations with his wife because he trusted that God had put this man in their lives to give them direction. It may very well be that if Josh had only been willing to think for himself, the love which he and Maggie had for each other may have guided them through their crisis.

4) If it discourages critical thinking skills. I could go on about this for days. Like the inactivity inspired by so much praying for and waiting on divine intervention, this characteristic of faith is another silent killer. It works in ways that are very difficult to observe because it operates beneath the surface in a highly diffuse way. Just as an autoimmune disorder quietly affects seemingly unrelated systems and biological functions, leaving the body vulnerable to ailments of many kinds, so faith often acts like a dampener on a person's critical thinking skills. You can only be told so many times of the inherent irrationality of "the things of the spirit" before you begin to believe that some of the most important things in life aren't even supposed to make sense, so you quit expecting them to. If you get enough of this, you'll eventually become very easy to dupe, even while considering yourself very smart. Frequent assurances that we're not supposed to understand some things kills our natural curiosity and numbs the very hunger for knowledge which has defined the human race (this happens most among the subcultures trying the hardest to be "biblical"). For example, some who make their home in evangelical churches become so docile and gullible that they will faithfully support a political party which claims to champion "biblical values" but favors the rich over the poor and works tirelessly to eliminate the social programs on which the impoverished and the elderly depend. Their inconsistency alarm has been silenced so many times that it no longer even catches their attention. In many ways this may be the most deleterious of all negative effects of religion because it disables the one thing that could shine a revealing light on all these other problems I am listing: Our critical thinking skills.

5) If it teaches you to distrust science. Granted, some forms of religion don't do this and thankfully there are growing numbers of believers who are coming around to accepting basic scientific principles like common ancestry and climate change. But where I live you will have a hard time even finding a science teacher who teaches either one of those things. I've taught at several public schools over the years and I often ask them how they address the subject of evolution. They usually answer, "I don't; I try to avoid the subject altogether." If I inquire further, I typically find that their church background taught them it is a " lie from the pit of Hell." But these are biology teachers in public schools and they don't accept what Bill Nye calls "the most fundamental idea in all of life science." How is that possible? It's possible because churches all over the country so strongly disapprove of the idea that they openly resist its propagation, exerting enormous pressure on school systems to either avoid the topic or give equal time to their religion in the (government sponsored) classroom. This same distrust of science leads them to fight environmental protection, global warming initiatives, space exploration, and even stem cell research. Their resistance to the latter may very well be the only thing keeping us from reversing spinal injuries and finding cures for hundreds of diseases.

6) If its other-worldly promises distract you from finding solutions to this-world problems. You will not seek to preserve our ecosystem if you believe a divine judge is going to destroy the place himself in retributive anger. You will not devote sufficient resources to alleviating the physical suffering of people around the world if you believe that saving their souls is more important than saving their bodies. You will not prioritize finding a cure for diseases which you believe were sent by God as a punishment for unacceptable "lifestyle choices." You will not seek prompt medical attention if you have been taught that prayer can work as well as medical treatment. And you will be far less likely to work to equalize social and economic disparities if you believe people "shouldn't be so concerned about things of this world." As with point #2 above, if your religion tells you that people should just learn to accept their lot in life "because God," then you are likely standing in the way of human progress. Which leads me to the next point. Your religion may be harmful...

7) If it leads you to actively discriminate against others because of their gender, their sexual orientation, or their beliefs. I've written about this before. There is something fundamentally flawed about trying to squeeze 21st-century people into a 1st-century mold. Your religion may be harmful if you feel compelled to force everyone everywhere from every era into an ancient near eastern social template. Do you think women shouldn't work outside the home? And you live in the 21st century? That almost certainly traces back to your religion. Do you think people who are attracted to the same sex shouldn't be legally allowed to marry? I'll bet money that's because of your religion. Do you believe that non-Christians shouldn't be trusted with positions of civic authority or legal power? Either your name is S.E. Cupp or else you are allowing religious intolerance to override any appreciation for the kind of pluralism which lies at the heart of the U.S. Constitution. I find it ironic whenever churches host a patriotic celebration as if their religious devotion didn't so often put them in direct opposition to the American tolerance for social and religious differences. The very first of the Ten Commandments demands unrivaled allegiance to Yahweh while the Bill of Rights begins by outlawing the favoring of one religion over another. Being an evangelical or fundamentalist Christian in America presents some fascinating instances of cognitive dissonance.

8) If it teaches you to fundamentally distrust yourself and to view yourself as essentially broken, weak, or unable to think for yourself. Not too long ago I caught a sermon in which the preacher compared everyone to sheep. As many preachers often to, he took great pains to stress the stupidity of sheep, and their great need to be led by someone else. This, he argued, is a good way to think about ourselves. If reading that does not make something boil inside you then you have become as desensitized to that kind of talk as I was when I was still "in church." But messages like that should make you angry. This compulsion to give such a low self-image to people is despicable, and it should be seen for what it is. It teaches people to see themselves as unable to determine their own steps, unable to think and to dream and to pursue goals of their own choosing. It cuts at the heart of what it means to be an intelligent being, and as with the other points I have made, this holds us back as a species from becoming what we could be.

9) If it sucks a significant amount of time or money from your life. How many hours a week does religious devotion steal away from people who are already too busy to take care of themselves and their families? How much money has been given out of almost empty pockets in order to sustain the expensive machinery of religious tradition? If you'll simply ask to see the budget breakdown of a typical suburban church you will likely find that an infinitessimally small percentage of the money that you give goes towards helping the kinds of people on whom Jesus reportedly focused his followers' attention. The bulk of those funds goes to things related to maintaining the church property and to the salaries of the church staff. If it is a very large church like the one I grew up in ($10M annual budget), there will also be promotional costs for posters, brochures, video production, sound and lighting equipment, large musical productions, and more bells and whistles than I care to enumerate. Some of their money will go to pay for "missions," but if you follow that money as well, you will see that it similarly goes to pay for the kinds of things which I've already listed. This money is collected tax-free, and it has been estimated that nearly $71B is lost every year in America alone because of that exemption ($21B just from uncollected property taxes). It turns out that religion is a lucrative industry, and it does relatively little to help those who need assistance the most.

