Dear ALGOREisRICH,

In our discussions as I remember we did have some agreement. We both opposed antivilification legislation although I am not sure we opposed it for the same reason. I opposed it because it puts government in the position of deciding what is and is not permitted speech. I trust nobody to decide what I should express, and I do not wish to decide what anyone should express. Therefore we must allow ideas which some find loathsome to be expressed even the Nazi ideas.

Freedom is a risky business. If we allow people to express ideas which would take away our freedoms or even our lives there is the danger that they will gather followers. If we suppress their ideas we have established a precedent which may allow our ideas to be suppressed. To allow free speech puts us at risk of losing freedom. To suppress free speech makes certain the loss of freedom.

However, speech which puts one in immediate danger such as inciting a lynch mob is an offense under common law as incitement. We need no special legislation for that. We just need police properly trained to take action in such circumstances.

However, the mere statement , “Jews must be fought and killed.”, while loathsome puts nobody in immediate danger and must be allowed. We must differentiate between mere advocacy of actions and actual planning and carrying out of actions.

The expression of any set of ideas such as you mentioned with values which are genocidal, racist and includes doctrinally justified sexual exploitation of children or women must be allowed. Values are a tricky business. Who decides what is and what is not exploitation? Having engaged in lengthy discussions with you I would not trust your judgement to decide which values are allowable.

Secularism is intended to prevent the imposition of the beliefs of one religion (be it catholicism, islam or atheism etc) onto other groups within the community. This is an obvious requisite for true democracy, as it allows representation from ALL groups in the government.

I can't understand why religious types such as runner see it as a threat to their religious beliefs, and instantly jump on the offensive...

It allows for government to operate without prejudice. Isn't that what Jesus would have wanted?

david f,

Would you agree from the time of the seventeen century the founding fathers until the first self governments of th US that the separation of church and state was as much to do with protecting the Church from Government, as ridding Government of the Church? Render unto God and don't interfere. Herein, secularism can quantine, even protect religion, rather than opposite it.

Dear Oliver,

I am writing another article on the subject, and the following is part of it.

"The General Baptists in England had advocated separation as early as 1611, and the first two pastors of the first Baptist church in England died in prison for these beliefs. Williams declared that the state could legitimately concern itself only with matters of civil order, but not religious belief."

Roger Williams was concerned with protecting church from government.

Dear David,

Very interesting, as always. Good topic.

I could be offline for a few days with my own writing.

Thanks for your contributions.

Dear David,

You quote extensively from the Stefan Zweig book, so perhaps this will interest you.

In 1970, after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 (and my arrival in Australia) a Slovak translation of Zweig’s book was published there, apparently because the censors oversaw that it was about much more than just history. They realised their error, and withdrew it immediately, only after the word got out and large numbers queued up to get it on its first day (like the iPhone these days?). My father managed to get a copy, sent it to me, and I still cherish the book. I even went to get the English version from the library, and copied parts of it.

The German original appeared in 1936 and a verbatim translation of its title would be “Conscience against Violence”. This is also how the Slovaks translated it. Many quotes from it can be applied not only to the Calvin/Castellio situation but also to the situation in Austria and Germany that Zweig foresaw in 1936, or to the situation in Eastern Europe, especially the Czechoslovak hopelessness after 1968, and in a certain sense (as you know, mathematicians are prone to abstractions :-)) also to our times.

Here are two quotes :

“Though vanquished, those who lived before the time was ripe have found significance in the fulfillment of a timeless ideal; for an idea is only quickened to life in the real world through the endeavours of those who conceived it where non could witness the conception … Spiritually considered, the words “victory” and “defeat” acquire new meanings. Hence we must never cease to remind a world which has eyes only for monuments to conquerors, that the true heroes of our race are not those who who reach their transitory realms across hecatombs of corpses, but those who lacking power to resist, succumb to superior force.” (ctd)