religion, politics, activism-promotion, persecutionI happened across an article by T. Jeremy Gunn that goes into depth trying to analyze the problems with current attempts at definitions of religion. The purpose was to create a framework for adjudicators of asylum seekers that are seeking asylum on the grounds of religious persecution.(All quotes below belong to this article, pp. 189-215)
His purpose is to emphasize that not all three conditions should be required of the petitioner, and the adjudicator should assess the three following features of a religion when trying to understand whether or how someone has/n’t been persecuted:
Mr Gunn then moves on to explain the two different approaches to defining a religion, the essentialist (where one picks a single trait shared among all, ie. “All Religions believe in a g/God”, and the “polythetic” where the religions are not bound by a singular, essential trait but by shared familial traits. To explain the latter, he references a 1965 US Supreme Court quote: “[T]he test of belief “in a relation to a Supreme Being” [in a law providing for conscientious objector status from military service] is whether a given belief that is sincere and meaningful occupies a place in the life of its possessor parallel to that filled by the orthodox belief in God.”
As religious and political persecution are means for an Asylum-seeker’s application to be granted, it seems incumbent upon the atheist community to have a presence in these proceedings that isn’t strictly limited to political persecution.
In order to strengthen the case for atheists that fear/experience persecution, and that cannot describe atheism as a religion (or religious category), how can we construct a logical case for religious persecution of atheism? To streamline, here is a format for answers:
For me the issue isn’t so much that one must prove discrimination of Atheism is religious persecution. It is better to define what religious persecution is.
Religious Persecution is discrimination against a person or group for the religious beliefs they hold or do not hold.
That is to say, if the cause of the discrimination is a bias for, or against, a particular religious belief, the discrimination is religious in nature. This covers all cases: A Jew judging a Christian; A Christian judging an Atheist; An Atheist judging a Muslim; A Buddhist judging another Buddhist; A Jew judging an Atheist for not being a Christian.
Even an Atheist that persecutes other Atheists is performing a religious persecution; because they need not hold a belief them self to judge others for not holding that belief.
There is a difference between a religion, which tends to refer to a specific belief structure as well as social structures supporting those who espouse those beliefs, and a “religious group” in the demographic sense, which is any grouping of people based on religious affiliation, belief or alignment. Certainly atheism is an attitude towards religion, and as such can be used by sociologists to define a “religious group” as described above. But it is not a religion in the first sense, as the only thing atheists truly have in common is their rejection of a belief, not a belief in itself.
The belief most atheists espouse is Metaphysical Materialism, which is a positive belief (i.e. I believe X) about the world, rather than a negative one (i.e. I don’t believe Y). It’s often said that an atheist’s negative belief (I don’t believe there’s a god) is equivalent to a positive belief (I believe there is no god), but that’s a fallacy. The opposite of “I believe there is a god” is not “I believe there is no god”; it is “I do not believe in the statement that there is a god”. Saying “I believe there is no god” is a different, albeit related statement altogether. The first is Atheism, the second is closer Metaphysical Materialism. So there could be a religion of Metaphysical Materialism, if there were to develop some sort of social support structure for those who espouse it.
But whether a religion or a religious group in the senses above, atheism can be targeted for religious persecution. You see, religious persecution is not about the religious attitudes of the target, but rather about the religious attitudes of the perpetrator. Persecutors do not really persecute a religious group because of that groups beliefs, but rather because of the persecutors beliefs ABOUT the religious group. And understood in that way, it matters not whether we talk of atheism or metaphysical materialism, or of whether either is a religion or not. Atheists can suffer religious persecution either way.
I’m not sure if I understand you right but freedom of religion also means “freedom from religion” (sometimes this is merely implicit, sometimes this is stated outright).
Religious freedom is simply an explicit special case of personal freedom and freedom of speech. Prosecuting atheists would specifically violate freedom of speech, and also freedom from religion.
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