I've what benefits I found I received from becoming an atheist, and while your experience may not match mine exactly, that list came from an honest reflection on how it impacted me. Now that I've reached the end of today's list, I see that if you take the opposite of each item from the previous list it will parallel much of what I've discussed today. I'm sure many could add items to both of these lists, so feel free to do so in the comments. I didn't even cover the more egregious problems which come from the more extreme elements of fundamentalist religion. I could have talked about genital mutilation or suicide cults or the attack on New York City and Washington on September 11, 2001, but those topics have already been covered thoroughly by others. I speak of the culture in which listed before I grew up, and in which I still partially live. What I have listed represents the things that I see most often around me. If you are a person of faith and you can honestly say that you do not identify with any of the things I've listed, then please disregard what has been said here. But first, would you please do us all a favor and speak to the rest of the church on our behalf? They will not listen to me; they need to hear this from you.

UPDATE: Hemant Mehta over at Friendly Atheist turned this list into a video. Check it out!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nonbelievers exhibit a wide array of reactions to the presence and influence of religion in public life ranging from cool indifference or mild disdain to highly vocal disgust and vitriolic public protest. Frans de Waal has reasonably hypothesized that each person's background probably plays a major role in determining the strength of his feelings toward the subject.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
BY SOFO ARCHON

'If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.' ~Albert Einstein

Note: The term religion is used here for simplicity reasons to refer only to the dominant, especially Western, dogmatic, organized religions, and doesn't imply the esoteric religious traditions that do have positive things to contribute to the world.

Religion is like slow poison, and just as poison is killing your body, in the same way religion is killing your soul. There is only one difference: religion is masquerading as medicine, and while you think it is there for your own benefit, it is secretly killing you. And before you become aware of it, religion has turned you into a lifeless being.

The negative effects of religion on society are tremendous. Here are the main ways religion is destroying people's lives:

Religion is filling people with fear

Religion is one of the main reasons why people are afraid of living. And when I say 'living' I don't mean just surviving. To survive is one thing-even stones do that-but to live is a completely different thing. To live means to be sensitive, it means to feel, to grow, to discover your potential and achieve to higher states of being.

The starting point of religion is fear. Religion is based on the idea of sin: all people are born sinners, impure souls, and if they don't purify themselves, they will soon be condemned to hell by God, where they will have to experience eternal suffering.

In order to avoid hell, religion demands that people prove to God that they are worthy of heaven. How? By following the dogma of religion. Naturally, when people are put in such a situation, they find themselves in a continuous state of fear. They are always afraid of whether their actions are right according to religion or not.

When you believe that you are being continuously watched by an all-seeing eye of God, you will have to act in certain ways to please God. The fear of hell is continuously in your mind, filling you with worry and anxiety, and this does not allow you to live spontaneously. As a result, religiously indoctrinated people become neurotic and in some cases even schizophrenic.

Religion is turning people against themselves

The demands that religion places on people are unrealistic. Religion, on the one hand, teaches that people are born sinners. Sin is what we are made of, and whatever we humans are doing is bound to be corrupted in one way or another. On the other hand, however, religion is teaching people to behave in the best ways possible - in a few words, to be perfect, just like angels. But obviously people are not angels, so how can they act in such an unnatural way?

This has many serious consequences. When you fail to do what God has ordered, you start hating yourself. You begin to accept the idea that you are indeed a bad person, corrupted, and not worthy. And once you do so, your life becomes filled with hatred, bitterness and resentment - a true hell on earth.

Religion is turning people against each other

The other is just a projection of yourself, a mirror, on whom you can see your own reflection.

Once you start hating yourself, you are bound to start hating others too. When you accept the idea that you are a sinner, you start seeing those around you as sinners. And when you believe that others are sinners, there is always a deep-rooted fear within you that the other wants to harm you - the other is evil, ill-willed, an enemy of yours.

In addition, you will not tolerate religious ideologies that are different from the one you follow. This is why you see religious groups fighting against each other. Similarly, religious groups are fighting nonreligious ones. To identify with a religious ideology and call it the only truth and way leads to tremendously negative effects - prejudice, bigotry, and all kinds of violence (just think of how many wars have been carried out throughout history in the name of God and religion).

Religion is keeping people in ignorance

To live means to learn, and life is a continuous lesson. When, however, you have grown up conditioned to believe what is right and wrong according to a religious dogma, and you've been taught that to doubt the religion you were born into means to go to hell, naturally you become afraid of seeking knowledge. You stop searching to find truth, and hence to learn and grow as a human being.

Knowledge and wisdom are incompatible with dogmatic religious ideologies. Indeed, religion is confining people's minds in the darkness of ignorance, and those who are in search of the light of truth are being condemned by religion. This way, religion keeps people blinded by all sorts of beliefs that are not based on any factual or experiential evidence, which does wonders to stunt their intelligence.

***

As you can see, the negative effects of religion on society are enormous. To blindly follow a religion, or any other ideology, simply means to restrict your perception, suppress yourself, and live in hypocrisy - in other words, to live in pain and misery.

Many people choose to follow religion, even though they're suffering from this choice, simply because religion frees them from personal responsibility. To live spontaneously one has to take responsibility for oneself, and this can be quite burdensome.

Life is made up of choices, and to make the right choices isn't that easy. So people prefer not to chose for themselves, but to have others choose for them. They prefer to walk on paths made by others, instead of creating and walking on their own paths.

But unless we stop having an authority tell us what to do or what not to, we will never be free to live the way we deep down want to live. And unless we are free, we will never be happy and find peace with ourselves and the world.

'Only sheep need a shepherd.' ~Voltaire

If you appreciate what you read here, consider supporting my work.

Join 370,000+ readers:

Did you like this post?

Every week I send out a newsletter (or two) with mind-expanding articles for readers. Subscribe to get them delivered right to your inbox for free. Your information is protected and I never spam.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Negative Effects of Religion on Society

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
BY SOFO ARCHON 'If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.' ~Albert Einstein Note: The term religion is used here for simplicity reasons to refer only to the dominant, especially Western, dogmatic, organized religions, and doesn't imply the esoteric religious traditions that do have positive things to contribute to the world.

