It has often been said that it is impossible for a society to have freedom of religion without freedom from religion. Therefore, it is the responsibility of a free secular state to actively avoid religious discourse in public places. This seems contrary to the notion of free speech, another pillar of the free society that the free secular state is responsible for protecting. So at which point does one intersect with the other? Where do the lines form?

The answer is simple. There are no lines.

Freedom of religion and freedom of speech are the same thing. They are two sides of the same coin. The freedom to express one's religion in any way they see fit is no different than the freedom of one's right to speak out. The same rights and responsibilities apply. So long as it is peaceful, not obstructing the life, liberty, and property of another individual, it is entirely protected by the free society. But some do not make this distinction. Some consider religious expression to be it's own category of expression and thus the state needs special powers to police it. This has led to an erosion of the ideals of freedom espoused by the founding fathers.

Take for instances the famous court cases McCollum vs. Board of Education Dist. 71 that banned religious instruction in public schools or the Engel v. Vitale case that banned prayer in public schools. These cases all used the same reasoning to ban religious displays. It violated the establishment clause of the constitution which states that the government cannot support any one religion over the other no matter how dominant it may be. It's a good principle for a secular state, but in these cases it was pushed beyond the limits into the realm of censorship. There's no way around it. By banning discussion of religion in schools, that is censorship. It may offend atheists at times, but in this country there is no right not to be offended.

Take a step back from these cases and approach them reasonably. Was the government acting through force? Did beauracrats on local, state, or federal levels impose the teaching of religion or prayer in the schools directly? Or was it something that was decided by the school itself or the local parents? If it is the case that the government is directly forcing schools to teach or condone specific religious themes over another, then that is unconstitutional. But in many of these cases, it was the schools themselves and the communities that wanted these religious themes in their schools. And why shouldn't they be allowed? So long as nobody is forcing them and it is done peacefully, what right do the courts have to force them to stop? In the strictest constitutional sense, they don't.

So what about the atheists or the non-believers like myself that go to these schools? Well so long as the schools do not force prayer and teaching on the students, there should not be a problem. If school officials were doing this to atheists as a form of harassment, that would be a violation of rights and the courts do have a right to punish those who do this. But to make a vast, broad judgment that bans these practices across the board is an abuse of power and an affront to the free society.

But it isn't just non-believers who abuse these privlidges. Religous groups are just as guilty. The best case has to do with creationism. Take cases like Edwards v. Aguillard that overruled a law in Louisiana forcing schools to teach creationism alongside evolution. The key aspect of the law was force. Schools had to push creationism by law. And not just any creationism like that of Native American or Hindu stories. They had to push the strict interpretation of Genesis in a science classroom. This was a clear case of the government using force to favor one religous group over another. As such, it is unconstitutional because it abuses the powers of the state. It was later verified again in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case in 2003 that banned the teaching of intelligent design for the same reasons.

Now how is this not censorship? It's simple when one takes context into account. Creationism was being pushed in science classes as an alternative viewpoint of the truth. But in a free society, certain ideas cannot be propped up by the government just because certain groups really believe in them. Creationism and Intelligent Design failed in the marketplace of idea. They were proven to be false by science and as such, they were dropped from science classrooms. But certain religous groups didn't like that. So to make up for the fact that their dogma was not verified by science, they got the government to force it upon the people. That use of force is a clear violation of liberty, religous and non-religious alike. Now if creation stories were taught in a religious class or in literature, that's a different story because that's a different context. So long as the state doesn't force this upon students as truth, then it is perfectly fine in a school.

The Founding Fathers were for freedom and religous liberty equally. The idea of a free society harkoning back to the enlightenment was that free expression and the free exchange of ideas allows ideas and beliefs to stand on their own merits. So if certain ideas like creationism do not stand enough on their merits, they are rejected. As such, the government cannot prop certain ideas up over others. When it comes to religious, the key is for the state to stay out of the affairs of the chruch and allow religious groups to thrive on their own merits. If one is more dominant than others, let them be dominent so long as they can persuade their people that they are a good group to be a part of. And if they wish to leave that group, let them. So long as force is not involved, the freedom to practice any religious or no religion at all is warrented in a free society.

