A Problematic Perspective

books:

	• Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality Martha Nussbaum Basic Books, 2008 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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An excellent read....

One doesn't have to be religious to appreciate this book. Its simply an excellent reminder of the wisdom of the founding fathers and how they didn't want a state religion of any type, while also being about a country that has ebbed and flowed when it comes to religion in general.

A take it or leave it mode. Yes, we have had periods where pious folk attempted to rule. But a closer look shows that in the end sanity pretty much rules.

I also highly recommend The Faiths of the Founding Fathers by David L. Holmes

Great Read

This is a very detailed and comprehensive report on the establishment and free exercise clauses in our constitution. It is very eye opening and thought provoking in its possible applications. It is very timely given our recent presidential campaigns and the focus on religion/patriotism/flag lapel pens etc. A very excellent book.

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Smug Atheists

Early on Dr. Nussbaum criticizes "smug atheists" who ridicule religious ideas. Why are religious ideologies protected in ways other ideologies are not? Socialism is ridiculed; communism is ridiculed; National Socialism is ridiculed, and so forth. Rightly, no one claims it unfair to riducule these beliefs which are very important to some people.
Religion and superstition have prevailed over rational thought for many reasons. Apologists for absurd ideas (virgin birth, transubstantiation, etc.) like this author take their place in that history.
As an atheist and humanist, I could be insulted every time a religion makes the claim that I need "Jesus Christ" to live a happy and moral life. Instead, I prefer to deal with the preposterous and anti-historical claims of religious superstitions. Call me a smug atheist.

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A Problematic Perspective

Martha Nussbaum is in danger of becoming the next Isaac Asimov - a freelance expert on everything in general. This book is more of a tour de force than a serious study. Nussbaum makes a good argument for "overlapping consensus" in discussing equality between the religion clauses in the First Amendment but really misses the boat when it comes to injurious religious practices - the major obstacle to the equality principle. (It was John Rawls who earlier argued for "overlapping consensus" between believers and non-believers.) She does this by merely shrugging off pernicious effects that religious practices can have. Why did the Pope recently have to meet with victims of abuse by Catholic clergy? Nussbaum also unaccountably gives a free pass to polygamy, which has been in the news lately. She is cavalier in dismissing Jon Krakauer's seriously troubling indictment of polygamy. He is a mountaineer, she asserts, and has no major credentials in religion. And who, precisely, is Ms. Nussbaum to complain about someone else's being a non-specialist? Yet Krakauer only shows part of the immense and disturbing problem that polygamy poses. Andrea Moore-Emmett, an award-winning journalist from Utah, exposed much deep ugliness and cruelty underlying polygamy in her study, "God's Brothel," which featured the harrowing accounts of 18 actual women who all lived under polygamy.

The problem is there are people who are willing to prey (no pun intended) on the credulous and inflict severe emotional and physical damage while claiming merely to be freely exercising their religion. This is where the equality principle - and Nussbaum's thesis - founder. After all, the Supreme Court has held that religious belief cannot be regulated but religiously-motivated conduct can. This is fortunate. But what is really left of free exercise at that rate? There is far too much misery and torment inflicted in the real world - today, here, now - for Nussbaum to hide behind the sort of dismissiveness that taints this study. Alas, one need not be a "smug atheist" to worry about the sins being committed as people anoint themselves prophets and act on their beliefs to the detriment of others. We act as though the abuses like those of the Inquisition could not happen here or be visited on anyone nowadays. Wrong. Emphatically wrong. It would be nice to think the Establishment Clause should move over and make equal time for the Free Exercise Clause but the fact is, when people insist they have God's sanction to do truly depraved things, in the name of exercising their religion, notional commentary trivializes the harsh realities and, ultimately, the power some religions hold, for good or ill, over the minds of their adherents.

I heard Dr. Nussbaum speaking on Bill Moyers on April 18 and I was struck by how she simply avoided difficult questions - and Moyers was gentle with her. She simply sidestepped the issue of what you do about religious people who refuse to recognize that others are entitled to equality. If people were as reasonable as her argument requires, we would not have the arrogant side of the debate over establishments of religion, where the religious right asserts "we believers are in the majority so we can dictate to others." We would not have the ugly side of religious expression where self-anointed prophets prey on the credulous and the young, and demand power and obedience from women and children under threat of eternal damnation. Nussbaum is a bright woman but she seems to be ensconced in the proverbial ivory tower. Reality is a lot less pleasant - and less accommodating to principles of equality - than she seems to grasp.

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In one of the great triumphs of the colonial and Revolutionary periods, the founders of the future United States overcame religious intolerance in favor of a constitutional order dedicated to fair treatment for people?s deeply held conscientious beliefs. It granted equal liberty of conscience to all and took a firm stand against religious establishment. This respect for religious difference, acclaimed scholar Martha Nussbaum writes, formed our democracy. Yet today there are signs that this legacy is misunderstood. The prominence of a particular type of Christianity in our public life suggests the unequal worth of citizens who hold different religious beliefs, or no beliefs. Other people, meanwhile, seek to curtail the influence of religion in public life in a way that is itself unbalanced and unfair. Such partisan efforts, Nussbaum argues, violate the spirit of our Constitution. Liberty of Conscience is a historical and conceptual study of the American tradition of religious freedom. Weaving together political history, philosophical ideas, and key constitutional cases, this is a rich chronicle of an ideal of equality that has always been central to our history but is now in serious danger.

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