# data[].attributes.body
Who: All the people in the world.

What: Negative effects of religion on society.

When: In the present day world.

Where: It applies to all the people living on the Earth.

Why: To show how religion can negatively effect everyday life, and the people of the world.

The writer shows bias when they say that everyone's lives revolve around fear.

The writer puts spin on on the topic when they say that religion is the reason why most people are afraid of living.

The writer puts spin on the topic when he says that the starting point of religion is fear.

The writer is trying to persuade people that religion is not a good thing. The writer stresses that religion revolves around fear, so what is the point of believing in something where you will constantly be fearing something.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Is the ACLU Good for America? - ACLU Pros & Cons - ProCon.org

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Is the ACLU Good for America? Read pros, cons, and expert responses in the debate.

# data[].attributes.body
I agree with what ive been reading and you're right people should be able to believe in whatever whether its Allah, god, or nothing. No one should be force into believing anything they do not want to. Im a Christian and i believe god is real and that he is there when i need him. Every night before i go to bed i pray to see another day or just resting peacefully. And to me it works im here everyday and live. When ask for forgiveness ..its done. And this what i believe and this is how i know what i believe is real.

# data[].attributes.body
I agree with parts of this article, Americans should have the right to choose their own beliefs system. I do not believe in god, or any supernatural force, but I strongly support laws to protect freedom of thought( whether that is to worship God or Allah, or anyone else you want), as soon at the government takes away the right to think certain ideas, America looses some of its core. Problems start to arise with religion when people use religion at justify actions. Religion is used to justify terrorism, murder, and discrimination. Even in America religion is used to allow and almost promote discrimination against certain groups, and that is what I do not except about religion. I also think that in America especially, all religions are not equal. U.S. policies almost always tend to lean towards and benefit Christians. Anti gay laws are passed because the bible says its "bad", but what if other people believe being gay is good, then your religion directly destroys the freedom of thought for others, and that is wrong and I do not support it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Why do we protect freedom of religion? The commonsense answer, which I think hits close to the truth, is that we protect it because religion is important. That simple answer creates serious problems for liberal theory, however, so it is seldom discussed or defended by legal writers.

Some say freedom of religion is important because it is one way (though only one) of exercising our autonomy as human beings interested in making our own choices and shaping our own lives. Religious devotees create lives for themselves around certain kinds of beliefs and values. They will probably join a community of like-minded people (a church). They typically have ideas about their relationship to God that orient them in their daily life. And so on. In doing these things they are protected by what Laurence Tribe calls "rights of religious autonomy."

There is nothing unique about religious autonomy. It is a name for one set of choices people make about how to live, but there are other sets of choices within the field of autonomy: choices about reproduction, risk taking, vocation, travel, education, appearance, and sexual behavior. For Tribe, religious autonomy is just one aspect of the larger "rights of privacy and personhood."

Moreover, within the set of religious choices we attach value to the act of choosing, not to particular outcomes. A decision to reject God is entitled to the same protection as a decision to follow him. As Gail Merel has put it, "Individual choice in matters of religion should remain free: individual decisions are to be protected whether they operate for or against the validity of any or all religious views . . . . The individual is freed from . . . the oppressive effects of government regulation in order to believe or disbelieve as he chooses."

The Supreme Court has given some support to the idea that autonomy is the value underlying religious freedom. It held in Torcaso v. Watkins (1961) that Maryland had violated religious freedom by requiring state officeholders to declare their belief in God. This suggests that the Constitution attaches equal value to belief and disbelief: the important thing is the choice, not the outcome.

This conclusion is hard to square with the language of the First Amendment, which protects only the free exercise "of religion." Rejecting religion is an exercise of freedom, but it is not an exercise of religion. (Amputation is not a way of exercising my foot.) The free exercise clause by its terms seems inconsistent with the idea of autonomy. It seems to favor choices for religion over choices against religion.

One way to avoid this textual limitation is to define "religion" very broadly-so broadly that even disbelief is a kind of religion. This is what the Court did in interpreting the draft law ( U.S. v. Seeger, 1965). When I was a boy people were exempt from military service if their "religious training and belief" made them oppose war. Federal law defined religious belief as "an individual's belief in a relation to a Supreme Being involving duties superior to those arising from any human relation." The Supreme Court interpreted the law with an eye on the free exercise clause, and said that the question was whether "the claimed belief occup[ies] the same place in the life of the objector as an orthodox belief in God holds in the life of one clearly qualified for exemption." The idea of "God" is "more of a hindrance than a help." We should think of God "not as a projection 'out there' or beyond the skies but as the ground of our very being." And "religion" is nothing more than "the devotion of man to the highest ideal that he can conceive."

The autonomy theory views religious freedom from an agnostic standpoint. That is hardly surprising. It follows rather naturally from the "autonomous" view of human nature. If you scratch a person deep enough, the theory holds, you will find a kind of free-floating self. If you looked at the surface of my life you might say that I was a middle-class Irish Catholic, husband, father of five children, law professor, part-time musician, Celtics fan, and so on. I have naturally inherited a variety of moral convictions (those typical of bourgeois Catholics, or lawyers). I am also moved by various desires that arise from and act upon the details of my life (I want prestigious publishers for my books, money for my children's education, time with my wife).

But my essential self is able to rise above these details. It is unencumbered, unsituated. It can step back from my habitual convictions and desires (my first-order preferences), reflect critically on them, and change them to suit its own plan (second-order preferences) for what my life should be like. Exactly where I get my second-order preferences is a matter of some dispute. Some say that I am guided by reason to universally applicable principles. Others say that I just make them up. But everyone agrees that it's up to me-to my unencumbered self-to choose them, however I might find them.

This view of human nature is the basis for a powerful argument in favor of freedom. A just political order has to take account of the way people really are. It must, in other words, respect their freedom to act as unencumbered selves on their second-order preferences. In the case of religion this means that it must view them as persons choosing, from a detached position, a theological orientation. This is what I mean by saying that the autonomy theory assumes the agnostic viewpoint. I might be a Catholic in my daily life, but that is a first-order preference. The real me is able to step back from it, assume an agnostic stance, and make a fresh start. I might then renew my religious commitment; but I might reject it. It doesn't really matter. The important thing is that the real me should organize my life along lines it freely chooses. The law protects religious freedom in order to facilitate that choice.

