{"id":3522,"date":"2010-02-03T00:25:31","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T08:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=3522"},"modified":"2010-02-02T22:58:09","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T06:58:09","slug":"in-defense-of-religious-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/03\/in-defense-of-religious-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of Religious Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In several articles on this site, the premise has been repeated that true religious freedom is not the suppression of differing\u00a0ideas, but the <em>encouragement<\/em> of them.\u00a0 Sometimes\u00a0this is\u00a0a cautionary tale to\u00a0Christians who feel that other religions should not have the same freedoms as Christians.\u00a0 More often, however, it is a rebuttal to those who would silence or restrict Christians in order to avoid offense or exposure to a differing moral stance.<\/p>\n<p>Hugh Hewitt has a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hughhewitt.com\/blog\/g\/53e6a986-8ac2-4189-b958-d5ffc9d1c818\">similar explanation on his site<\/a>, in his criticisms of those who criticized CBS for allowing Tim Tebow and his mother to air a &#8220;Celebrate Life&#8221; ad during the SuperBowl:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Most people of faith are strong proponents of religious liberty because they are very acquainted with the stories of religious persecution in almost every other part of the globe.\u00a0 The answer to religious intolerance <!--more-->is more religious speech welcomed by free and open societies, not the censorship of small minded secularists.\u00a0 Bravo to Tebow and his mom, and to those who support his witness.\u00a0 Those who oppose it have no faith in freedom and especially not in the First Amendment, both in its protections for religious belief and for free expression.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>His last sentence is particularly poignant.\u00a0 If they are allowed to flourish, freedoms are self-sustaining; the <em>restriction<\/em> of freedoms leads to their demise.\u00a0 As has been quoted here, Jefferson said that the truth will prevail, so long as she is not disarmed of her &#8220;natural weapons: free argument and debate.&#8221;\u00a0 Those who insist on restricting religious freedom aren&#8217;t protecting anyone from an &#8220;untruth;&#8221; they are simply afraid of their ability to prove <em>their<\/em> &#8220;truth&#8221;\u00a0using those same freedoms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In several articles on this site, the premise has been repeated that true religious freedom is not the suppression of differing\u00a0ideas, but the encouragement of them.\u00a0 Sometimes\u00a0this is\u00a0a cautionary tale to\u00a0Christians who feel that other religions should not have the same freedoms as Christians.\u00a0 More often, however, it is a rebuttal to those who would silence or restrict Christians in [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4,82,19,170,10,171,169,172,41,173],"class_list":["post-3522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-churchandstate","tag-constitution","tag-government","tag-hugh-hewitt","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-superbowl","tag-thomas-jefferson","tag-tim-tebow","tag-truth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}