Freedom of Religion - Religious Belief, Growth Of Religious Tolerance, Religion And The Courts, The Changing Concept Of Religion

Freedom of Religion - Religious Belief

Among the unique characteristics of being human is the ability to create and communicate abstract thoughts such as religious beliefs. For much of human history religion has served as a means to socially unify individuals into groups. Early in the human experience, religion likely served to explain natural events and create order out of the world. The doctrine of salvation evolved based on the beli…

Freedom of Religion - Growth Of Religious Tolerance

Religious intolerance of seventeenth century England, in which religious strife precipitated political turmoil, greatly influenced the colonists. However, the various colonies treated religious toleration differently. The Puritans, greatly persecuted in England, imposed their own religious values in Massachusetts and became the persecutors. Maryland, in an effort to attract settlers, passed the Re…

Freedom of Religion - Religion And The Courts

The earliest court cases addressing free exercise of religion focused on the issue of polygamy practiced among the Mormons (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). Federal territorial laws in Utah and Idaho prohibited plural marriages and denied the right to vote to those who advocated such lifestyles, respectively. Perhaps largely influenced by the overwhelming Protestant maj…

Freedom of Religion - The Changing Concept Of Religion

After World War II and the inception of the Cold War, a revival of religion grew again but this time more integrally, including Catholics and Jews into a new Judeo-Christian tradition reflecting the ever increasing pluralism. Although Congress amended the Pledge of Allegiance by adding "under God" after "One nation," belief systems not based on the belief in a divine being gained prominence in the…

Freedom of Religion - Toward A More Neutral Government

In the late 1970s, social backlash to a series of Court cases, primarily concerning the Establishment Clause, led to fundamental changes in American politics and, eventually, the makeup of the Court. Some saw the backlash as a response to free exercise concepts posing a threat to the declining white Judeo-Christian dominance as the character of the U.S. population changed. Importantly, in 1990 the…

Freedom of Religion - Further Readings