"Brian Burger" wrote in message
ia.tc.ca...
On Mon, 30 Aug 2004, C J Campbell wrote:


"Tom S." wrote in message
...

"C J Campbell" wrote in
message
...

To the contrary, it is the freedom OF religion amendment, not
freedom
FROM
religion.

Can't have one without the other.

You certainly can. In fact, they are mutually exclusive. Freedom FROM
religion amounts to a prohibition of religion, whereas freedom OF
religion
means that anyone can worship who, what, or how they wish, or not at all
if
it suits them.

Errr... the last part of your sentence ("...or not at all...") IS freedom
from religion, isn't it? IE you can choose to be free from religion, while
other people can choose to practice whatever religion they want.

BINGO!!!

They aren't mutually exclusive, the larger one (freedom of...) should
automatically include the detailed one (freedom from...).

....depending on how you hold. You can't have freedom of religion unless you
correspondingly have freedom FROM it as well. That's what a secular republic
is all about, though the US was the first (and probably the only one) in
history,
America's New Secular Order (Novus Ordo Seclorem).



Where it gets complicated, of course, is where someone else's religion
invades public life. "In God We Trust", and stuff like that... I'm not
going to go there right now, it's even MORE off topic that we already
are...

See above.