Talk:Freedom of religion

• Talk:Freedom of religion - History 1; *Talk:Freedom of religion - History 2

Conflict of Religious Practice with Secular Law

What does the last paragraph here mean? "From about that time..."? It looks like it once had context, but whatever was there was deleted, and this paragraph still references whatever was there. 68.193.15.4 14:04, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

USA

There are two pieces in this article solely about the USA. Please correct this. 62.194.170.62 19:05, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

    There is nothing incorrect about that.
    What is your objection, specifically?
    Why is this in a funny box?
    68.193.15.4 14:02, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Status of religious freedom by country

The by-country sections of this article can be moved out to the individual "Status of religious freedom in X" articles linked from the religious freedom template at the bottom of the page. Lots of countries don't even have articles yet. The State Department country reports which I have just added to "External links" are public domain material, and can be copied freely. They would then need to be wikified and NPOV'd. The Freedom House country profiles (more a series of press releases) are also a good starting place. -- Beland 04:01, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I am in total agreement with the template - I think that it also provides a very clear look at each state. Therefore it might be a good idea to create individual articles for all of the links created and to move the existing texts about the countries mentioned by name to those new article pages. MPLX/MH 17:54, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I just created an article specifically regarding Freedom of Religion in the United States. It will probably need to be looked at... I removed most of the information regarding the U.S. on this article, but left a brief thing, and a link to the new page. --5ptcalvinist 00:53, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Accuracy dispute

My main criticism of the accuracy of this article concerns the distinction it makes between "freedom of religion" and "religious toleration". See Talk:Religious toleration for details and discussion. -- Beland 03:26, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The history here also needs to be de-jumbled, and I think it needs to move away from the idea that "freedom of religion" was invented in the 20th Century, especially since the events described in the history itself contradict that. -- Beland 04:02, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Freedom of religion is the title of the article and it has a very specific meaning in law. The issues raised have been addressed on the Talk:Religious toleration page. What has recently happened to the article is that has been disconnected from its definition to the point that it makes no sense at all. The previous version was very clear even though it was not complete and invited additional contributions. MPLX/MH 17:28, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Current article

The current article is composed of the last edits and the framework that existed prior to massive removal and reshuffling of text to the point that it had lost all meaning and made no sense at all. The article still needs work. However, a framework does exist. It had been suggested that the article was not accurate, but this was only after text had been removed from it. The accuracy of the article can be established by simply cross-referencing to the quotations cited. MPLX/MH 17:51, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What?

In June 1789, the French Revolution brought about a dramatic change in perception of this subject with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The history of France at this point in time was a great influence upon the development of the United States and its founding Declaration of Independence.

There's a historical consensus that the American Revolution inspired the French Revolution, not the other way around. Corrected the mistake.

That's pretty funny. In order for the French Revolution to have influenced the writing of the Declaration of Independence, someone would've had to have invented a time machine and gone back to 1776. Funnyhat 00:19, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Barbarism to civilization

I removed the line "Freedom of Religion marks an important milestone in the progress of human societies from barbarism to civilization." Not only does this line fail to deliver any meaniful content, it also makes a POV comment about the march of history as progress and the value of freedom of religion. — 165.247.109.43 6 Jul 2005

That sentence was part of the edits made by Camqbell, who summarized the edits as "enhanc[ing] the intro". I reverted his edits, as they were largely arguments for Freedom from religion, not about the concept of Freedom of religion Mateo SA | talk July 6, 2005 04:23 (UTC)

Intro

The previous intro had a "systematic American bias" - in case of a really internationally valid subject. So I started with the general agreement:- Freedom of Religion as a Human Right as defined by the U.N. --Irmgard 16:30, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

• I rewrote it a bit. Whether or not it is a "human right" in the generic (philosophical) sense or whether it is a Human Right as defined by the UN are two different things. I defined it along the template of the freedom of the press article, and added that many people think it is a human right, followed then by the UN definition. Hope that works for you. --Fastfission 03:34, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

The definitions of religious tolerance and separation of church and state I also removed - for one thing, they should be worked out in the respective articles and for another, they had also the "American-only" definitions. And the relation between the three should also be treated with care - they are not seen in the same way everywhere. --Irmgard 16:30, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Modern concepts

