Hi, "Progressive" Pat,

You've got me thinking :) I have to admit that I would not support the banning of many reactionary systems of belief and thought, even the Nazis or the various Communist Parties. Similarly, in my view, reactionary-religious systems of ignorance should not be banned - and therefore neither can they be persecuted without legal impunity.

Of course, if any reactionary belief-system contains, peripherally or fundamentally, mechanisms for the oppression of anybody, including its own adherents (and most likely its female and/or young 'members'), and in that way flouting the rule of law in a democratic society such as Australia aspires to be, then it should suffer the consequences.

'Culture' is often confused with reactionary religious practices - an article in today's Australian Magazine on forced marriages highlights this: religions such as Islam are not the only reactionary systems which oppress women in this way - it appears to relate much more to property rights and inheritance in backward, peasant and ex-peasant societies: Coptic Egyptians and Ethiopians, and Hindu villagers seem to be as likely to perpetuate these evils as Muslims.

But 'culture', after all, is often not much more than the congealed justification for the inequalities within a backward society, inequalities which usually favour males and those older, against the rights of females and those younger. In that sense, 'culture' is very often reactionary in itself, and in stark tension with the rights of citizens in a democratic society, under the rule of law.

How such backward practices would fare in some sort of "progressive" or socialist Utopia is not hard to guess.

As I'm sure you would immediately agree, "Progressive" Pat ?

Cheers,

Joe

I don't think that there is any credible reason why religious beliefs should be given any special privilege over any other form of belief (cultural identification etc).

Why should someone's choice to believe in some concept of god protect them in any way from rules that apply to others wishing to act according to their beliefs?

Either a rule/law is necessary or it's not and should never be the subject of an exemption because a religious belief is somehow considered more important than someone else's reason for wanting to not obey that rule or law.

By the same token it's hard to see a reason why discrimination/persecution on the basis of religious affiliation should have protections that may not be available to other legal affiliations.

R0bert

Dear R0bert,

"Either a rule/law is necessary or it's not and should never be the subject of an exemption because a religious belief is somehow considered more important than someone else's reason for wanting to not obey that rule or law."

Which is the very reason why there should be no rules and laws.

Religious reasons ARE more important than other, selfish, reasons: serving God is well superior than serving oneself, the state, society or any other body - but here is the catch: how do you tell whether one indeed serves God in their actions and not just themselves, their own ego in the guise of religion?

Obviously, no government, how much more so a secular government, can possibly ever be able to tell which actions are religious and which are not. How could they possibly distinguish between true religion and false religion? No volume of legislation can detail the differences.

It is therefore necessary that for the protection of religion, all rules and laws must be scrapped!

While scary and inconvenient, this is the logical conclusion. When considering the legalisation of God's will, the loss of the relative personal-safety that comes with the rule of law is a but small price to pay.

However, as a human society, we are cowards who cling to safety, we are not ready to have faith in God alone so we want to rely on our own devices. In that case, let us have only the minimal laws that are required for our personal safety, nothing else. Even for these we will pay the dear price - read in Samuel-I, chapter 8, verses 4-18 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Samuel+8) about the fate of those who seek to be ruled over by other men.

Yuyutsu,

You suggest:

" .... no government, how much more so a secular government, can possibly ever be able to tell which actions are religious and which are not.....

"It is therefore necessary that for the protection of religion, all rules and laws must be scrapped!"

In the first place, it is not the business of governments - at least in secular democracies - to persecute OR protect any religion. In the second place, I shudder to think what you would recommend in place of those rules and laws, Yuyutsu.

Many reactionary societies such as Saudi Arabia haven't yet gone through the process of separating 'church' and state, although even there the identity of the two may be more the work of the extremely backward forces of Wahabism and the stunted development of the state, and more contemporary forms of such backward ideologies, such as Salafism.

Iran seems to also be going through this process of coming to grips with the need to differentiate between the temporal responsibilities of the state, and the conceits of the mullahs to bring together state and 'church' responsibilities under their control.

Many adherents of religions have great difficulty coming to terms with the fact that we all live in a temporal world with its real day-to-day issues, while their particular book dictates that they - indeed the entire world - should logically live under its strictures, by persuasion or the sword. In such backward societies, the primary role of any proto-state is in fact to promote religion, their religion.

But it is more than eight hundred years in Western Europe since the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope came to an agreement over the separation of the powers and responsibilities of the state from those of the church. I hope that it won't take as long for people in Muslim-dominated societies to follow suit, but I am not optimistic about it happening in countries currently, or soon to be, dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. The democratic revolution promised by the Arab Spring may have to endure the dead hand of a second Muslim Winter.

Dear Loudmouth,

"I shudder to think what you would recommend in place of those rules and laws, Yuyutsu."

Rest assured, I do not recommend anything in place of those rules and laws.

You and I fully agree that religion and state should be separate, albeit for different reasons: Your concern emphasizes the possibility of false-religions impinging on secular rights, while my concern emphasizes the possibility of secular laws impinging on true religion.

"In the first place, it is not the business of governments - at least in secular democracies - to persecute OR protect any religion."

Indeed. Yet a bit sideways from this topic, if the government has any business at all, then it includes the protection of religious individuals, families and communities against violence.

Perhaps I didn't make it clear enough: when I mentioned "for the protection of religion", what I meant was protecting religion from the state itself and its laws. Australian laws, so we hope, were never intentionally designed to hinder religion, but they may do so inadvertently when cataloging all human behaviour in the same pigeon-hole regardless of motive.

Australia has a reasonable record of exempting the major, established religious orders from sections of the law that counter their religion. While there is room for improvement I need not worry for them at the moment as they can take care of themselves, but what about smaller groups and individuals with a private religion?

As it is technically as well as profoundly impossible for the state to assess each individual act and decide on a case-by-case basis whether it is religiously or otherwise selfishly motivated; also as even if the above WAS miraculously possible, it would be considered so politically-incorrect and would create a sky-high outcry of "discrimination", the only remaining way to protect religion from the jaws of the law, is to abolish the law - even though it will regrettably also allow people who act selfishly to benefit from the doubt.

Yuyutsu Firstly I don't agree that "Religious reasons ARE more important than other, selfish, reasons: serving God is well superior than serving oneself, the state, society or any other body"

Your choice to believe in a particular concept of god does not make the consequences of that choice more important than my wish to live by a particular set of values which are not based around the idea of a god.

"Which is the very reason why there should be no rules and laws."

How far do you take that? I'll leave aside the issue of things like speed limits, etc. Think we've been down that track before.

Should there be rules against carrying weapon's (or items easily used as weapons) to school? If you have children at school would you be happy to have the bullies in their school armed with knives?

Some time back there was a debate on the issue of knives in school and the desire of one group to have an exemption due to a religious liking for the wearing of concealed knife (apparently generally ornamental in nature).

R0bert