我认为宗教为你提到的一些情况提供了一种制度背景，比如反对参军或佩戴仪式刀具。如果没有宗教制度的合法化和正式框架，这些反对者或持刀者将是不可预测的自由职业者，他们的行为将被认为是不可控制的，他们的动机将缺乏正式的强化。

I would like to begin by pointing out that, although it is a fact that the US Constitution contains language which suggests that it "protects our right to say and publish whatever we think? it should be pointed out that that ?we? is exclusive. For example, the US government has negated the rights guaranteed by the Constitution for certain groups of people with certain ideas such as the various Native American tribes who were forced to assimilate and not allowed to even speak the language that housed their culture. If ?language is the house of being? as Heidegger suggested, then not allowing the aboriginal people to speak their own tongue was a greater offense than merely suppressing discourse. Another case in point is anti-communist activity during the Cold War such as the COINTEL Program. My point here is that the US Constitution and the rights provided by it are only allotted to a subset of individual and ideas. If we are to apply the standards of logic to the statement, then it?s a demonstrably false statement. Also, as is the case with ?justice,? rights given to to a subset of those subjected to a system and it?s laws leaves a bad taste in one?s mouth, although, if your Nietzsche this is just how it should be. Regardless of how me want things to be normatively, the facts of history and even modernity suggest that such things as ?rights? are only applicable to certain people under certain conditions.
If we?re going to talk about ?religion? then we need to get clear about what it means. The story in the second paragraph provides an suggestion. John wrote, ?[During the Vietnam draft] if you practiced a religion that endorsed pacifism, you could be declared a conscientious objector and avoid the draft. But if you endorsed pacifism only on secular moral grounds, you couldn?t,? and this brings something to mind about religion: it?s organized. Unorganized individuals with secular beliefs have no political force and so there?s not much incentive for the US government to recognize those views as being legitimate. Whereas, with organized religion, these were granted protection in an era in which God was still alive (to allude to Nietzsche). The established religions of the time held political influence (and do to this day). This is not the case with minority belief systems and the secular unorganized. So, one way we might distinguish religion from not-religion is by the attribute of organization. As far as the politics is concerned this, I think, is enough to see why (historically) religions have been granted special protections, i.e., they?re organized political factions. I anticipate that, as more atheists and humanists organize, the urgency of these very questions we are concerned with here will come to the forefront in the same way (with the same controversy) as gay marriage.
My point above is a supplement to John?s remark that "the special treatment of religion in the U.S. Constitution reflects the dominant views of the founders.? It?s obvious that these leaders made the contributions, carried out the deliberations, and so on which led to the making of US law, but we cannot disregard the fact that they are products of their environment and subject to the forces of society. The notion of ?founding fathers? itself is a shadow of God (to allude to Nietzsche, again). They were agents carrying out actions but those actions were not merely compelled by their sole agency. They cannot claim to be the sole authors of the US Constitution, as God was claimed to be the author of the Universe, even if it was their hands and mouths which led to its production as an object.
The point which I started this comment with confirms John?s remark that "an endorsement of religion...would make the first amendment self-contradictory.? Historically, this is exactly how practice has been in the US. To this day all religions are equal but some are more equal than others and, in my opinion, this makes the US Constitution a farcical document; it?s a document of bad faith.
I think it is possible to rewrite the Bill of Rights in such a way that it would not give undue preference to religion while also not becoming a Thelemic proclamation of ?do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.? To explain how this would be possible would require a book.

Great comments!

Oh No
right is an illusion
we make it real by truth
//
本质上，真理是形式。
change is inherently about right, I'm moved ...

I found your post very simpatico! And I am hoping you and others here will give me your unfettered thoughts per a suggestion of mine, one that is about how if we choose to do so, we can harness and employ feelings of "wholeness" and "oneness" of individual family members in support of greater family cohesiveness?
More specifically,..
To help many of today's families increase their chances of staying whole and one in the face of all sorts of ever increasing disruptive pressures, at my familycology.org site I have been proposing something that seems to me to be worthy of consideration: members of a family seeing themselves as lerally parts of a sacred family congregation. Please note that everything about my idea of a family congregation is completely open-ended, and (though at first seemingly sacreligious to many who see religion only in familiar, but not family terms) I think wholly in accord with our Constitutional freedoms as well as our deepest senses of spirituality. .
致以问候，希望听到您和他人的想法!

Let me suggest that "founding fathers" is not derived from a belief in God, but, rather, that our belief in gods and God is derived from the usefulness of fathers to a species requiring a long developmental period.

Hello John, thanks for raising this interesting question. I guess it might help to try to work out what religion is really about.
我们是社会物种。我们做的每一件事都是一起做的——如果没有其他人的持续努力，我们很少有人能活到一个月以上;另一方面，我们合作得越多，我们取得的成就就越多。为了合作，我们需要一套道德准则。那些公开/遵守代码的人是他们团队中完全的、值得信赖的成员，也是任何联合项目中可靠的前景。
宗教是我们建立和传递群体道德准则的工具。宗教实践具有一些关键功能:它为讨论和维护法典提供了一个论坛;它为个人提供了公开遵守准则的机会，并从他人的行为中观察他们履行承诺的程度;它通过利用人类深层的情感和创造力来灌输密码——气味、铃铛、歌曲、建筑、美术、隐藏在神秘事件背后的超自然力量的幻想;它将自己的行为与道德准则联系起来，并通过将它们提升到“神圣”的领域来保护它们，这是一个明确不允许干涉的领域。
The protection of virtuous mores in a cooperative society is clearly of the very highest importance and makes a good reason to accord religion special status. But this accorded freedom, like all others, needs managing where it threatens to encroach. You should be free to spend your Sundays in church, but not to insist that I do the same. The state's job of maximizing freedom for all can only be done by limiting to some extent the freedom of each.
当然，这其中有很多是历史性的，但深刻的宗教信仰仍然会产生强烈的情感，除了在那些其他重要自由受到威胁的特殊情况下，这种情感更容易被容纳，而不是被对抗。反正在我看来就是这样!
Hugh