The autonomy theory is in one sense too powerful. It holds that a just society must let its citizens choose how to live their own lives. Some of the relevant choices are religious, so it follows that the government must not interfere with them. But there is nothing special about religious choices in this argument. They are on a par with promiscuous sex, cigarette smoking, and the practice of optometry. Our instincts and the language of our Constitution tell us, though, that there is a difference. The Bill of Rights protects the free exercise of religion. It says nothing about free love, free trade, or excise taxes on tobacco. What we need is an argument that is capable of protecting religion without protecting a lot of other activities that we don't feel strongly about.

Having said this much, I will not pursue the point further. I want to turn instead to a second problem with the autonomy theory. It concerns its assumptions about human nature. One is the factual assumption that we are capable of stepping back from our convictions and desires and reorganizing them according to second-order preferences that we freely choose. Another is the more value-laden assumption that we should do this in order to live "authentic" lives. There are those who would dispute both assumptions, and people who want religious freedom are among those most likely to do so.

Consider first the factual assumption. It is inconsistent in several ways with recurring ideas in Christian theology. The notion of original sin is meant to suggest the inherent imperfection of human nature. In the strongest statements of this idea-Augustine's is a good example-it entails our inability to master sinful desires and to freely will doing good. In the common phrase, human nature is the slave of sin. The counterpoint to this unhappy view of human nature is the idea of grace. It is a kind of sharing in divine life, a power that enables us to control sinful desire, live good lives, and win salvation. But grace is given to us by God gratuitously. We can't call it down with a rain dance, and we can't behave as we should without it. It is out of our control. This aspect of grace, followed to its logical conclusion, leads to the Calvinist notion of predestination: our salvation is entirely in God's hands, and some are not saved.

This view of human nature affects the way many religious people look at the idea of choice. The individual does not have complete control over choosing the religious option. It is God who makes the choice. I might have to accept God's choice and cooperate in carrying it out, but I am cast as a supporting actor. Thus the Jews understand themselves as the chosen people. Their stories tell of people pursued by God and brought back to do his work. Jonah, called by God to be his prophet, tried to escape on a boat for Tarshish but was brought back by miraculous means. In the New Testament, Jesus himself set the example by praying before his death, "Father, if it be thy will, take this cup from me. Yet not my will but thine be done." God converted the apostle Paul by striking him to the ground and blinding him. The scholar Alan Simpson has argued that a similar experience of conversion is the essence of Puritanism.

Those who take this view of human nature will also disagree with the autonomy theory about the value of running our own lives according to our second-order preferences. That is not the basis of real freedom. Augustine claims, for example, that real freedom is freedom from the bondage of sin. And it is out of the question for free will to realize this freedom through its own power; this it can do only through the grace of God. It sounds paradoxical, but it is accurate to say that Christian freedom consists not in making our own choices but in obeying the law of God.

The autonomy theory, then, bases religious freedom on a view of human nature that many religious people would reject. This need not be a fatal defect. We also justify freedom of speech on grounds that some speakers would reject-we say that it promotes democracy, and yet we grant it to Nazis who don't believe in democracy. But religious believers play a crucial role in free exercise law. They are not like the Nazis. They are like the New England town meeting-the paradigm around which the theory is built. If the theory does not work for them there is probably something wrong with it.

There is an additional doctrinal point. Free exercise law has a tendency to assume a kind of split-level character. In addition to its other shortcomings, the autonomy theory fails to explain this tendency.

In some areas of the law believers and unbelievers get equal protection. This is how it is with compelled worship and belief. Agnostics as well as Quakers can object to a test oath. But there are other areas where the law protects only believers. The free exercise clause sometimes requires states to pay money to religious believers-as in paying unemployment compensation to those whose religion requires them to abstain from work on certain days. It does not require payment to agnostics. It excuses Amish children from public school, but not agnostics. It protects the internal affairs of churches but not other associations against government interference.

In recent years the Court has shown an inclination to even out these differences. It has held that the Constitution does not, as a general rule, require special treatment for religiously required behavior. But this principle is still subject to a number of qualifications. First and most obvious is the fact that the free exercise clause still forbids discrimination against religion. That in itself is a kind of special treatment. There is no comparable rule protecting nonreligious action. The army can't have a special rule against yarmulkes. But it can have a role preferring yarmulkes to other nonuniform garb. Second, the Court has left standing all the old cases requiring religious exemptions (the ones about government benefits, school attendance, church affairs, and so on). It has even enlarged upon some of these.

These different levels of protection suggest that there are several principles at work in the law of religious freedom, not just one. The autonomy theory is appealing in its simplicity. But it is too simple to explain the actual complexity of the law.

The second standard argument for freedom of religion is political rather than ethical. The argument is that the denial of freedom causes strife that leaves everyone worse off. We can find both comparative and historical evidence for this conclusion. Lebanon, Iran, India, and the Sudan have recently seen violent struggles for religious supremacy. England and much of Western Europe did so in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Supreme Court has found parallels in early American history. As Justice Felix Frankfurter argued in McGowan v. Maryland (1961), "In assuring the free exercise of religion, the Framers of the First Amendment were sensitive to the then recent history of those persecutions and impositions of civil disability with which sectarian majorities in virtually all of the Colonies had visited deviation in the matter of conscience."

Like the autonomy theory, the political theory tries to justify religious freedom from an agnostic viewpoint. It stresses two kinds of harm that affect unbelievers. One is civil war. Even noncombatants get killed in a civil war, and everyone suffers from the collapse of the government and the economy. The other harm is persecution. Unbelievers cannot be prevented from practicing their faith. (They have none.) But if the government wants to compel a particular form of religious observance it might have to "torture, maim, and kill . . . 'atheists' or 'agnostics'- along with nonconforming believers ( Zorach v. Clauson, 1952).

