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       | 6.3.2  | FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND RELIGIONISM | 
 
 
 Since  the introduction  of religious liberty  conditions
 did not change much  in religion-dominated societies.  When  one
 considers  the high-flying way in which religous ideologies have
 still infiltrated  whole countries,  also  in those fields which
 have nothing to do  with  supernatural belief or divine worship,
 one  realizes  that  there is in those countries still a more or
 less official state ideology.  It  is  perhaps not  a particular
 religion  anymore  which is implicitly or explicitly aggrandized
 but  religion  in  general.  In  the  main,  the  religion-based
 discrimination  between  the one form of religiousness  and  the
 other which existed before the introduction of religious liberty
 and equality has often become the discrimination between
 religiousness and irreligiousness. And instead of cultivating a
 single  monotheist  ideology  or variant of an ideology  to  the
 exclusion of all other ideologies and variants, latter-day
 Mono-cultures cultivate monotheism in general to the exclusion of
 all non-monotheist alternatives. But where
theodemonical believers
 were or are still in the majority, the insolent characterization
 and treatment of nonreligiousness  cannot impress  an increasing
 number of people anymore, nor could or can the false distinction
 construed  between belief (the 'true faith') and superstition,
 heresy or magic to distinguish supernaturalists from fellow
 supernaturalists frowned upon. No longer do non-supernaturalists
 accept  that  a religion tries to impose its own pattern of life
 on nonadherents, because other patterns do not suit its book and
 would expose inhibited or ignorant members of its temple society
 to fear and doubt.  And  no longer do non-theodemonists accept
 that  a religion  tries  to impose  its  own  law and  methods of
 punishment on nonadherents,  because  different laws and ways of
 punishment  are  too humane  and  would  deprive  the revengeful
 members of  the  theodemonical  public  of  their  retributivist
 pleasures. More and more so-called 'nonbelievers' have realized,
 and still realize,  that the number of exclusivist institutions,
 attitudes and practises originally 'justified' on the grounds of
 religion or
theodemonism and
 forcibly imposed on whole societies has been countless, whether it be
 in political, socioeconomic, medical, marital, sexual or other
 types of affairs. 
 Religious liberty has turned out to be no more than the
 exclusive liberty of religion where
denominational inclusivity
 would require both freedom and equality of
denominationalism.
 For religious and nonreligious,
theocentrist and
normistic,
 denominational doctrines cover the same field: they offer a system of
disciplinary thought and of
 nonpropositional symbols  relating
 things of the human world, or of a much broader sphere,  to each
 other  as they supposedly are  or can be  and as they should be.
 Hence, religious liberty does not include, take into consideration
 and respect  nonreligious denominational doctrines even tho
 there is only one field of denominationalism. 
 The traditional institutions  of  marriage  and celibacy  are
 very much  religious products,  and  so are  the institutions of
 divorce, repudiation and adultery.  Yet,  everyone  has  the
extrinsic right to
 marry in a religious or theist marriage ceremony, or to remain
 celebate for inconsistent reasons (say, to devote his future to
 the propagation of marital
exism and
 religious family life). This is religous freedom.  But it is at
 once religous exclusivism when civil marriages and laws relating
 to divorce,  repudiation  and  extramarital sex  are exclusively
 formed in the religious mould,  and when weddings in temples are
 officially recognized  by  the state.  In  some countries  civil
 marriages between men and women  did not, or still do not, exist
 at all.  There is nothing wrong with this, for example, if it is
 possible for everyone in such countries to sign a personal
 contract with another person.  However,  it is utterly repulsive
 if the state recognizes religious marriages and treats men and
 women thus married differently from people not married in such a way.
 And it is utterly repulsive if the state recognizes religious acts of
 repudiation in which men have legal rights which women do not have. 
 Children that cannot yet fend  for themselves  have  to be
 taken care of in the first place by  those who brought them into
 being. This has been a major raison d' être for the
 traditional marriage institution too. In itself this concern for the
 well-being of children or potential children is very praiseworthy,
 but the concern has traditionally also often been a very limited
 and partial one.  The examples of children of religious families
 threatened and pestered  with  the dogmas and rituals  of  their
 parents are too numerous to be mentioned here.  Just one serious
 example  is  the sending of small boys to the war front in order
 to become martyrs of the state's, that is the clergy's, godly
 revolution.  Special attention  should be called nevertheless to
 the ideological  rites  which  always  have been,  or still are,
 performed on the bodies of children, such as baptism, circumcision
 and clitoridectomy.  In many countries  these rites were,
 or  still  are,  a main  ingredient  of  the  legal  freedom  of
 religious parents.  In spite of  this  these acts  are  criminal
 encroachments upon the own bodily spheres of persons-to-be,
 particularly  since they are irrevocable when children are going
 to choose themselves as persons what
comprehensive ideology
 to adhere to or not to adhere to.  If  it is believed that human
 infants and young children should be protected  because they are
 persons-to-be,  they  should definitely be protected against the
 'freedom' to perform  ritual operations  on  their bodies,  when
 these children have not knowingly and voluntarily agreed to such
 operations. 
