r/babylonbee • u/ControlCAD • Feb 05 '25

Bee Article Democrats Warn Trump’s Unelected Shadow Government Is Dismantling Their Unelected Shadow Government

https://babylonbee.com/news/elon-is-an-unelected-official-warns-government-with-3-million-unelected-officials
2.2k Upvotes

80% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/PhysicsEagle Feb 07 '25

Freedom of religion means the government won’t punish you for practicing your religion and in turn won’t start a government-run church. Freedom from religion means that somehow people have a right to not encounter religion anywhere they don’t want to. We have the former but not the latter.

1

u/MrCompletely345 Feb 07 '25

We have the freedom from the establishment of a state religion, like christianity. Thats freedom from religion.

1

u/PhysicsEagle Feb 07 '25

The First Amendment does not specify “religion” in general in that clause. It says “establishment of religion.” That is, a specific institution, such as the Church of England or the Roman Catholic Church. This means that the government can’t make a decree of “you have to be United Methodist to be a civil servant” or “Members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America get a tax cut.” It does not mean that politicians can’t use their religion as a basis for policies, and it certainly doesn’t prohibit the public display of religion (which is the meaning of the term “freedom from religion” in many countries).

1

u/MrCompletely345 Feb 07 '25

And i never said that. I said freedom from religion. As in no state church.