Hi Yuyutsu

You wrote:

'Since most people have no understanding of religion itself, what seems to have been "a subject of public discourse for millennia" is not religion, but only its perceived reflection, or the shadow it casts over the social arena.

Since my utmost concern is not about social matters, but about religion itself and the freedom to practice it, I do not even attempt to ask for or expect any public discourse about religion. Insteaor d, I am asking for tolerance towards everything, which would automatically include the tolerance of religion even while most people need not understand what it really is.'

With due respect for your private thoughts, it seems odd to be offering a definition of religion ['the actual progress towards God (or call it towards Truth, Love or Ultimate Reality, etc. as you prefer), be it conscious or otherwise] to a public discussion forum while at the same time not wanting or expecting it to be discussed, and in addition to be asking for tolerance of something which is undiscussable whether or not one understands what it really is.

Perhaps I'm just unreasonable for expecting the inneffable to be effed?

Dear Pirate,

Well I could discuss religion with anyone who is interested - but I found that most people are not and I have no reason to blame them. True, many are interested in the social aspects surrounding religious groups and organisations (including such that are only "religious" by name) - some in favour, some against, but rare are they who actually want to discuss religion itself, away from a social context.

Being in a minority, I am not hoping to convince a disinterested majority about the importance of religion, certainly not after several churches and similar organisations (to which I don't belong) gave religion a bad reputation and made the public revolt against them.

Unlike such churches that desire power and specific social consequences, I have no political aspirations: let others do what they like - all I wish is to be left alone by the state, ensuring that religious people are not persecuted and religious practices and observances are never banned or obstructed by the regime of the land.

The biggest danger I see to religious freedom is that, so long as clause(s) of special religious privileges exist in the Australian constitution, the state could ban religious practices and observances on the pretext that "this is not religion". While the big churches are able to fend for themselves, advocate and convince the state that their practices are "religious", those like myself who do not belong to such organisations with strong lobbies, cannot.

In this article, I find myself in "coalition" with the author and others who, perhaps for other reasons, including them belonging to different minorities, advocate general freedom to all in all matters - which would necessarily include the freedom of minorities like mine to practice our religion.

As David F. beautifully put it:

"I disagree with Yuyutsu's definition of religion. However, it is unnecessary to agree on that point to respect all people."

Hi Yuyutsu

I'm pleased to know that you 'could discuss religion with anyone who is interested'. I must have misunderstood your limitations on its discussion. Religion is certainly a protean phenomenon. Even in my limited readings I have found it explored from the perspectives of history, politics, economics, law and human rights, philosophy, experimental psychology, evolutionary psychology, anthropology, epistemology, cognitive science, theology, moral philosophy and neuroscience. You would not have to convince me that it's significant. I think you might agree with me that a definition (in the common sense of what we consult dictionaries for), if it is to serve a useful purpose, must be descriptive rather than normative: it must capture the variety of a term's actual contemporary meanings rather than reflect someone's idiosyncratric idea of what it should mean, and, of course, simply to declare arbitrarily by fiat what some term 'really' means is intolerance on stilts. From the point of view of freedom, I'm biased towards function, in that I'm less interested in what religion is than in what it does.

Dear Pirate,

<<From the point of view of freedom, I'm biased towards function, in that I'm less interested in what religion is than in what it does.>>

Did you mean what it does for its practitioner or to other people?

I consider religion to be a bit perhaps like playing golf - something private that is extremely important for the practitioner with only minimal effect on others.

To illustrate an example of religious freedom, take the case of an orthodox Jew who is ordered to appear as witness in court on a Saturday, the Sabbath. The Jew of course would never contemplate breaking the Sabbath and so either he would be physically dragged to court, kicking and screaming or hide for the day and later be caught and imprisoned for contempt of court.

Now if that Jew was part of a larger Jewish community, then the state would likely be aware that this is his religion and schedule the hearing for another date, based on the "freedom of religion" clause in the constitution, but suppose he was the only remaining Jew with no community support...

