Recent articles on Holocaust Day have drawn comments that
religion is a big contributor to violence and even genocide.
I think the problem is not religion itself, but rather the claim that
what any individual believes to be the word of God should be held superior to
other views by secular authority and forced on those who disagree. I got
this opinion while reading books by John Locke, starting in philosophy class in
college. The professor didn't think he
was much of a philosopher, but I thought he was great. Locke argued that government derives its power
and legitimacy from the consent of the governed. His views were extremely influential in the
formulation of the government the US has today. Please take a look at the wikipedia entry for
John Locke, and in particular his views on religious toleration. He was a very religious man who argued that
human judges could not dependably evaluate competing versions of the word of
God. According to Locke, “No private
person has any right to encroach in any way on another person’s civil goods
because he declares his allegiance to another church or religion. Anything that
a man has as a matter of human rights or civil rights is to remain inviolably
his.” Locke’s argument for toleration
lead to the First Amendment provisions for freedom of religion.
Original article on Holocaust Day:
Wikipedia entry for John Locke
Source of Locke Quotation
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