John Locke pointed out much earlier that no one has more concern for a person’s soul than the person himself, so each must be allowed to follow their own path to salvation.
Without some form of psychological manipulation there is no way of changing ‘belief’ – it is buried too deeply into what goes into making someone who they are. Changes must be voluntary or they have no meaning.
A Jewish carpenter got it right when he noted that public displays of religiosity were hypocrisy.
I have always viewed religion as a private matter with no place in the public arena. It is a matter of historical record that every time religion and government merged the result was a disaster, with religion taking the majority of the damage.
]]>For an accurate picture of how much conservatives care about people’s First Amendment freedom of religion, one need only consider the joint effort of NYPD and the CIA to spy on Muslims and mosques, with no warrants and no individualized suspicion. (All this is while NYPD was operating across the border in New Jersey!) To me, that says it all about conservatives’ understanding of “freedom of religion.”
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