The Logical End Result of Religious Liberty
January 14, 2014
Detail from The Inferno, Sandro Botticelli; 1480
A GROUP known as the Satanic Temple has applied to put a statue of Satan at the Oklahoma state capitol building. The group is protesting the erection of a monument to the Ten Commandments. Its spokesman says that it is just using Satan as a rhetorical device to protest favoritism for the Christian view and religion in general. According to CBS:
“Satan stands as the ultimate icon for the selfless revolt against tyranny, free & rational inquiry, and the responsible pursuit of happiness,” the website says.
According to the group’s website, it also applied to adopt a highway in New York City, hoping to have a sign added to the road bearing The Satanic Temple’s name and “helping promote a message of Satanic Civic pride and social responsibility.”
If you were Satan (not that you’re anything like that), wouldn’t you consider it your greatest triumph to convince human beings that you were metaphorical? But then you would also be delighted by the notion of religious liberty and by state capitol buildings with no explicit recognition of Christ and his social rights. Egalité, liberté, fraternité. Satan is one of the greatest of political philosophers.
— Comments —
D. Tanner writes:
I think what you’re discussing here is not religious liberty per se, but this offshoot of liberal thought that says that if the government is to allow religion on public property it must allow all religion equally — which is taken to mean that everyone must be represented, even religions which nobody can believe in (for example, atheism in the form of Leveyan Satanism). And if they cannot afford to represent themselves, it shall come out of the pocketbook of the people at large. It is the same train of thought that says political and radio shows must give equal air time to both sides of any given issue, as per the Fairness Doctrine. Perhaps we could call this religious equality rather than liberty.
I rather like Rodney Stark’s take on religious liberty, thinking of it in terms of a ‘religious market’ where the ideas of different religions compete, and in such an environment Orthodox Christianity will win out. So perhaps all of the recent tearing down (or attempts to tear down) Christian monuments and symbols in the public square is a matter of redistribution in the religious market parallel to the redistribution of wealth from the successful to the lazy in the economic sector.
Laura writes:
But the idea of equality among religions is essentially the same as the idea of religious liberty, as interpreted for the last few hundred years, which is that in order for people to be free to exercise their consciences on religion, no one religion should be promoted.
