Scottish Independence: Role of religion 'should be recognised'

[LostOne4Ever]

16. My problem here

Is that interfaith is often used to mean a group of people from across a wide spectrum of religious beliefs working together to accomplish a goal in an inclusive manner.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interfaith#Criticism_of_interfaith_dialogue

In theory this is a very progressive and laudable goal. One that I think would appeal to many progressives regardless of whether they are believers or not. In practice, these groups often lack input from nonbelievers and present exclusionary ideas as being inclusive. This is not to say that all interfaith groups do this, but many do.

Thus my objection to the group in the article. I feel they are trying to project themselves as including input from nonbelievers by using the term interfaith, when they might not have any non-believers at all. I do not know for sure if this interfaith group included non-believers or not, but I highly suspect they didn't. Based on the article I highly doubt that they would be "united" behind such a pronouncement.



I feel that ANY mention of religion beyond stating a commitment to a separation of church and state (which I think includes an individual's right to believe in whatever religion they wish without being persecuted for said beliefs by the government) will inevitably be used to try and legislate a religious belief or tradition.

As to why, or if nonbelievers would want to belong to such a group is not my concern here in this thread. I do know from other articles posted both here and in AA that non-believers have wanted to join such movement and have been denied access. IIRC, that post was about a interfaith soup kitchen that refused to allow an atheist group to participate even though the group offered to remove their group shirts.

I am also not trying to say religion is good or bad. I am just concerned with how such a statement being added to the Scottish constitution could be abused by conservatives trying to legislate their religion like they try and do here. This is despite the fact that the US constitution being completely "godless." Just the thought of how conservatives would use such a statement if one existed in our constitution scares me a bit.



I agree with you on the semantics problem with interfaith groups. Even using the prefix "inter" an argument could be made that non-believers do not fit the definition (I like the word "spectrum" myself), but without having our input you can't really claim to be working toward a policy or goal common with people from all corners of the spectrum of belief.

I also STRONGLY agree with you that a separation of church and state clause to be added to any modern democratic constitution. I just oppose the idea of any government including any statement of role of religion in their constitution beyond separation of church and state and all associated issues (one's right to believe as they please, non-discrimination, etc.)

As for humanist groups in Scotland I found this after a quick search:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanist_Society_Scotland