This theory, like the autonomy theory, makes freedom universally available. But here the value of freedom is instrumental, not intrinsic. It leads to peace. If it didn't, we would take another approach. The autonomy argument, by contrast, said that freedom was intrinsically good for people like us. Of course it had to make some controversial assumptions about what kind of people we were. It is a virtue of the political argument that it dispenses with those assumptions. And there is much else to recommend it. It is realistic and practical, and goes some way toward justifying a special place for religious freedom. It does, though, have some weaknesses. The most important one is that it is incomplete.

Consider first the case of fringe groups. In American society there are, depending on how you count, hundreds or thousands of them. They include small but well-known sects (Hare Krishnas, members of Reverend Moon's Unification Church) and smaller, little-known local cults. For my purposes they also include unchurched believers-religious individualists who seek God in their own way. The political defense of freedom gives no protection to these people. If a group is sufficiently small the government can simply stamp it out without running the risk of civil war. Of course civil war is only one kind of strife. Stamping out fringe groups is persecution, and the political argument is designed to avoid that too. But what exactly is wrong with fining, jailing, medicating, religious eccentrics? These forms of punishment and cure are not in themselves objectionable, the way cruel and unusual punishment would be. We routinely apply them to drug offenders and think that we're doing the right thing. The obvious answer is that there is a difference between religious activity and drug dealing: one is good and the other is bad. But that argument, which I will develop further below, takes us beyond our concern with political strife.

So the political strife argument doesn't protect groups who can't fight because they're too small. Neither does it protect groups (some of them large) who are unwilling to fight. The Amish on principle flee from controversy and eschew politics. Quakers are well known for their pacifism. Groups that are far larger engage in many practices that they see as desirable but not essential, and that they would not defend with violence. Consider the employment practices of Catholic schools. The political defense of freedom gives no shelter to these groups if they pose no threat to peace.

I think we can state these objections in an even more general form. The political explanation tells us that freedom is good because it brings peace. It does not tell us why we should prefer freedom to other means of bringing peace. It gives us no reason to object to the suppression or the establishment of religion, provided the job is done ruthlessly enough to prevent civil war. Religion was an insignificant cause of strife in the Soviet Union from Stalin's time until very recently. There was little freedom, but that is no objection if all that matters is peace. The obvious advantage of freedom is that it respects piety as well as peace. But we need an argument that will tell us why it is good to respect piety.

The best reasons for protecting religious freedom rest on the assumption that religion is a good thing. Our Constitution guarantees religious freedom because religious people want to practice their faith. As Mark DeWolfe Howe said in The Garden and the Wilderness (1965): "Though it would be possible . . . that men who were deeply skeptical in religious matters should demand a constitutional prohibition against abridgments of religious liberty, surely it is more probable that the demand should come from those who themselves were believers."

One form of distinctively religious action is the performance of ritual acts. These include prayer and other kinds of worship; compliance with sumptuary rules governing dress, diet, the use of property; the observance of sacred times (feasts and holy days) and places (pilgrimages to shrines); rites connected with important events in the believer's life (birth, death, maturity, marriage); and so on.

Acts like these make sense only in the context of an entire religious tradition. Acts of worship presuppose a belief in a supreme being. In Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, God is described as the Creator, Lord, and Judge of the world we live in. The believer thinks that acts of worship are good because they please God or harmonize with the order of nature. Other forms of prayer presuppose a belief in a transcendent reality-a kind of life outside our world that is more real than our own, and that affects us in miraculous and mundane ways. We may go on living there (in heaven or hell) when we die. Prayer is the means by which we communicate with and try to influence this reality. Still other rites presuppose the existence of a social organization that enables like-minded people to act together. Some are led by a specialized class of functionaries who teach, supervise, and minister to ordinary members.

There is in our traditions a religious argument for religious freedom that is peculiarly associated with ritual acts. It is, simply, that it is futile to coerce people to perform ceremonies (prayer, worship, declarations of belief) they don't believe in. This idea has ancient roots, but it was most fully developed by English Protestants during the seventeenth century. Locke appeals to it in his Letter Concerning Toleration: "True and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God. And such is the nature of the understanding, that it cannot be compelled to the belief of anything by outward force." Coercion can be worse than futile-it can be counterproductive. In Milton's phrase, to force a ritual performance is "to compel hypocrisy, not to advance religion."

In modern free speech law we often run across the idea that the mind is a private domain which the government should not, and as a practical matter cannot, enter. Locke's and Milton's claims are different. They rest on a religious idea about our relations with God. Coerced ritual is futile because it cannot put the soul in touch with God. The individual cannot hear God unless he has faith. And faith does not come to people just because they go through the ritual motions. God gives it to whom he wills. It is an idea characteristic of Protestantism that this happens in a very individual way. The most effective medium is Scripture, through which God may speak to the pious reader.

This distinctively Protestant "right of private judgment" began as a protest against the Catholic Church's claim to mediate between God and individual souls, but it served equally well as an objection against state mediation. Roger Williams underlines the connection in The Bloody Tenent: "In vain have English Parliaments permitted English Bibles in the poorest English houses, and the simplest man or woman to search the Scriptures, if yet against their souls' persuasion from the Scripture, they should be forced (as if they lived in Spain or Rome itself without the sight of a Bible) to believe as the Church believes."

Let me turn now to a second form of religious action, and a different argument for religious freedom. Members of a religious tradition typically want to acquire and spread knowledge about the esoterica of their beliefs, ritual forms, ceremonial duties, and so on. These special kinds of religious truth are often set down in sacred texts (Bible, Torah, Qur'an) and elaborated upon in written and oral commentaries (Talmud, Sunna). Believers like to study these texts and commentaries, to discuss them with others, and in some traditions to bring them to the attention of unbelievers.

Those who feel this way sometimes argue that the freedom to acquire and spread religious knowledge leads us to the truth. We inherit this idea, like the last, from seventeenth"century English Protestantism. It is the message of Milton's Areopagitica-an expression of Puritan faith published in the same year as Roger Williams' Bloody Tenent . Milton offered several reasons why unlicensed printing would promote the discovery of religious truth. One was the now familiar claim that truth will prevail over falsehood in any free encounter. A less familiar but more radical idea was that God's revelation is progressive. This makes free inquiry not only safe but actually desirable. Individual thinkers may wander astray, but the net social effect of freedom is to bring us closer to God. "To be still searching what we know not by what we know, still closing up truth to truth as we find it . . . this is the golden rule in Theology as well as in Arithmetic, and makes up the best harmony in a Church."

