Aah, Zenster:
I should expect this level of thinking from a person who thinks “freedom of religion”–(which means, of course, that religion is free) necessarily entails “freedom from religion” (which means, of course, that religion is restricted).
When the U.S. Constitution says “religion”, it doesn’t mean, “one’s personal opinion”, it doesn’t mean, “something that came to you in a dream”, and it doesn’t mean “something you never ever talk about”.
It’s talking about organized communions of people who share a belief about matters of fact as well as about desirable behavior. And if you ask anyone in the U.S. government, from its founding to today, what an example of a religion is, they’ll tell you, something like Christianity or Islam. The law was written as regarding churches. And churches are in the business of telling people what they believe to be the truth.
By saying this you show an ignorance of the character of religion, or at least of those religions the framers of the U.S. Constitution had in mind when they used the word.
You may not have had a religious upbringing. You may think that churchgoing people just sit around and make this stuff up. But in point of fact, traditional Christians contend that their religion was transmitted to mankind by God, through Jesus and the Apostles; thus it is not hubris for a Christian to say he knows God’s will. He has, he believes, been reliably told what that will is.
Muslims believe that God’s will for the world was revealed to Mohammed by an angel. This is not a mere matter of opinion, but a question of historical fact.
Traditional Judaism holds that Moses actually spoke with God and that the Torah is from God.
By calling an adherence to any of these beliefs “hubris” you demonstrate your ignorance of these religions. You insult not only the fundamentalist Christians you admittedly despise, but Jews who revere the Torah, and all serious Muslims.
You should speak more carefully.
As for JasonFin’s comment:
I was pretty rude–worthy of the Pit, I admit. But I feel it reflects the way a lot of Jews think.
Also, as someone whose philosophy of religion is more in the Christian/Muslim mold, I get a few digs in at the rabbinical Jewish tradition. They seem to me too disengaged from the world outside their ethnic community.
My admittedly snide attitude comes out of a serious difference on one question of religious belief: Are we responsible for enlightening others, and should we attempt to enlighten others even when they think we’re hateful, and evil, and wrong?
Mohammed said yes.
Christianity has resoundingly said yes for most of its history.
Rabbinical Judaism has typically said of those unenlightened by their ostensible knowledge of God something to the effect of “Who cares about a bunch of goyim?” I call that racism.
Now people like Zenster tell me that that belief, the element of Christian (or Muslim) religious philosophy that morally demands preaching to the unconverted, is unacceptable under U.S. law. If I believed the law intended that, and I don’t, then I would say, “My conviction that I do God’s will trumps your law.” And so does the conviction of someone who disagrees with me about the specific character of God’s law.
Zenster is, of course, free to believe as he wishes, free to think all organized religion is worthless, free to curse God in his heart if he so chooses. But he needs to understand this:
He calls public prayer, etc. “foist[ing] your beliefs on others”. But this is not going to force him to change his mind, thus it does not negate his personal freedom of belief. I have often (even usually) been surrounded by people with whom I disagreed on fundamental philiosophical concepts.
But a law forbidding a Christian from attempting to convert him would be forbidding the practice of that Christian’s religion, and thus the Christian, by the tenets of his religion, would be justified in breaking that law. Since our constitution is written so as to discourage religious persecution, it should not be construed as prohibiting proselytization by those whose religions call for proselytization.
This, of course, does not excuse harassment. But public expression of religion is not harassment per se.