There should not just be a highlighting of the "ideal" of the United States but a description different concepts of the relations between freedom of religion and other human rights: US (separation of church and state and freedom of religion almost absolute) ,France (separation of church and state but religious rights not superior to other human rights), England (with state church and historically many other beliefs in parallel), Denmark (state church and historically few other religions in parallel but a very broad spectrum of worldviews accepted within the state church). --Irmgard 16:30, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

"Vatican II"

"Vatican II", a Council held 1962-1965 under John XXIII (1958-1962) amd Paul VI altered Church teaching to enshrine Religious liberty. This has been rejected as apostasy by Traditionalists and as schism by the party of Marcel Lefebvre (Society of Pope St. Pius X).

The changed teaching has had influence on the larger faction of the Church that accepts Vatican II, and should be reflected in this article.

I believe that the so-called Constantinian shift too is relevant and should be linked to.

WikiSceptic 20:01, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

The teaching didn't actually change, it was further developed. Fr. William Most deals with this in his articles refuting Lefebvrism.

Also, the Inquisition only persecuted heretics, which by definition means Christians, not Jews. However, many Jewish people claimed to be Christian in order to live in Spain, and that is why they were persecuted. I think this should be made clearer.

Infanted 18:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The Influence of Religion

As my economics teacher once told me, "Religion and money will be the two most powerful things that influence people." Quote from Mr. Brown

I do not know (And maybe doubt) if the freedom of religion is a path from barbarian to being more human, but I do know it is a path that many of us all take in our own way. From Catholic to a member of the body of Chirst or Islamic to a Jewish fellow, one thing is always certain. In the end the truth about each religion comes to light as we each face our final days.

And that, to me, is what makes up the Freedom of Religion. (But that is my own opinion.) --Zhang Liao 04:14, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

US orientation

I have seen this with other articles but this one is right there infront of you. There really shouldn't be any designation. Wikipedia is not a US only site. Other people read it and edit it.

Roman History

The subsection "Empires with religious freedom in the past" currently states that the Greek and Roman empires had "no restrictions" on religious freedom. This is simply false. The extremely well-known persecution of Christians under Roman rule is just one glaring counterexample. Relatively few restrictions during their histories maybe, but certainly not none. DavidMann 21:09, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I thoroughly agree - and so have removed that section. Gil-Galad 4 May 2006

Freedom of relgion and the degree of seperation of church and state.

This article really needs to address the issue of just how much separation of church and state is needed to have freedom of religion. Advocates for the U.K. model and social conservatives in the U.S. would probably argue that freedom of religion can be obtained with less separation of church and state. Social conservatives might also argue that the right to participate school-led prayer or for a judge to post the ten commandments in his courtroom should be a part of his freedom of religion. This article should address the disagreement as to how freedom of religion should be defined. --Cab88 02:37, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

History of the Idea

We learn in this article about the intolerant actions of the Middle Ages but we do not learn why they chose intolerance over tolerance. What was the medieval understanding of religious freedom or the medieval justification of curtailing religious freedom?

We could use more history of the idea of religious freedom.

Proposed Merge of Religious Toleration to Freedom of religion

I've proposed that Religious toleration be merged into this article, as it largely covers the same ground. Historically, "Religious toleration" only has, so far as I am aware, distinct connotations in English history, where it is used to mean freedom of worship for different religious groups while the establiched Church was retained. Such a matter can be discussed within the Freedom of religion article. Gabrielthursday 22:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment I am neutral on this point but feel that although both these articles are pretty short, they cover diverse areas which need to address many other important points (separately, if possible) and that expansion would be the preferred route. I would like to see things like – the views of non-western peoples – the beginning of the article "Freedom of religion and belief is considered by many to be a fundamental human right." – By whom? surely we are not talking of china and 1b people are we? – The article is written by westerns for consumptions by the west. Surely it needs to be more global – eg: which countries allow other religions to practise freely and which do not and why; what are the views of the main religions about both these points? Etc. We have only touched on the basics – thorough coverage has not been provided by either article. These are both very important issues in these difficult times when views are clashing and I would say that we need more input if this is possible?? --Hari Singh 02:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