Let me reemphasize that these two arguments (futility, truth) rest on religious premises (faith is a gift; revelation is progressive). They will convince only religious believers. But within that group they have carried the day. Consider the current positions of the Catholic Church and the Presbyterian Church"the two chief targets of Puritan polemicists like Milton and Williams.

The Catholic Church's Declaration on Religious Freedom was promulgated during the Second Vatican Council in 1965. The Declaration offers several reasons for protecting religious freedom. Prominent among them is the idea that faith arises through internal communication between God and the individual: "For of its very nature, the exercise of religion consists before all else in those internal, voluntary, and free acts whereby man sets the course of his life directly toward God. No merely human power can either command or prohibit acts of this kind." Equally prominent is the notion that freedom assists the search for religious truth: Truth "is to be sought after in a manner proper to the dignity of the human person and his social nature. The inquiry is to be free, carried on with the aid of teaching or instruction, communication, and dialogue. In the course of these, men explain to one another the truth they have discovered, or think they have discovered, in order thus to assist one another in the quest for truth."

The 200th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) adopted a Policy Statement on religious liberty in 1988. It too offers a variety of reasons for securing freedom. One is that faith cannot be coerced: "Religious insight and faith come from God, who exists over and beyond the powers and principalities of earth. Such insight and faith are recognized and received; they can neither be commanded or controlled by civil authority, military power, or religious piety." The other is that control of religion inevitably leads to suppression of the truth, because "there are no foolproof human mechanisms by which to test the authenticity of insight claimed to be from God."

Let me turn now to a third variety of religious action, and a different argument for religious freedom. Religious believers are often bound by special moral obligations. These come from a moral code that has some supernatural sanction (the halakhah in Judaism, the shari'a in Islam). Such a code often demands forms of behavior that the rest of society views as supererogratory, morally neutral, or even (occasionally) wrong. A violation of the moral code may be seen as something worse than a breach of duty, a kind of personal harm or insult to the author of the code, which calls for repentance and might be punished or forgiven on a transcendent level.

About these kinds of actions we might say that the government should not force people to violate moral duties if (in their system of belief) they will face transcendent consequences. Otherwise the believer might have to choose between violating the law and risking damnation. This is how it was with the early Mormons who were convicted of practicing polygamy. Or the believer might be forced to forgo a great good. In one of the Supreme Court's recent cases an American Indian complained that the government's use of a social security number for his daughter would "rob [her] spirit."

Of course the government often causes great harm to unbelievers as well. A religious pacifist fears for his salvation when he is drafted, but the average Marine also suffers at the thought of leaving his family and going into combat. From a religious point of view, though, the cases are not comparable. The harm threatening the believer is more serious (loss of heavenly comforts, not domestic ones) and more lasting (eternal, not temporary). That is what justifies this special kind of freedom to religious claimants alone.

This is a consequentialist argument for freedom (though the consequences it relies on are religious). But we could also make a nonconsequentialist argument. Moral codes impose religious duties, and there is something uniquely wrong with forcing people to violate a religious duty even if they are not primarily concerned about final rewards and punishments. Strict Calvinists, for example, see no connection between the performance of religious duties and election to heaven. But they can still demand religious freedom. The focus of their claim is not their own destiny. They are concerned instead with the effect on God, as it were-they have to disappoint him in order to comply with the law. The individual places great value in keeping faith with such duties, and it is this value that religious liberty protects.

These arguments about suffering and duty differ from the earlier arguments about futility and truth. Claims about suffering and duty focus on the personal interests of religious believers. They are an appeal to rights in the modern sense-a form of protection for people who are losers in the political process. Claims about the futility of coercion and the discovery of truth focus on a larger social interest. "We will all be better off," the believer says, "if we allow religious freedom."

Along with this difference in focus goes a difference in coverage. The earlier arguments apply universally. Coercion is futile no less for atheists than for Catholics and Jews. God may give them faith or he may not, but the government can't help him out. So too with the discovery of truth. It's no use letting only right-thinking Christians search, because we're talking about revelation and God can reveal himself to anyone. As the Gospel says, "The spirit blows where it wills." The arguments about suffering and duty, by contrast, offer protection only to religious believers. The sufferings of the faithful are special precisely because they believe in heaven, hell, eternal life, and so on. The believers' duties are more compelling just because they arise from God's commands.

This explains what I have called the split-level character of free exercise law. In some areas the clause protects everyone. This happens when we are dealing with ritual acts and the pursuit of knowledge. Atheists and Quakers alike can object to laws prescribing forms of faith (test oaths) and worship (school prayers). Anyone can object to a law that forbids inquiry (the teaching of evolution) for religious reasons. Likewise anybody can object-on free exercise as well as free speech grounds-when the government tries to limit communication about religiously significant questions. These matters are all covered by the first set of principles: compelled belief is futile; revelation is progressive.

In other areas the free exercise clause protects only religious believers. The cases where this happens are cases about compliance with a moral code. The believer's faith might require him to leave his job, or school, or the army. The Supreme Court used to give serious consideration to all such claims. Today it is harder to get special treatment, but it is not impossible. And it remains true now, as before, that "to have the protection of the Religion Clauses, the claims must be rooted in religious belief" ( Wisconsin v. Yoder, 1972). This disparity is explained by the second set of principles: believers face a special kind of suffering; they are subject to a higher kind of duty.

The draft cases do not fit this picture. None of the reasons I have given seems to cover the conscientious objection of nonreligious young men to service in the armed forces. But we should not generalize from these cases, any more than we should make death penalty cases the pattern for rules of criminal procedure. Killing is an extreme act, and the feeling of dread that attends it can give even nonreligious duties an absolute cast.

I have argued that we should take the believer's viewpoint rather than the agnostic's viewpoint in thinking about religious freedom. But my argument seems incomplete. It relies upon reasons that only some people find convincing. And sometimes it protects freedom only for those who are convinced. How can such a lopsided idea justify one of our basic constitutional rights?

