Insubstantial Burdens

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Vallier ◽  
Michael Weber
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Religious Freedom Restoration Act ◽  
The Government ◽  
A Minor

This chapter articulates and defends a “partially subjectivist” way of defining burdens on religious belief under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). On this view, courts should largely defer to plaintiffs as to what is a burden on their religious belief. There is only a minor requirement that the plaintiffs have to satisfy, which is to show that the government is doing something that pressures them to act in a way contrary to their beliefs—a relatively easy hurdle to clear. In general, courts are ill-equipped to determine what people’s religious beliefs really are, and this extends to determining when those beliefs are substantially burdened. More strongly, there is a tradition that says evaluating when people’s religious beliefs are burdened is really none of the court’s business. The partially subjectivist view honors these principles.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act and Prisons and Jails: An Assessment and a Proposal

1995 ◽  
Vol 7 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 309-327
Author(s):  
Jack E. Call ◽  
Charles Samarkos
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
Court Decision ◽  
Legislative History ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
The Law ◽  
Religious Freedom Restoration Act ◽  
The Impact

In November of 1993, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) was signed into law by the President. Its purpose was to overrule a 1990 Supreme Court decision and require government to satisfy a compelling interest test when its laws or actions place a substantial burden on an individual's exercise of personal religious beliefs. This article explores the impact of RFRA on prisons and jails. Since there was a failed effort in Congress to exempt prisons and jails from the strictures of RFRA, there is no question that RFRA applies to these institutions. The article begins by explaining the law on the free exercise of religion prior to RFRA. Then the provisions of RFRA and its legislative history are explored briefly. An assessment is made of the likely effect of RFRA on prisons and jails and its constitutionality. The article concludes with a recommendation for amending RFRA designed to insure that the free exercise rights of inmates are adequately protected, while not unduly hampering the ability of corrections administrators to run their prisons and jails safely and efficiently.

The Revival of Buddhist Nationalism in Thailand and Its Adverse Impact on Religious Freedom

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Adverse Impact ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
The Government

Abstract Triggered by the sense of crisis, the Thai state and Thai Buddhism are renewing their traditional relationship kindled by the monarch-led reform over a century ago. Thai Buddhism is reviving its lost aura and hegemony while the political conservatives are looking for legitimacy and collective identity in a time of democratic regression. The result is the rise of the Buddhist-nationalistic movement, Buddhist-as-Thainess notion. The phenomenon has grown more mainstream in recent years. These extreme Buddhists pressure the government to adopt a new constitutional relationship that brings the two entities closer to a full establishment. They also target both religious minorities as well as non-mainstream Buddhists. The revival of Buddhist nationalism foretells rising tension as well as diminishing religious freedom.

scholarly journals Special Solicitude: Religious Freedom at America’s Public Universities

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
William E. Thro
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Public Universities ◽  
Religious Organizations ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Religious Expression ◽  
University Campuses ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Government

Rejecting the Obama Administration’s argument that the First Amendment requires identical treatment for religious organizations and secular organizations, the Supreme Court held such a “result is hard to square with the text of the First Amendment itself, which gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations.” (Hosanna-Tabor, 565 U.S. at 189). This “special solicitude” guarantees religious freedom from the government in all aspects of society, but particularly on public university campuses. At a minimum, religious expression and religious organizations must have equal rights with secular expression and secular organizations. In some instances, religious expression and religious expression may have greater rights. The Court’s 2020 decisions in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, and Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, reinforce and expand the “special solicitude” of religion. Indeed, Espinoza and Our Lady have profound implications for student religious groups at America’s public campuses. This article examines religious freedom at America’s public universities. This article has three parts. First, it offers an overview of religious freedom prior to Espinoza and Our Lady. Second, it briefly discusses those two cases. Third, it explores the implications of those decisions on America’s public campuses.

Let us be careful with the evidence on mentalizing, cognitive biases, and religious beliefs

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjaana Lindeman ◽  
Annika M. Svedholm-Häkkinen
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Theoretical Synthesis

AbstractNorenzayan et al.’s theoretical synthesis is highly plausible and commendable. However, the empirical evidence for the arguments on mentalizing, cognitive biases, and religious belief is currently not as strong as the writers suggest. Although certainly abundant and compelling, this evidence is indirect, contradictory, and weak and must be acknowledged as such. More direct studies are needed to support the theory.