 A
nonreligionist country would not
 provide biased information on certain denominational doctrines or groups,
 or no information at all, while providing ample, favorable and uncritical
 information on other denominational doctrines or groups. But the public
 or state schools  of  religionist countries  do not  impartially
 acquaint  their children  with the whole gamut of denominational
 or ideological thought, and religionist countries have state (or
 quasi-independent) broadcasting corporations  that use radio and
 television  as  instruments to indoctrinate people with religion
 or monotheism and to support its institutions.  Schools  in such
 countries  exclusively  teach  the values and disvalues  of  the
 still-existing or former state religion  or of doctrines closely
 related to it. They do not objectively present their pupils with
 denominationalism in general as this ranges from poly-theodemonism
 to non-theodemonism and as this involves the antithesis
 between theocentrism and normism. State broadcasting corporations
 in  such  countries  have  special  religious  radio  and
 television departments which send out 'reports on religion', not
 on  denominational thought, spiritual life or philosophy of life
 in general.  When they broadcast 'reflections', preferably right
 after the news,  they  do not intend to educate  their listeners
 philosophically (as such a program name would suggest), but
 merely to ideologically immerse them in the denominationalism of
 the old school. And when they broadcast 'new ideas', they do not
 intend to acquaint  their listeners  with  novel thought  in the
 denominational, political  or other such field,  but  only  with
 technical gadgets meant to solve material problems.  In addition
 to  all this,  their supposedly 'nonreligious' programs  are but
 too  often  heavily  laden  with  the  presuppositions,  tenets,
 traditional features and symbols  of  the same religion,  or  of
 (monotheist) religion in general, without ever properly representing
 the other side  of  the denominational or philosophical
 way of life and thought. 
 Obviously, schools and the media are the most important
 instruments of perpetuating the state ideology for both religious
 and political totalitarians.  Also here  the difference is often
 not more  than  that  a religionist  speaks  of  "God"  where  a
 politico-ideological exclusivist speaks of "Party" (while both
 of them speak of "Truth"). 
 A nonreligionist country would not arbitrarily and exclusively
 select or be appealed by  denominational opinions and symbols
 of  one kind,  while  not selecting  and  not being appealed  by
 denominational opinions and symbols of another kind. But religionist
 countries  only  celebrate  as  national  holidays  the
 special days  of  one particular  religion  or  set of religions
 supposed to represent  all religion  and  all denominationalism.
 (Sometimes even the name given to an entire country is religious.)
 And  religionist countries  keep  one particular day of
 the week as an official day of rest and worship for all citizens
 regardless of their personal, denominational convictions or lack
 thereof.  There were, or still are, countries in which some sort
 of 'Mono's Day Observance Society' did or does everything it can
 to make everyone abide by the god-day rules of its own airy-fairy
 belief, whether people had or have chosen to belong to the
 religious flock in question or not.  The fact  that  those  of a
 different religious persuasion  may have different special days,
 and the fact that the official celebration of religious days
 of  rest, worship or feasting  is repugnant  to  conscientiously
 nonreligious  and antireligionist  citizens,  is  not  something
 aggrandizing religionists  feel like  taking into consideration.
 To be sure,  everyone should have the opportunity to celebrate a
 number of days,  or one day of the week,  for  whatever purpose,
 but  no-one should be forced to take days off or to stop working
 at a time that others want to celebrate their special days.
 (The celebration of these special days  does not mean  an extra
 number of days off, it means that a number of days off has to be
 taken at a fixed time.) In a nonreligionist country  there is a
 complete  separation  of  state  and  religion (more generally,
 denominationalism or ideology) and no religious or religiogenic
 holiday or day of rest  can have a statutory status where people
 are equal in and before the law. 
 A nonreligionist country would not treat religious organizations
 differently from nonreligious ones. But religionist countries
 exempt  temples (of  whatever  polytheist, monotheist or
 nontheist cult) from paying taxes,  whereas high taxes may have
 to be  paid  for  the property  of  nonreligious, ideological or
 social organizations.  Some religionist governments even did, or
 still do, openly withhold a percentage of the taxpayers' money
 to  financially support  a particular  religious organization or
 congeries of religious organizations. In a nonreligionist country,
 on  the other hand,  there  is  a complete  separation  of
 state and religion  and  no  temple society  or  other religious
 organization  can be exempted from paying  the taxes which other
 ideological  and cultural  organizations  have  to pay; and  no
 religious organization  has  the right to receive more financial
 support  than  any other ideological organization,  unless  this
 support  is purely proportionate to  the number  of  adhering or
 practising people  who  have personally expressed  their wish to
 be members. (Naturally, temple denotes  any supernaturalist
 place of worship or divination,  including  those  of  religions
 adhered to by people who use the word temple exclusively to
 refer to  the places of worship  of  other religions  than their
 own.) 
 There  are  countless other examples of state religionism  in
 countries with religious liberty. But too often has the state's
 freedom of religion been construed as freedom of state
 religionism. Religious and religiogenic countries still officially
 use religious calendars,  thus suggesting  that the early readers of
this Model would be living, or
 have lived, in the x-th century and in the y-th millennium
 (that is, of the old, religionist era) as if it concerned some absolute
 chronological system. In actual fact, however, the early readers of this
 Model can only be living, and can only have lived, at a time before
 the year 1 (of the new, nonreligionist era). 
 In a similar religionist vein  the texts of certain so-called
 'national' anthems mention the doxastic supreme being or creator
 and the emblem of one particular (sort of) religion (if not
 that emblem and the sword together), whereas these anthems are
 supposed  to  be  sung  on  special  occasions  by  all citizens
 regardless  of  their personal denominational beliefs.  However,
 when  an anthem  is  an exclusivist song  with ingrained,
 supernaturalist or theodemonist, symbols, it has no general, even no
 national, value  and  cannot command universal respect.  Such an
 anthem  cannot even command respect in the country it is claimed
 to represent; that is, it is claimed to represent by those who
 were, or still are,  so odiously impertinent to  fellow citizens
 with truly and relevantly different denominational convictions.
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