A religion can be tolerated -- not actively persecuted -- without full freedom of religion. The concepts are distinct. 17:01, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the concepts of religious freedom and religious tolerance are different though they can cross link. Puck42 10:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. A distinction might be made between religious toleration and religious freedom, but I doubt the above is it: "not actively persecuted". There certainly is nothing in the freedom of religion article to indicate that some level of discrimination is inconsistent with it. Perhaps one reaches a closer approximation of the issue if one is to say that religious toleration implies freedom of worship and observance, but not necessarily the ability to preach or convert. Still, I don't think that "religious toleration" is defined so narrowly that such is the principal definition. Moreover, even if there is a slight semantic difference, can't that be dealt with within a united article? Gabrielthursday 14:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the two should remain distinct because freedom of religion is guaranteed by the government, religious tolerance is not. --5ptcalvinist 22:12, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Definitely true. :) --Noypi380 07:56, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Agree with the above, definitely not to be merged. Sfacets 09:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you could add a few notes, but still merge the pages? Please reply on my talk page. Laleena^{talk to me contributions to Wikipedia} 20:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Need to add how freedom of religion is currently debated

What are the different disagreements about the concept of freedom of religion. For instance, is the right to propagate one's religion part of religious freedom? Added a section on debates, hopefully others will expand. Puck42 10:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

"Reaction of the Sikhs"

The section "Reaction of the Sikhs" is confusing. It speaks of the history of the Sikhs in the context of the Mughals but it is unclear how the history affected the contemporary (Indian?) understanding of religious freedom. It may be more interesting to read about the Sikh position on religious freedom, in a different section, instead. I suggest we delete this section, which is adding noise and not really about religious freedom. Perhaps there can be a different Wiki article about religious persecution through the ages.

Added a Restructure Tag to that section. Puck42 07:24, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Atheism and irreligion

From the lede: "Freedom of religion must also include the freedom not to follow any religion (irreligion) or not having any belief in god (atheism)." Must? People may hold that it should, but it is a fact that religious freedom has been granted to limited groups -- indeed, far more limited groups that merely excluding irreligion and atheism. Goldfritha 01:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Protestant

"While Protestant Christianity has theologically been favorable to religious freedom" This statement is blatantly false. The numerous persecutions carried out by Protestants have been fully justified in Protestant theology. (In various of its manifest permutations.) Goldfritha 01:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The title

I'd suggest moving the page to Freedom of religion because that's the expression that's in common usage. Keep a redirect here, of course, but the current title is clumsy, sorry. Regards, Ben Aveling 11:08, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Second. Gabrielthursday 15:08, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Done. Regards, Ben Aveling 02:12, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

My reversion of 06:33, 18 November 2006 161.225.129.111 (Talk)

This page very recently underwent heavy revision aimed at reducing its size and trying to accomplish this largely by moving country-specific detail elsewhere. Some of the country-specific detail which was embedded in other sections was left behind, and this seems to have led to the change which I have reverted. My take on this is

1. the detailed info in the change which I have reverted belongs in Status of religious freedom in India, not here.
2. if the India-specific info in this article is incorrect, incorrect portions need to be corrected - but not by adding India-specific detail.
3. reducing the amount of country-specific detail in this article would be a good thing. -- Boracay Bill 00:30, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Bill I had made the edits because of the following reasons

The title of the earlier page suggested about religious tolerance in the east but had refered only to India and not other countries . So I believed I could expand that into the whole south asian region.So I changed the title and expanded the content for all the 7 countries.

I removed / paraphrased the quote from Ashoka's edit to make it readable as I saw that the same quote had been mentioned up in the antiquity section

I agree with reducing the country specific detail on this page but I am not sure how to bring down the content . My question here would be , do we out country specific details in this page at all ? I was planning to get more details on all other countries in the south asia after I saw the response from the editors over this .

Though I agree with your points I am not sure if a complete revert was needed . Please provide further guidelines for the page . I must admit that I did not read the talk page earlier ~Rising Storm

---

Hi,

Apologies for the ham-fisted reversion. My experience has been that comment on talk pages often goes unnoticed, and my thought was that a reversion accompanied by a talk page comment might get some dialog going.