As an atheist, most assume I am for eliminating religion from society. I'm not. I am an ardent believer in allowing people to follow their own spiritual path. If some wish to be Christians, that's okay. If some wish to be Muslim, that's okay too. If some wish to worship Satan, that's just as valid. So long as none of these groups harass me or force me to take part in their customs, I'm okay with it. The free society comes before my own spiritual beliefs or lack thereof. I am and always have been for a free society where the state does not interfere with the church and people and communities are allowed to follow their own path.

When I was a devout believer in Christianity, I never questioned where religion came from. It wasn't that I was curious. I just didn't see it as pertinent. But as I began to doubt my faith and the supernatural in general, I began to look into what religion is and where it came from. And in my search I have found many interesting revelations, but none of them point to anything supernatural or godly.

Most people will say religion is something innate. They claim that it is human nature to believe in something greater than themselves. And that sounds pretty intuitive because so many people turn to religion or something supernatural when they can't explain something in logical terms. But just because a lot of people turn to it doesn't make it true. A brief insight into human psychology and social dynamics reveals that religion does play off human beings' natural tendencies. But it's not in the way many believers think.

The best example I ever came across was a discussion I had in my old sociology class on the origin of stereotypes. People have a lot of false believes about groups they don't know about. There are stereotypes about black people, white people, Asians, muslims, Christians, and atheists and many are prevalent, but many are still wrong. So why do they persist? Well it has to do with a phenomenon psychologists often refer to attribution bias. When people don't know all the workings of a situation, they instinctively go to pre-set assumptions that they have been conditioned to turn to. Many of those assumptions are learned through environmental and social influences so if someone is taught that all atheists are wicked, that's what they'll assume when they look at an atheist. It's a mental shortcut of sorts because it saves people the time of investigating and looking into every given situation about a person.

In an evolutionary context it makes perfect sense. These assumptions and stereotypes allow people to devout more mental energy into other more important matters such as survival. Just think of it in the hunger gatherer sense. A normal hunter doesn't have time to investigate and understand every possible event that they come across. They have to have certain stereotypes and assumptions like "blue berries are poisonous" and "those people that attacked my tribe are evil." It saves them energy and mental resources to devout to survival.

So what does this have to do with religion? Well religion acts in many ways as a mental shortcut. Many who use the 'god of the gaps' arguments point it out. Since we can't know everything about something like where the world came from, what happens when we die, or how do the heavens work we take a short cut and say "god/gods did it." That's much easier than having to investigate all the complex and in many cases unknown forces that go into the natural world. It's hard enough for people to wrap their heads around one facet of science so they assume the rest on faith.

Just think of it in terms of creationism. Creationists simplify the whole proces of how the world came to be by saying it's all written down in this one story in this one book and it all boils down to "god did it." It plays off the natural tendancy to seek the easier, less complicated answer instead of investigating the complicated and complex forces of evolution that include other complex forces like chemistry, physics, biology, geology, climate, etc. People devout their entire lives to just one of these fields and still can't wrap their head around it, let alone all of them in general. So for the average joe, religion is a convenient and comforting short cut that cuts down on uncertainty. Because like the hunter in the woods, uncertainty is detrimental to survival and nobody likes to be uncertain.

This basic psychological phenomenon puts religion into a more rational perspective. It doesn't say believing in god is wrong. It doesn't even prove that god doesn't exist. Perhaps this is just how god set things up, but there's no way to prove that so that is why faith is necessary. As a non believer, I don't assume any supernatural forces in any gaps in my knowledge. I honestly admit that I don't know and in some cases I can't know. But the problem is religion does more than play off this basic psychological trait. It grows and expands in a way that creates all these other complex social forces, some of them good and some of them bad. It's all a matter of understanding what is at the core of these beliefs that allows us to deal with the bad and reinforce the good.

There are many other facets of the origin of religion and I could spend several blogs discussing it. But I recently came across an article that offers a good, fairly objective insight into where religion came from. You can view it at the following link:

The Origin of Religion

In a free society people are free to believe (or not believe) whatever they want. It is when some beliefs are imposed or endorced by the state that problems arise. You don't have to like what one person believes or doesn't believe. You just have to respect that their belief is different and keep it all in context.