Religion: Freedom of 'worship' or 'religion'?

[SecularMotion]

With the sounds of protests echoing across campus, President Barack Obama knew his 2009 commencement address at the University of Notre Dame would have to mention the religious issues that divided his listeners.

"The ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt," he said. "It is beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what he asks of us."

With this sweeping statement, Obama essentially argued that religious faith contains no rational content and, thus, offers no concrete guidance for public actions, noted Thomas Farr, director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University. This would shock America's Founding Fathers or anyone else who has used religious doctrines and arguments in favor of human equality or in opposition to tyranny.

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2012/jun/05/religion-freedom-worship-or-religion-again/

[rug]

1. That synopsis would be correct only if there is no doubt in reason.

[LeftishBrit]

2. Eurrrggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

'Freedom of religion' means the right to believe what one wants and to act in accordance with one's beliefs. It is being misused by some to mean 'freedom to impose my religious rules on everyone else'.

Moroever, such people use it highly selectively. There is actually far more explicit condemnation in the Bible of oppression of poor people, and of mistreatment of immigrants, than of abortion or homosexuality, the current religious right's obsessions. The Bible explicitly tells people not to swear oaths, but this is not taken up by the religious right. In the Old Testament, there is a lot of explicit instruction about burnt offerings and how to farm and what you can eat or wear, yet this is not taken up by the current religious right.

What they are saying is 'My freedom means the right to deny other people freedom.

Uggghhhhhhhhh!

[Shadowflash]

4. Spot on!

I wish I could rec a post because you nailed it.

[LeftishBrit]

3. To take away some of the taste of that horrible article

here are a couple of much better ones by other people on the same site:

http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/blogs/campus-conversation-on-values/posts/emily-atkinson-smith-on-the-greatest-force-for-good-in-our-nation

http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/blogs/campus-conversation-on-values/posts/jelani-harvey-columbia-on-gay-marriage-and-the-challenge-of-honest-dialogue

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Terry Mattingly sounds like a lawyer looking for a loophole to allow him to discriminate

He starts by distorting the position of those he seeks to win a victory against; he then obsessively focuses on the distinction between "freedom of worship" and "freedom of religion"; and then redefines "freedom of religion" to mean "I can hate and discriminate against whomever I choose, and I can call it 'my religion', so that it falls under the First Amendment".

There's a huge irony in Farr's attributing a "shocked, shocked I tell you" reaction on behalf of men dead for a couple of centuries to Obama's innocuous statement (that I would, for instance, be totally unsurprised to hear from the Archbishop of Canterbury). From everything I read about America's early politicians, they would have agreed whole-heartedly that no-one knows with certainty what God wants - that's entire point of the religion section of the First Amendment - that no single person knows for sure about what religious interpretation is true, so you can't establish one guess above another. The strawman of "Obama essentially argued that religious faith contains no rational content" is how Parr sets up his bullshit.

The full text of the Notre Dame speech, for those who want it.