It turns out that I was a bit confused when I did this reversion. I had it in my mind that the Status of religious freedom by country (SORFBC) had been forked off of this Freedom of Religion (FOR) page, when the SORFBC page had actually been forked off of the Separation of church and state (SOCAS) page. The SOCAS page and this SORFBC page cover a lot of the same ground, and both are too large. The excessively large size of the SOCAS page was the reason behind the forking of the SORFBC page. Another related page which covers some of the same ground is the State religion (SR) page. I have a feeling that the info on these related pages could be presented better if differently organized, but I have no concrete ideas on that and suspect that reorganization would be difficult to get done.

As things currently stand, it seems to me that we are in a mode of trying to localize country-specific info on this topic either into the SORFBC page or into individual country-named pages listed there (e.g. Status of religious freedom in India SORF-I). Going with this understanding, I reverted your change on the belief that India-specific info should go in the SORF-I page, though less-specific summaries of that info might appear where useful on more general pages such as this one. My further thought after reading your comments are that the SORFBC page might benefit from reorganization into regions (e.g. South asia), and regional info involving multiple countries in the region might be summarized there in a section heading.

Those are just my own thoughts, though. Your thoughts may be different, and may be better. -- Boracay Bill 14:09, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Islam

The extremely breif section on contemporary Islamic freedom of religion is confusing and contradictory. First it states that Islam firmly belives that conversion must be a personal choice, then it says that Saudi Arabia enforces Islam as the sole religion, with no extra information in attempt to reconcile these two seemingly opposing facts. --Queenrani 03:29, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion: If you have special knowledge in this area, improve the article. -- Boracay Bill 23:45, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

New Religious Movements (NRMs)

This article completely ignores religions other than Islam and Christianity. New religious movements are not mentioned despite being a centerpiece of the debate on the Freedom of religion in contemporary times. Sfacets 13:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion: If you have special knowledge in this area, improve the article. -- Boracay Bill 23:45, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Freedom not to believe

The intro to this page begins (emphasis added):

Freedom of religion is considered by many in Western nations to be a fundamental human right.
It is also a guarantee by a government for freedom of belief for individuals and freedom of worship for individuals and groups. Freedom of religion includes the freedom not to follow any religion (irreligion) and not to believe in any god (atheism or agnosticism).

There have recently been a couple of back & forth reverts adding and removing the nots in this -- with me having added them back in after others had removed them. Please note the parenthetical notes in the sentence being ping-pong reverted which indicate that that sentence is related to the subjects mentioned therein: irreligion, atheism, and/or agnosticism.

The point of the sentence is that freedom of religion includes freedom from governmental compulsion to profess theism, not just freedom from governmental compulsion to profess some particular religious belief. The nots do belong in the sentence. That's how I understand it, anyhow. If I've got it wrong, please explain how it is that freedom of religion does not include freedom from governmental compulsion to profess religious belief.

Please, let's discuss it here rather than getting into a reversion war. We're closing in on the three-revert limit -- Boracay Bill 01:35, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Freedom from religion

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This means that in the US, citizens and residents have a freedom from religion, in addition to a freedom of religion. This article would do well to include a section regarding the fundamental human right to freedom from religion, or a perhaps a separate article should be written, to balance this one.

I agree that this concept should at least be mentioned, and perhaps even a new article on the topic. Meanwhile, see FFRF. Although I personally prefer your interpretation of of this Amendment, the only rights expressly guaranteed by the Establishment Clause are 1) there shall be no federally-sanctioned religion imposed upon the people, and 2) there shall be no laws preventing people from practicing their chosen religion. Technically speaking, this clause does not even apply to people who choose not to have a religion. The concept of "Freedom From Religion" is not expressly implied, although it could be argued that a prudent individual would consider Atheism as an exercise of religion.

In any case, I would say there should be some mention of the concept from a NPOV.

Caen 02:44, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Is more needed than a mention that Religious Freedom is generally held to protect both religious observance and the lack thereof? While neither Caen nor our anonymous instigator of this conversation uses it in such a manner, "Freedom from Religion" is often used to argue for a particular type of secularism that, regardless of its merits, has little to do with religious freedom. Gabrielthursday 04:53, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The concept freedom from religion chould be explained in this article at least to describe the marxist / communist idea of religious freedom. Marx stated, that real religious freedom is not just toleration of different religious beliefs, but it should mean to liberate individuals from religion (critique of the Gotha). The point is that communist societies have claimed that "religious freedom" is protected, the consept has been maintained. And even more, that there is the real religious freedom in their societies. All that means, that religious liberty is actually suppressed. This kind of definition of religious freedom is still used in the communist societies and has got wide historical influence.

