Belyea Rd 8 - Religion, Liberty, Tolerance

By Wayne Brown

The idea of using voice to text for the rough draft for the blog.

Discussion of "belief" and how to approach the question "Do you believe ...". Belief is a transitory, unimportant psychological phenomenon. Action is important.

The imposition of a "belief system" on others is the issue. This is behind the religious wars in Europe and the Crusades. Was it always this way? Did the Huns insist that everyone "believe" in their system and/or impose cultural ceremonies on them?

Freedom of religion is central to the thinking behind the foundation of America, even though the early history was quite otherwise.

The concept is that there is a wide source of agreement behind the legitimacy of authority. The constitution was a list of restrictions on what kind of authority was legitimate in terms of what kinds of laws could be considered legitimate.

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Abortion. Does anyone have the right to interfere with the freedom of the mother (or the fetus)? Where does the legitimacy come from? Assisted suicide is a linked issue. What is "ours" in this life? Why should a follower of Zen care? Zen parallels illustrate this point.

Zen, Buddhism, and Taoism are all very weak on political issues. The same can be said of Christianity.


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