Dignity and the “Religious Sense”: A Word of Caution, by Hadley Arkes

By Hadley Arkes, The Catholic Thing, Aug. 27, 2019

There was no confusion at the beginning of this country about the meaning of religion. James Madison said that, by religion, we mean “the Duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it.” That was the Creator who endowed us with unalienable rights, the Author of the Laws of Nature, including the moral laws.

There was no way that this God could be reconciled with a doctrine of moral relativism, and yet that is exactly the position that even conservatives on the courts have been settling into of late, as they seek to cast a wide protection over sects that call themselves “religions.”

Five years ago the Supreme Court found no constitutional violation when the Town of Greece, New York, allowed ministers from virtually any church to open legislative sessions with a prayer.  That decision created a lively new business for Satanists, quite eager to respond to calls throughout the country and offer invocations.  For the lawyers who defend religious freedom there is a deep reluctance now to judge any religion, or its teachings, as illegitimate. And yet, how could Satanism, the affirmation of radical evil, be part of anything we understand as “religion”? ….

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