I admit that my argument for religious freedom is lopsided, but I want to stress that this is not as serious a problem as it might appear. This is so, first of all, because it does not require agnostics to give up something for nothing. Free exercise law has a split-level character. On one level it gives special protection to religious believers. But on another level it treats everyone alike. The government can't force anyone to perform ritual acts, and it can't interfere with the pursuit of religious knowledge. This means that everyone has a reason to support some degree of religious freedom.

The standard arguments assume the agnostic point of view because they want a rule of religious freedom that is fair to everyone. Fairness here has two dimensions. One is consent. Universal consent is a good indication that a rule treats everyone fairly. (That is why social contracts are always adopted unanimously.) The agnostic point of view tries to base freedom on principles everyone can agree with. Revelation is out because it's hidden from some people. We are asked to look instead at facts about human nature and our social situation: the autonomy argument refers to the unencumbered self; the political strife argument refers to the causes of war and peace.

The other dimension of fairness is reciprocity. A contract is fair in this sense if the parties share equally in the benefits of the bargain. The autonomy argument satisfies this condition by making religion just one of many protected choices, and by offering equal religious freedom to believers and unbelievers. The political argument says that freedom results in a public good (peace) that everyone enjoys.

The religious defense of free exercise is lopsided because it violates these conditions of fairness. The principles that it relies on to justify freedom-futility, truth, suffering, and duty-all refer in some way to religious beliefs that many people do not hold. This makes it hard for some people to consent. The religious defense also gives special protection to some kinds of religious action. That is, it excuses religious actors from some generally applicable laws when their moral code requires some other course of conduct. This violates the condition of reciprocity. Why should we prefer an argument of this kind to arguments that seem to satisfy the canons of fairness?

For several reasons. First, the standard arguments themselves fail the test of fairness. The autonomy theory, like my own theory, appeals to assumptions about human nature (the unencumbered self, the value of authenticity) that are inconsistent with convictions that many religious people hold about original sin, grace, faith, and revelation. In the real world these people would not consent to a social contract based on autonomy. To avoid this problem the theory asks everyone to assume the agnostic viewpoint. But why not ask agnostics to assume the religious viewpoint? That too would produce unanimous consent. It would not be consistent with liberal theory, because it commits us to a view of the good before we have resolved the issue of rights. But we can't assume the correctness of liberal theory. That is the very question we're debating. If my theory won't get universal consent, neither will the autonomy theory.

The political strife theory is flawed in the same way. It asks us to make the empirical assumption that we can only have civil peace through religious freedom. But there are other ways of avoiding strife; repression is one of them. Unless freedom has some other good points, there is no reason to prefer it over repression.

There is reason to doubt, then, that the standard arguments are more fair than mine. My own approach, on the other hand, has some real strengths that they lack. It is the most convincing explanation for why our society adopted the right to religious freedom in the first place. It is possible to imagine a society of skeptics insisting on a free exercise clause, but the idea is far-fetched.

The religious justification is also the reason why many, perhaps most, religious believers claim the right to freedom today. It enables them to perform their religious duties and to avoid religious sanctions. It allows them to pursue the truth, as God gives them to know the truth. And no other course could bring them closer to God.

Finally, the religious justification is the only convincing explanation for the split-level character of free exercise law. Sometimes religious believers and nonbelievers are treated alike; but sometimes the law protects only religious believers. This is not something that we can explain by appeals to consent and fairness. It violates the canon of reciprocity. The only convincing explanation for such a rule is that the law thinks religion is a good thing.

John H. Garvey is Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame Law School. This article is excerpted from his book What Are Freedoms For? published by Harvard University Press.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Real Reason for Religious Freedom | John H. Garvey

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Why do we protect freedom of religion? The commonsense answer, which I think hits close to the truth, is that we protect it because religion is important. That simple answer creates serious problems for liberal theory, however, so it is seldom discussed or defended by legal writers.

# data[].attributes.body
Who: First Things website is talking about the importance of religion.

What: The underlying importance of religion in the United States. People usually are devoted to their religion because it has been passed down and they want to continue pursuing their belief; or they are new to the religion because something drew their attention and thought to it.

Where: The United States is being pressured by different religions. Religion has become a controversial topic all across the states. The debate is over which religion(s) should and shouldn't be allowed. This article informs readers about the controversy and where the religions of the United States came from, and their importance.

When: This controversy is present now and will continue to be an ongoing debate. The way the controversy is now leads many to think that there will be no end.

Why: Religion is important and it does not need to disappear because religion has always been a key source for humanity. Religion being such a huge controversy this article helps to stress the importance of religion.

John H. Garvey has his own opinion or bias towards the topic. John shows bias when he says "Why do we protect freedom of religion? The commonsense answer, which I think hits close to the truth, is that we protect it because religion is important." He shows his bias for the topic because he says what he thinks.

John has bias towards religious autonomy when he says "There is nothing unique about religious autonomy. It is a name for one set of choices people make about how to live." John seems to be opposed to the idea of religious groups.

John puts a spin on the autonomy subject and says "there are other sets of choices within the field of autonomy: choices about reproduction, risk taking, vocation, travel, education, appearance, and sexual behavior." John is turning the subject around on itself and bringing forth other ideas that people would consider autonomy.

John shows more bias when he says "The Constitution attaches equal value to belief and disbelief: the important thing is the choice, not the outcome."

John puts a spin on religion when he says "One way to avoid this textual limitation is to define “religion” very broadly”so broadly that even disbelief is a kind of religion."

# data[].attributes.body
Who: American Civil Liberties Union

What: Your right to religious freedom

Where: In the United States of America

When: Everyday, so the ACLU is going to show you laws and amendments that will broaden your perspective of religion and when it can and cannot be used.

Why: It is a controversial topic; especially in the United States.

This article talks about how to participate where you live, but first you have to know your rights.

A positive spin is when the article says "The Bill of Rights applies to young people as well as adults."

Bias is prevalent when the writer says that "Our country's founders knew the best way to protect religious liberty was to keep the government out of religion.

The writer has his own bias when he states "It is not constitutional for schools to teach religion in public schools."

