|
|
[The United States] started with a positive idea of secularism. This new people was made of communities that had escaped official state purges and wanted a lay state, a secular state that opened the possibility for all confessions and all form of religious exercise. Therefore it was a state that was intentionally secular. It was the exact opposite of state religion, but it was secular out of love for religion and for an authenticity that can only be lived freely.
Pope Benedict XVI during a visit to the United States (April 16, 2008)
|
Too
often we forget that the principal purpose of the metaphorical wall
of separation between church and state was always to prevent governmental
interference with a religion's decisions about what its own theology
requires. . . . To be consistent with the Founders' vision and coherent
in modern religiously pluralistic America, the religion clauses
[in the United States Constitution] should be read to help avoid
tyranny —
that is, to sustain and nurture the religions as independent centers
of power. . . . To do that, the clauses must be interpreted to do
more than protect the religions against explicit discrimination.
Stephen
Carter
The
Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious
Devotion
|

The
Foundation against Intolerance
of Religious Minorities (FIRM)
advocates the human, social, and civil rights of all religious and spiritual
groups, particularly religious minorities actively engaged in spiritual
practice. In particular:
|
FIRM
provides education for the general public on all the varieties of
prejudice, both overt and subtle, that are currently being practiced
openly against many religious minorities. A comparison is made with
other forms of discrimination (toward women, blacks, homosexuals,
the handicapped, etc.) to which our society has become more sensitive.
|
|
|
|
FIRM
chronicles the history of persecution throughout the ages of
religious minorities and their founders (including persecution of
Christianity in its infancy, leading to the deaths of Jesus and many
of his disciples), and it examines the origins of (and the motivations
behind) such persecution. |
|
|
|
FIRM observes that five stages
tend
to
occur in the fight against intolerance or prejudice of
any kind in our time:
1.
|
Atrocities
or injustices are committed on the basis of discrimination of
one kind or another. |
|
|
2.
|
A
social movement coalesces to counter that particular form of
discrimination. |
|
|
3.
|
The
movement is accepted socially; "consciousness" is
"raised"; laws begin to change, in the direction of
guaranteeing equal opportunity, rights, and privileges. |
|
|
4.
|
Now
hyper-sensitive to its own discrimination, the society swings
to the opposite extreme, in the form of a "political correctness"
movement, whose purpose is to eliminate all speech (and action)
that might possibly offend, because it could be interpreted
as (either overtly or covertly) discriminatory. |
|
|
5.
|
The
society swings toward a more natural balance, affording both
equal opportunity and an open and ongoing forum for the exploration,
understanding, and appreciation of real and usefully acknowledged differences among sexes, races, sexual persuasions, religions, etc. (none of which should ever be translated into differences in human, rights, social opportunities, etc.). |
This
sequence has been illustrated in the civil rights and womens rights
movements, which are both in process between stages 4 and 5. Unfortunately,
the fight against intolerance of religious minorities is still largely
in stage 1. The various freedoms guaranteed to religion by the U.S.
Constitution, and by the constitutions of other governments and
international bodies like he United Nations, still largely benefit
majority religions exclusively. In other words: we have a long way
to go!
|
Please
if you are interested in these subjects. We will be fleshing out all of
the above on this site in the coming months.
|
|
|
|
Before
the 20th century we needed greater protection from the excesses
of religion. We now see the need for a greater balance against
pure secularism that has no probable basis for affirming human
dignity.
Wilfred
M. McClay, Religion
Returns to the Public Square
In
the realm of popular culture, scientific and political materialism
is in power. And the essence of official popular propaganda is
fundamentally anti-religious and devoted to an exclusively materialistic
interpretation of Man and Nature. The "allowable" or semi-official
cults of the yet remaining religious establishment continue to
serve as exoteric religious extensions of the secular State. But
all non-establishment cults of free religious, mystical, and spiritual
experimentation and practice are constantly the subjects of negative
propaganda in the popular communications media. And "intellectual
leaders" are constantly agitating against esoteric and non-establishment
religious cultism —
and especially against the possibility that any religious or spiritual
leader achieve a position of widespread influence and power in
the midst of the secular order. (Therefore, university intellectualism
and popular criticism generally oppose, or at least work to maintain
the disposition of doubt relative to, religion, religious institutions,
mysticism, and the naturally dominant role of the Living God and
true Spiritual Masters in the esoteric culture of true religion.)
Adi
Da Samraj
The
Illusion of the Separation of Church and State
|
|