"Bloat"

What Gomm refers to as "bloat" is more aptly characterized as detail. As you may have noticed, there are both contemporary and historical sections in the article, and stating clearly which are which is a detail that makes the article more readable and accessable. (RookZERO 22:56, 5 June 2007 (UTC))

If we are going to use a hierarchical structure, of sections and subsections and sub-subsections, then do we need to repeat each level of the hierarchy in the section below. For example, in the HISTORY section, do we need to repeat the word HISTORY three time, or can we just assume that all subsections of HISTORY are about HISTORY, so the subsections of HISTORY can just specify the specific content, such as

Freedom of religion

1. History
   1. In Antiquity
   2. In Europe
   3. In the United States
   4. In Asia

is just as informative, and is a lot easier to navigate than the current:

Freedom of religion

1. History
   
   1. Antiquity
      
   2. History in Europe
      
   3. History in the United States of America
      
   4. History in the East

Do we really need to repeat HISTORY all over the place? If spelling out the exact meaning of each subsection in it title makes it more clear, then the titles should be:

Freedom of religion

1. History of Freedom of religion
   
   1. History of Freedom of religion in Antiquity
      
   2. History of Freedom of religion in Europe
      
   3. History of Freedom of religion in the United States of America
      
   4. History of Freedom of religion in the East

Extra words do not make things clearer, they make things more difficult to find. That is why they are called 'bloat'. -Gomm 16:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Koran

I think this phrase "banning the Quran in United States courts where a Bible is allowed" is inaccurate. It implies people are trying to ban Korans from courtrooms entirely. The Koran itself would not be banned from the courtroom (i.e., it would be legal to have one in the court, as evidence for example). The question is whether it is acceptable to be sworn upon. 75.68.6.81 15:23, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Top Image- Delcaration of the Rights of Man

I question the appropriateness of the image of the Declaration of the Rights of Man being the head image. Ideally, such images ought to embody the topic to the greatest extent possible. However, the Declaration is inextricably linked the French Revolution, and the abuses of Religious Freedom that occured therein. Perhaps there is a place for discussion of the Declaration, but we need to find a better image to embody the subject. Is there a picture of the Edict of Nantes? Of the Declaration of Indulgence?

Transsylvanian Medieval Apartheid was not tolerance, but quite the opposite !

In 1558, the Transylvanian Diet of Turda declared free practice of both the Catholic and Lutheran religions, but prohibited Calvinism. Ten years later, in 1568 the Diet extended the freedom to Calvinism and Unitarianism. In fact these 4 "recept religions" included abb 1/4 of the population of Transsylvania, but NOT the ROMANIAN MAJORITY which remained Orthodox Christian and therefore severely persecuted. The political system was very similar with the South African Apartheid system in which tolerance and equality was reserved for white people. Therefore, to cite the decisions of the 1558 Diet of Turda as "tolerant" is an offence to the Romanian and European public and should be immediately removed from this article ! Instead, the decisions of the 1558 Diet of Turda could be used as an EXEMPLE OF INTOLERANCE directed against a majoritary population, kept in quasi-slavery. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Transsylvanian (talk • contribs) 12:55, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Religious Studies courses in UK & Australia

It seems religious studies is part of the official curriculum in UK & Australia (NSW anyway) The curriculum guides say Christianity should be over 50% of the course. Is this true? Are courses compulsory?

• Junior Steps in RE By Michael Keene, Jan Keene
• Junior Steps in Re By Michael Keene, Jan Keene
• Excel Senior High School Studies of Religion By Louise Fleming
• |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=-VLt0uQrzXMC&pg=PA18&dq=before+common+era+christian+non-christian&lr=&sig=rl3B9VZmkG8RtbP6WZifd9iCJ2A |title=Get Set for Religious Studies |first=Dominic |last=Corrywright |coauthors=Morgan, Peggy|year=2006 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=074862032X

--JimWae (talk) 08:10, 12 January 2008 (UTC)