The writer also has bias when he agrees that a teacher cannot start a day of class or a meeting with a prayer. The reason being is because it is promoting religion which violates the First Amendment.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Getting an education isn't just about books and grades -- we're also learning how to participate fully in the life of this nation. (Because one day we are going to be in charge!)
But in order to really participate, we need to know our rights -- otherwise we may lose them. The highest law in our land is the U.S. Constitution, which has some amendments, known as the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights guarantees that the government can never deprive people in the U.S. of certain fundamental rights including the right to freedom of religion and to free speech and the due process of law. Many federal and state laws give us additional rights, too.

The Bill of Rights applies to young people as well as adults. And what I'm going to do right here is tell you about RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.

WHAT IS RELIGIOUS FREEDOM EXACTLY?

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that everyone in the United States has the right to practice his or her own religion, or no religion at all.

Our country's founders -- who were of different religious backgrounds themselves -- knew the best way to protect religious liberty was to keep the government out of religion. So they created the First Amendment -- to guarantee the separation of church and state. This fundamental freedom is a major reason why the U.S. has managed to avoid a lot of the religious conflicts that have torn so many other nations apart.

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits government from encouraging or promoting ("establishing") religion in any way. That's why we don't have an official religion of the United States. This means that the government may not give financial support to any religion. That's why many school voucher programs violate the Establishment Clause -- because they give taxpayers' money to schools that promote religion.

The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment gives you the right to worship or not as you choose. The government can't penalize you because of your religious beliefs.

HOW DO YOU KNOW THE GOVERNMENT IS "ESTABLISHING RELIGION"?

In 1971, the Supreme Court decided Lemon v. Kurtzman which created three tests for determining whether a particular government act or policy unconstitutionally promotes religion.
The Lemon test says that in order to be constitutional, a policy must:

1. Have a non-religious purpose;

2. Not end up promoting or favoring any set of religious beliefs; and

3. Not overly involve the government with religion.

IS IT CONSTITUTIONAL TO TEACH RELIGION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS?
No. The public schools are run by the government. Therefore, they must obey the First Amendment. This means that while they can teach about the influences of religion in history, literature, and philosophy -- they can't promote religious beliefs or practices as part of the curriculum. Since private and parochial schools aren't run by the government, the First Amendment doesn't apply to them. Also, students can be excused from some school activities if they conflict with their religious beliefs.
CAN MY TEACHER START THE DAY OR A MEETING WITH PRAYER?
No. Prayers, scriptural readings, and loudspeaker devotionals violate the First Amendment because they promote religion. This is true even if the prayer is "non-denominational" (not of any particular religion.) Moments of silence might be unconstitutional -- it depends on whether or not the real reason they're being held is to encourage prayer. No. In 1992, the Supreme Court decided in Lee v. Weisman that graduation prayers are unconstitutional in public schools. Think about it: graduation prayers would give non-believers or kids of other faiths the feeling that their participation in prayer is required. It doesn't matter who leads the prayer -- a minister, a priest, a rabbi, whoever, or whether the prayer is non-denominational -- some kids would feel left out. Student-led prayer is unconstitutional too. Just because a student or group of students leads the prayer, the graduation ceremony is still a school-sponsored event, right? You can choose to have a private alternative event that includes prayer, like a baccalaureate. It just can't be sponsored by the school. Student, parent or church groups can organize it -- but it still must be held off of school grounds. That doesn't change anything. In the United States, each individual has certain fundamental freedoms -- including freedom of religion. These can't be taken away, even by "majority rule." Think about your friends who have different faiths or no religious beliefs at all. They'd still feel excluded from their own graduation exercises. Or worse, they'd feel like the school thought your religion was better than theirs. Put the shoe on the other foot for a second and think about how that would make you feel! Sure. Individual students have the right to pray whenever they want to, as long as they don't disrupt classroom instruction or other educational activities -- or try to force others to pray along with them. If a school official has told you that you can't pray at all during the school day, your right to exercise your religion is being violated. Contact your local ACLU for help. It depends. Making Christmas stockings, Easter eggs or Hannukah dreidels is probably okay because, over the years, these have become secular customs that people of many different backgrounds enjoy. But a Nativity pageant, which is full of religious meaning, could be considered unconstitutional. Student-organized Bible clubs are OK as long as three conditions are met: (1) the activity must take place during non-school hours; (2) school officials can't be involved in organizing or running the club, and (3) the school must make its facilities available to all student groups on an equal basis. So your Bible club couldn't be the only group allowed access to the school grounds. Neither could your school let other student groups use the building for meetings and events and deny your Bible club the same opportunity. The organized distribution of Bibles or any other holy book during the school day is unconstitutional, even if teachers aren't the ones actually handing out the Bibles, and even if they're not used as a part of the school's educational program. That's because the school building or grounds are still being used to spread a religious doctrine at a time when students are required to be there. That's what religious freedom is all about -- you are free to worship as you choose -- even if that means not at all.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
-- First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
We spend a big part of our life in school, so let's get involved! Join the student government! Attend school meetings! Petition your school administration! Talk about your rights with your friends! We can make a difference!
Produced by the ACLU Department of Public Education. 125 Broad Street, NY NY 10004. For more copies of this or any other Sybil Liberty paper, or to order the ACLU handbook The Rights of Students or other student-related publications, call 800-775-ACLU or visit us on the internet at https://www.aclu.org.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Getting an education isn't just about books and grades -- we're also learning how to participate fully in the life of this nation. (Because one day we are going to be in charge!)But in order to really participate, we need to know our rights -- otherwise we may lose them.

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/your-rights/human-rights/what-are-human-rights%3F/the-human-rights-act/freedom-of-thought-belief-and-religion

Who: Everyone is involved because religion and choice is worldwide.

What: The right to have your own beliefs. The Human Rights Act protects your right to have your own thoughts, beliefs and religion. You also have the right to put your thoughts and beliefs into action.

When: Anytime throughout an individual's life. The stage in life varies from person to person when they start to believe in something on their own.

Where: Everywhere on Earth religion is a part of life. Everyone in the world hears about different religions and what they believe.

Why: The Human Rights Act protects everyone for what they believe. We all have the right to freedom of expression and protection from discrimination. It is for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.