Blanshard's Ethics of Belief and Metaphysical Postulates

1991 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-156
Author(s):  
Winfred George Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Ethics Of Belief ◽  
Roman Catholics

In Brand Blanshard's major defence of reason in religion, Reason and Belief, he criticizes both Roman Catholics and Protestants for advocating contradictory theological doctrines and for believing beyond what the evidence supports. Claiming belief to be an ethical matter, with one morally responsible for one's religious beliefs, he holds that one is morally obligated in such metaphysical matters to believe only what the evidence warrants. Blanshard finds that religious beliefs typically fail to meet the standard of this ethics of belief, and thus his ethics appears inhospitable to religious belief.

scholarly journals The gene of agricultural grain-growing civilization of the modern Ukrainian territory as a marker of religious belief

2017 ◽  
pp. 126-138
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Zavaliy
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Living Conditions

The article «The gene of agricultural grain-growing civilization of the modern Ukrainian territory as a marker of religious beliefs» by О. Zavalii. The issue of the origins of the agricultural culture of the territory of modern Ukraine is considered in the article, based on the analysis of the leading foreign and domestic scientists’ research. The culture served as the source of religious beliefs based on the Natural worldview which was predetermined by the geographical living conditions.

scholarly journals Religious Neutrality in the Early Republic

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jud Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
Free Exercise Clause ◽  
Conscientious Objectors ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Right ◽  
The Government ◽  
Constitutional Meaning ◽  
Military Draft

Governmental neutrality is the heart of the modern Free Exercise Clause. Mindful of this core principle, which prevents the government from treating individuals differently because of their religious convictions, the Supreme Court held in Employment Division v. Smith that a neutral law can be constitutionally applied despite any incidental burdens it might impose on an individual�s exercise of religion. Conscientious objectors such as Quakers, for instance, do not have a constitutional right to be exempt from a military draft. Thus, neutrality now forms both the core and the outer limit of constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom. Judged according to founding-era views, however, this interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause is deeply problematic. Although historical scholarship has focused on the particular issue of religious exemptions, this Article takes a different approach by reexamining early debates about neutrality itself. These neglected sources demonstrate that modern cases invert the founding-era conception of religious freedom. For the Founders, religious freedom was primarily an unalienable natural right to practice religion�not a right that depended on whether a law was neutral. This evidence illuminates not only a significant transition in constitutional meaning since the Founding but also the extent to which modern priorities often color our understanding of the past.

scholarly journals Speaking to My Ancestors: An Ethnographic Study of Lived Childhood Religion in Rural Gansu

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-206
Author(s):  
Joseph Chadwin
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Gansu Province ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Lived Religion ◽  
Unique Form ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Rural Village ◽  
Ethnographic Data

AbstractThis article provides an overview of the major existing scholarship pertaining to childhood religion in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). More specifically, it examines lived childhood religion in a rural village in Gānsù province. This article challenges the commonly preconceived notion that children in the PRC do not regard religious belief as important and simply mirror the religious practices of their guardians. By utilising ethnographic data, I argue that children in the PRC are capable of constructing their own unique form of lived religion that is informed by, but crucially distinct from, the religious beliefs and practices of adults. The practices and beliefs of this lived religion can be extremely important to children and the evidence from fieldwork suggests that they tend to take both their practice and belief very seriously.

Religion as Spirituality

2020 ◽  
pp. 94-126
Author(s):  
Michael D. McNally
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native American ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sacred Places ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Sacred Lands ◽  
American Spirituality ◽  
Religious Claim

This chapter examines the failure in the courts of Native appeals to religious freedom protections for sacred lands, and it extends the previous chapter's analysis of the reception of Native claims to religion as religion. Where a religious claim conforms to the subjective, interior spirituality that has become naturalized in the United States, it has worked reasonably well in the courts. This is emphatically not the case where claims involve religious relationships with, uses of, and obligations to, land. The chapter explains how courts reason their way out of taking steps to protect Native American religious freedom when sacred places are threatened, a puzzling matter in that courts consistently acknowledge the sincerity of the religious beliefs and practices associated with those sacred places. Along the way the chapter develops a fuller sense of the workings of the discourse of Native American spirituality as it comes to control judicial comprehension of Native religious freedom claims.

Parents’ Expectations of Religious Congregations

2021 ◽  
pp. 191-216
Author(s):  
Christian Smith ◽  
Amy Adamczyk
Keyword(s):  
Religious Education ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Religious Development ◽  
Religious Congregations ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Youth Ministers

Church leaders, youth ministers, and volunteers are likely curious about the extent to which parents find congregations useful in transmitting religious beliefs and behaviors. This chapter explores how parents use religious congregations to transmit religious belief. The chapter discusses why parents tend to feel that they, rather than their congregations, are primarily responsible for passing on religious faith. Many parents select their congregations for fairly practical reasons, they have a lot of confidence in their own understanding of religion, and they want to be involved in all aspects of their child’s life, including religious development. This chapter also unpacks what parents see as the most valuable contributions that congregations provide for their children. These include the congregation’s role in providing religious education, making religion fun for their children, and transmitting cultural traditions.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document