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The modern state, not ideas, brought about religious freedom

#1
C C Offline
https://aeon.co/essays/the-modern-state-...us-freedom

EXCERPT: Religious freedom has become an emblematic value in the West. Embedded in constitutions and championed by politicians and thinkers across the political spectrum, it is to many an absolute value, something beyond question. Yet how it emerged, and why, remains widely misunderstood.

According to the conventional narrative, freedom of religion arose in the West in the wake of devastating wars fought over religion. It was catalysed by powerful arguments from thinkers such as John Locke, Baruch Spinoza, Pierre Bayle and Voltaire. These philosophers and political theorists responded to the brutality of the religious wars with support for radical notions of toleration and religious freedom. Their liberal ideals then became embedded in the political institutions of the West, following the American and French Revolutions.

In broad outline, such is the account accepted by most political philosophers and social scientists. But the evidence does not support this emphasis on the power of ideas in shaping the rise of religious freedom, and underestimates the decisive role played by institutions.

[...]

It made sense for medieval states to rely on religious institutions to carry out administrative tasks for them, and to provide public goods. Religious institutions such as churches and monasteries in Europe, and waqfs and mosques in the Islamic world, provided education, poor relief and other public goods. Compared with non-religious organisations, they were better at excluding free-riders and attracting contributions from members.

A partnership between church and state developed, a partnership with important consequences for religious freedom in the premodern world. In return for granting rulers political legitimacy, religious authorities could require secular rulers to enforce religious conformity. The bargain appealed to secular rulers too, as they believed that religious competition generated political instability. Religious conformity, and thus the persecution of religious dissent, came to be tantamount to the maintenance of political order. In such a world, religious freedom was inconceivable.

[...]

However, the long-run impact of these changes undermined religion as a tool of political legitimation, and worked to replace the old reliance on identity rules with more general laws. The new modern states that emerged in Europe after 1600 subordinated all alternative sources of power – the nobility and the church – to one sovereign authority. Religious legitimation became less important as a source of political legitimacy, and the grand bargain between church and state weakened. As they relied less on religious authority, states grew less inclined to value enforcing religious conformity....

MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/the-modern-state-...us-freedom

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#2
RainbowUnicorn Offline
(Sep 2, 2017 01:48 PM)C C Wrote: https://aeon.co/essays/the-modern-state-...us-freedom

EXCERPT: Religious freedom has become an emblematic value in the West. Embedded in constitutions and championed by politicians and thinkers across the political spectrum, it is to many an absolute value, something beyond question. Yet how it emerged, and why, remains widely misunderstood.

According to the conventional narrative, freedom of religion arose in the West in the wake of devastating wars fought over religion. It was catalysed by powerful arguments from thinkers such as John Locke, Baruch Spinoza, Pierre Bayle and Voltaire. These philosophers and political theorists responded to the brutality of the religious wars with support for radical notions of toleration and religious freedom. Their liberal ideals then became embedded in the political institutions of the West, following the American and French Revolutions.

In broad outline, such is the account accepted by most political philosophers and social scientists. But the evidence does not support this emphasis on the power of ideas in shaping the rise of religious freedom, and underestimates the decisive role played by institutions.

[...]

It made sense for medieval states to rely on religious institutions to carry out administrative tasks for them, and to provide public goods. Religious institutions such as churches and monasteries in Europe, and waqfs and mosques in the Islamic world, provided education, poor relief and other public goods. Compared with non-religious organisations, they were better at excluding free-riders and attracting contributions from members.

A partnership between church and state developed, a partnership with important consequences for religious freedom in the premodern world. In return for granting rulers political legitimacy, religious authorities could require secular rulers to enforce religious conformity. The bargain appealed to secular rulers too, as they believed that religious competition generated political instability. Religious conformity, and thus the persecution of religious dissent, came to be tantamount to the maintenance of political order. In such a world, religious freedom was inconceivable.

[...]

However, the long-run impact of these changes undermined religion as a tool of political legitimation, and worked to replace the old reliance on identity rules with more general laws. The new modern states that emerged in Europe after 1600 subordinated all alternative sources of power – the nobility and the church – to one sovereign authority. Religious legitimation became less important as a source of political legitimacy, and the grand bargain between church and state weakened. As they relied less on religious authority, states grew less inclined to value enforcing religious conformity....

MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/the-modern-state-...us-freedom

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I think Religious freedom was born of a self defense process to moralise the exploitative nature of modern industry.
Modern Religion was the same as a union and so capitalists had to appease the church to prevent church groups protesting against selfish exploitation of people.

The act of Religious freedom is a falacy in most countrys except those that govern by secular rule.
Thus the irony in the constrct of the moral fibre of the religion touted as needing to be free to express.

and "Expressing" that religion is what defines the nature of "Freedom".
Like expressing a same sex relationship, so is going to church, one in the same.

because of the underlying moral foundation of desire for religious freedom, Most church groups in civilised countrys accept same sex marriage as something that is a right to express, just like the expresion of a religion.

The irony of such use of words and jockying for media attention to posit the premise of "Freedom" the USA still does not permit Religious Freedom by its very nature in the act of oppresing others desire to express their freedom to have same sex marriages.

it is a position of evolution of the intellectual mind of the human species.
it is the hurdle that must be climbed to prevent it from being the wall that will hold civilisation back in the old world genocide that has been common place over and over again for millenia.

Note my use of the word "hurdle"
the "hurdle" is in fact the selfsh small minded bigotry of the self serving religous person who is crippled psycho-sexually to beleive same sex marriage is in some way wrong.
it is brain washing in their mind, like a mental illness, a disease as it were. it can be cured in some, while in others it cant.
it depends on what amount of childhood brain washing they have been subjected to along with psycho-sexual brain washing and what mental scars & damage sits in their mind.

and so thus
you can not have religious freedom until people stop forcing others to comply with their religion.
force removes the "freedom".
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