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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