# Freedoms Based on Religion Should Not Exist **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 17, 2015, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedoms-based-on-religion-should-not-exist/717899 "2015-04-17T10:27:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2015, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedoms-based-on-religion-should-not-exist/717899/261 "2015-05-04T15:10:31Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > That reminds me that I had wanted to respond to this point myself. Yes, I agree, and so does constitutional scholar Peter Hogg, [who is quoted](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamble_to_the_Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms) as having written in 1982 that "‘supremacy of God’ is contrary to section 2 of the Charter, which protects freedom of conscience, which Hogg felt would include a right to atheism. > I would suggest that the reference in the Declaration of Independence doesn’t mean what you think it does, even though, granted, religion was a much bigger thing in those days. But it was for just that reason that references to God were commonplace and were meant to denote a moral authority that was supreme over the institutions of man. And the phrase “all men are created equal” is not an endorsement of Biblical creationism, even for the 18th century when many probably did believe in it – it’s more a formal way of asserting that “all men are equal”. But “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” is an example of what I just said – not so much an appeal to the authority of a particular God as an appeal to a moral authority that no man or government has the right to usurp. > > The Canadian constitutional preamble is unfortunate, in my view, because in modern times we should not be using “God” as a synonym for moral authority, but that seems to be what it means, just as in the US Declaration of Independence. If it was to be interpreted literally then, as **Uzi** asks, whose God does it refer to, and as the constitutional scholar I quoted points out, it would contradict the Constitution itself in respect to freedom of conscience and religion. In the same vein, the Wikipedia article I linked above also quotes a theologian as “question[ing] whether the preamble refers to a specific God (the Christian God or Jewish God) or to a more abstract concept that promotes civic virtue (i.e., civil religion)”, which is just what I think it’s doing. Moreover, it was also ruled to be meaningless as any kind of basis for law (from the same source): > In considering the legal implications of the preamble in the 1999 case _R. v. Sharpe_, the British Columbia Court of Appeal referred to it as a “dead letter” which the BC justices had “no authority to breathe life” into. > > So it seems to me that if you’re trying to make the case that the founders intended to commingle religion with law, you have a very weak case indeed. In the US, Jefferson further clarified that fact with his concept of the “separation of church and state”. You totally misunderstand my purpose. It was not to argue that the “founders intended to commingle religion with law”. Rather, it was to argue against the proposition being advanced that the founders based the laws on ‘pure rationality’. They did not - they based them on moral principles, which, as they expressly stated, they ultimately derived from religious principles and/or philosophic musings about the nature of Man. Not from ‘pure rationality’, whatever that is. Calling for a seperation of church and state, of course, is in no way a refutation of that - the whole point of seperating church and state was to avoid having a single majority religion imposed on everyone - which is perfectly consistent with a vision of “inherent rights” derived from the dignity of humanity, whether endowed by a Creator God (or not). As, of course, is having state grant religious rights to said minorities. That, too, is part of the whole granting people inherent rights and freedoms deal. The thesis that these inherent rights and freedoms should be removed beacuse the founders only dealt in pure rationality, and so rights based on people’s irrational beliefs ought not to be respected, is what I am arguing against - it makes literally no sense, if one actually examines the history. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2015, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedoms-based-on-religion-should-not-exist/717899/262 "2015-05-04T22:29:40Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > You totally misunderstand my purpose. It was not to argue that the “founders intended to commingle religion with law”. > > Rather, it was to argue against the proposition being advanced that the founders based the laws on ‘pure rationality’. > > They did not - they based them on moral principles, which, as they expressly stated, they ultimately derived from religious principles and/or philosophic musings about the nature of Man. Not from ‘pure rationality’, whatever that is. I think you’re misunderstanding what I mean by “rationality”. I’m not implying anything mysterious here. Indeed the moral principles you speak of are a big part of what I mean, and that has nothing to do with religion, though religions have often appropriated morality as their domain of authority, sometimes with tragic results, as with honor killings, stonings, homophobia, etc. So, again, what I mean by rationality in law consists of precisely those moral principles you speak of, along with respect for human dignity and the security of the person, property rights, and the other basic values, derived from reason, that are objectively necessary for a free, just, and peaceful society. Of course I know your response to that will be “religion is one of those values!” Yes, and freedom in religion is fine – I don’t favor a society that has to endure “my God is better than your God” conflicts. Freedom in all things, in fact, is a laudable and essential goal. But here’s the thing you and the other defenders of religious exceptionalism seem to be missing: When we make laws on the basis of the principles I just outlined, we’ve _ **already agreed** _ that, based on those principles, certain freedoms must be reasonably constrained in order to foster the kind of society we value. That is at its very core the whole purpose of law and the imperative of social order. I’ll put it plainly and simply. Every law must be subject to the test that is of this form: we must be able to say it exists “because…” followed by a statement of real-world effect that is consistent with our established principles. It is not acceptable to have a law, or an exemption to a law, whose justification is of the form “because… God”. That’s when you have crazy things start to happen, like people refusing to let their children have blood transfusions, or riding motorcycles without helmets, or flying airplanes into buildings. I do not, contrary to your earlier statement, advocate some radically re-engineered form of society. I advocate a society that is almost exactly like the one we have. Just one in which the law applies equally to everyone. One in which there’s no room for crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2015, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedoms-based-on-religion-should-not-exist/717899/263 "2015-05-04T23:03:48Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > . . . One in which there’s no room for crazy. Or even, one might say, where there’s no room for being right without justification either. If a person says slavery is bad because is degrades people, it promotes inequality, it takes from some and gives to others without any representation, and so on, I’ll listen. When someone says slavery is bad because God says so…even though I agree with the conclusion, I am no friend of theirs. In the very next breath, they can say something dangerous and crazy – “…and blood transfusions are also bad because God says so!” Even the parts of religion we agree with are dangerous, because they have no foundation other than the words spoken by some authority – be it Moses and Jesus, or L. Ron Hubbard and Carlos Castaneda. Religion operates on faith alone, not on evidence. You can arrive at any conclusion that way. Some of those conclusions may be good ones – “Love your neighbor” – but others are going to be very bad – “Put them all to the sword; God will know his own.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedoms-based-on-religion-should-not-exist/717899.md?page=13)