Well, the same goes for the golf-enthusiast who vowed to play golf all day on Tuesdays. Playing golf is quite complex and you probably need to read a book to really understand it, but it's not necessary to understand the rules of the game in order to respect this enthusiast.

So while I don't play golf, I find myself in coalition with the minority that does as well as with many other minorities who would be devastated if the state were to break what is dearest to them.

I realise, as well as try to convince other religious people, that the only way for us to secure our religious freedom, is to allow freedom of everything to all.

Others (like the author) may want this freedom for other purposes, perhaps in order to carry an abortion or to conduct euthanasia and that's fine - the larger the coalition for freedom, the more secure our religious freedom becomes.

Hi Yuyutsu

'I consider religion to be a bit perhaps like playing golf - something private that is extremely important for the practitioner with only minimal effect on others.'

That's an apt analogy for drawing attention to positive and negative freedoms (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/). One's action having 'only minimal effect' (or indeed no effect at all) on others means that the golfer places no 'obstacles, barriers or constraints' (see reference) on their 'negative liberty', while the golfer (all other things being equal) has autonomous control of her own actions. This is her 'positive liberty'.

'Did you mean what it [religion] does for its practitioner or to other people?'

My view is that what a belief (I use 'belief' here as a general placeholder for religious and similar cognitive states) does for someone who holds it is not a freedom issue if there is no related action involved that can be observed or judged. The holder of the belief is the only one who can decide what it does for her.

As far as its effect on others is concerned, to talk of the 'function' of a belief implies some correlation between a psychological state and an action which is regular enough to be predictive. If sociological, psychological or other investigation reveals such a regularity, the point of interest is whether the correlated actions are beneficial or harmful to others. Harm is the key. A psychopath may never harm others even though a personality profile shows him to be one.

Discussing freedom of religion as a public issue is not necessarily hindered by the absence of agreement about what religion is as long as one is prepared to consolidate it in the broadest possible formulation - that of freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief (http://www.refworld.org/docid/453883fb22.html) - as a point of reference. There will no doubt always be difficulties for authorities and administrations in operationalising this concept (dealing with conscientious objections, for example), but that's a small price to pay.

'...the larger the coalition for freedom, the more secure our religious freedom becomes.'

Amen to that as a guiding principle!

Dear Pirate,

Thank you for those most interesting resources!

My position on freedom is derived from the spiritual principle of non-violence (Ahimsa), or in its Western version, the Golden Rule: "What you hate being done unto yourself, do not do unto others".

The Bhagavad-Gita (2.47) teaches that we have control over our actions, but not over their results. In relation to other people's freedom, this means that we should strive to never take them away, yet whether others in fact end up with or without freedom is not up to us, so it's not something we should be concerned about.

Thus what counts is not whether or not you have freedom, but the fact that I haven't taken it away. I think this brings us close to "negative freedom", except that unlike its pure model, one is also responsible for their unintentional actions (i.e. negligence).

Nothing, obviously, stops me from also being generous and help you to overcome your other obstacles. In fact, positive freedom is more than welcome - but only within a voluntary society where I have the others' permission to help them. The national state as we currently have, isn't a voluntary society.

The issue of 'belief' is already uncontentious: nobody in modern society is persecuted for believing that they must play golf on Tuesdays. Still, if one acts on their belief and does play golf on a Tuesday when summoned to court to witness, then they will be punished despite having hurt no one - and that's absolutely wrong and unforgivable, unless of course we lived in a voluntary society, which is not the case.

Ordinary people as well as secular government-administrators have no tools to determine categorically whether a particular person's principle of playing golf each Tuesday is religious or otherwise. Only a prophet or a sage could perhaps make that distinction and as we don't have too many of them around, the only way ahead is to have freedom of everything for everyone.

Ideally we would have voluntary societies rather than territorially-based ones, then we could also make different agreements if we wanted to.