The Battle Between Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion

Freedom of Speech v Freedom of Religion

Personally, as an atheist, I view religion as an evil and irrational concept that the world doesn't need and I try to convince religious people to steer away from their path. But I respect that people have their views, and if I cannot convince them, they should be allowed to practice their religion -like how Republicans are still allowed to run for elections- I cannot forcibly separate a fool from his toy; That would be cruel.

But I see that many fools so infatuated with their toys, they worship their toy to such a crazy extent, they place the toy's well being far before anyone else's and they want to protect the toy from any sort of harm. These religious folk are what I consider to be culprits who assume the freedom of religion supersedes the freedom of speech.

And I can tell you, they are very wrong.

Many of these fools come from this country they like to mistake as a "Christian country" on the continent of North America, located South of Canada, the United States of America. For those of you unfamiliar with this country full of misguided people (this is actually directed at Americans, they don't even know their own country), it consists of 50 states, including some famous states such as California (Hollywood here!!!), Hawaii (resorts here!!!), and Texas (Rednecks here!!!). It originally started off as 13 British colonies that grew fed up with the British Empire and declared independence through the American Revolution, led by a group of people commonly referred to as "the founding fathers". They are a democratic republic and the supreme law of the land is the document called the Constitution of the Republic of the United States of America.

Forgive me for my poor understanding and inaccurate information on the history of the United States of America, but that was instrumental in allowing our American friends to briefly understand the history of their country and the nature of freedom of speech and religion.

Where does freedom of speech and religion come from? The constitution of course. If you ever dabbled in American politics, you'd definitely heard of the holy "first amendment". So what is this first amendment? It is an amendment to the constitution to allow freedom of speech and freedom of religion. It also establishes secularism, that is the separation of church from state, whereby the state absolutely must not favour any religion over the other religions. It absolutely must not.

That is why the United States of America is not a Christian country. Not because we atheists say so, but because the supreme law of the land, the constitution says so. In fact, people should be prosecuted for treason for trying to violate the constitution. Anyone with basic knowledge of law should know of the rule of law, whereby no one is above the law, not even the majority at any time. It is ironic that many religious, the conservatives, are the ones that often tout constitutionalism, when they are the ones claiming the nation to be biased towards the Christians.

That aside, let me expand on how the freedom of speech is superior to the freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is only the freedom to exercise religion, citizens have the freedom to believe in what they want, and carry out practices in accordance to their religion as long as they don't violate any laws. It does not protect them from criticism, or gives them special rights in speech and press. Freedom of speech is the freedom to express your opinions and beliefs, everyone has freedom to express their views on any subject, as long as they don't violate laws or infringe on other's civil rights. That is freedom of speech.

Religious people can express their religious beliefs, but non-religious or people from other religions can in return, crticise their views. You can critcise someone's actions, as long as it doesn't go overboard and cause them immense emotional injury and social estrangement, that is defamation and bullying. Insults are fine to a certain extent, but bullying is definitely wrong, and you can be sued for defamation, as the government protects the individual's rights to a healthy reputation.

So before religious people spout off their mouth next time, saying "Keep your views to yourself, don't criticise my religion", they should rethink it. They have the freedom to say such audacious and moronic sentences, but everyone else has the freedom to form their opinion. They don't want to look like idiots, do they? (Though honestly, I think they look like idiots already.)