PM Proposes New Office Of Religious Freedom To Promote Religious Freedom Around The World
Today, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that a re-elected Conservative Government will create an Office of Religious Freedom to ensure that defending persecuted religious minorities is a priority of Canada's foreign policy.
The irony is that, now and always, the strongest oponents of religious freedom are--surely this is not a surprise--religious people. They want freedom for themselves, of course, but none for those other "false churches". Nowadays, opposition to religious freedom, happily, in North America and Western Europe is confined by (secular) law to criticism--although religious people hate that, too, when it is directed at them. In the past, torture and mass murder, in supressing heresies, burning witches, religious wars, and church-incited popular reaction to non-conformists, was the rule. Advocacy of religious freedom has the problem of being opposed in both theory and practice by, guess who, religious people. Practices and principles of religious freedom, as understood by religious people, and observed to occur by the rest of us are: 1. freedom from criticism (It is demanded that the rest of us “respect” their religion, even where there is nothing worth respecting), and 2. freedom to criticise (everyone else), and 3. freedom to impose (their religion on everyone else, whether they want it or not; you call it “evangelism”), and 4. freedom to insist that the state enforce your religious convictions on everyone else (such as, for example at the moment, prohibiting same-sex marriage, although, for all that, religious leaders here and everywhere lined up against decriminalization, protection against discrimination, even simple reference in the media, when those were up for grabs).
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The irony is that, now and always, the strongest oponents of religious freedom are--surely this is not a surprise--religious people. They want freedom for themselves, of course, but none for those other "false churches". Nowadays, opposition to religious freedom, happily, in North America and Western Europe is confined by (secular) law to criticism--although religious people hate that, too, when it is directed at them. In the past, torture and mass murder, in supressing heresies, burning witches, religious wars, and church-incited popular reaction to non-conformists, was the rule.
Advocacy of religious freedom has the problem of being opposed in both theory and practice by, guess who, religious people. Practices and principles of religious freedom, as understood by religious people, and observed to occur by the rest of us are:
1. freedom from criticism (It is demanded that the rest of us “respect” their religion, even where there is nothing worth respecting), and
2. freedom to criticise (everyone else), and
3. freedom to impose (their religion on everyone else, whether they want it or not; you call it “evangelism”), and
4. freedom to insist that the state enforce your religious convictions on everyone else (such as, for example at the moment, prohibiting same-sex marriage, although, for all that, religious leaders here and everywhere lined up against decriminalization, protection against discrimination, even simple reference in the media, when those were up for grabs).
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