I think American religion has been riding an amazing tax-free gravy train for 237 years. Does no one understand that the clause "Congress shall make no law..." puts religion outside the law? Look at the Catholic church's pedophilia problem: This had been likely going on for decades, but secular authorities were so hesitant to enforce the law because they were afraid of the outlaw nature of organized religion. In addition, because of this clause, abusive cults who call themselves a "church," can operate freely because of the U.S. constitution. Organized religion is untaxed and unregulated and it is outside the laws of society. What an incredible gig!
On the other hand...I don't feel a prohibition against the freedom to practice religion is necessary. Not all churches or religions are behaving badly. But when the free exercise of religion entails thievery, pedophilia, tax-evasion and the unnecessary cultic torture of church members, I think it's okay to say NO and shut those churches down.
我认为，问题在于教会是组织，因此是由腐败的人操纵的。因此，他们是不值得信任的(回到本网站的另一个线程)，因为任何组织都不值得信任，应该遵守所有的社会法律和标准，防止组织过度。宗教也是繁荣的行业，也需要像其他行业一样征税和监管。你仍然可以给神父神职人员的地位，或者听从牧师的建议，但作为“羊群”的一员，作为社会的一员，你也可以知道你个人的、受宪法保障的权利受到保护，不受无良的神职人员的侵害。

喜欢这个评论mfstone。我喜欢你展示的美国社会契约中的“权利”不是平均分配的。因此，我们似乎已经到了不能评判宗教特权的地步，因为“权利”没有普遍价值。

great comment hugh, I like the deductive breakdown of religion's necessary place in social evolution.

i like the idea of establishing a fair tax for religious profits and properties.

问题是:宗教是否应该享有特殊地位?这个问题更好的框架应该是:宗教是否应该享有特殊地位?我认为答案(在美国的背景下)是否定的。由于我们国家对宗教自由的巨大奉献，宗教已经侵犯了政治进程的某些方面，而这些方面本不应该允许宗教施加影响。其中一个问题一直争议不断:堕胎以及女性是否有权为自己选择。天主教会是坚定的，但女性是坚忍的和顽固的，她们也应该如此。她们不需要一个由男性主导的机构来决定她们在个人事务中的权利。这个问题由来已久，但却足以导致家庭分裂，这也说明了宗教本身常常存在分歧。在另一个层面上，当我们审视当前和过去的世界冲突时，我们一次又一次地看到，始终如一的争吵，其根源是宗教分歧;教派争端和随之而来的文化纠纷。 Make no mistakes here. Religion, at its base, is about power and power is about money. Any arguments about altruistic soul-saving and a family of man are a time-honored (sic) ruse, concocted to appeal to the ignorant masses.You need not like what I am saying here. I do not mind. Special status for religion? How much more special are we talking about anyway?
Newman.

After due consideration and review of comments submitted thus far, I deduce that Dawkins; Hitchens; and Dennett are, so far, right: God is a delusion, is not great and we ought to break the spell. Some of us may subscribe to Pascal's Wager: cutting our losses. But, supposing God's existence, we must also suppose God is not a fool. Pascal was a mathematician and physicist, therefore he must have known something about the odds. If God exists and is, therefore, not a fool, odds mean nothing. Albert Einstein, another scientist of note,allegedly said that God did not play dice. How did Einstein KNOW this? I don't believe he did. It just sounded good at the time. He may have been subscribing to Pascal's Wager---hoping for eternity vs. oblivion. But---we shall never know. Well, probably not anyway. Lots of people are working to discredit Charles Darwin. Many of them are blissfully ignorant of facts that prove evolutionary theory. But, this now brings us back to the religion matter. Circularity seems prevalent. Hitchens, Pascal and Einstein are dead. Pretty final. Everybody dies. Do the best you can while you are here. It is your first, best and last shot. Unless you believe in the promises of religion. Good night and good luck.

Its diplomatic. Sometimes yes or sometime no. Religious deserve specific status?? Still a question.
'The Catholic church is adamant but women are stoic and stubborn, as well they should be.' Hey Harold, the sentence you said is true and I liked it. But this will continue.

The special status issue remains puzzling to me, yet, I think I know why it exists. Well, partially, anyway. Inasmuch as there are certain constitutional provisions, of which most of us are well aware, it would appear that there is precedent for granting some sort of special status because it has already been granted, if only tacitly. To wit: the constitution prescribes freedom of religion, while also prescribing freedom from religion. Therefore, religion is a protected class under law. Those who choose no religion are also protected, at least in theory, although the protection is more akin to: just leave them alone, they are all damned anyway and after all, they pay taxes too. Now given the history of the USA and those who came here to escape various persecutions, the framers of the constitution really had little choice. If you don't walk the walk after talking the talk, you lose the beat. So, there is ample special status to go around, seems to me. That is not to say, of course, that some don't want more of it.
Neuman

我不知道为什么这个问题现在应该出现，或者为什么张贴不应该按时间顺序。
At the time of the American Revolution, the several states each had its own dominant church which thought of it as their right to be the "established" religion. That is, as having the legal authority of the state behind it in requiring all residents to be members and to pay for its support. In the southern states this would be the Church of England which, though created during the Reformation, was not, strictly speaking, "reformed". And there was considerable controversy in this as "reform" churches were vying for recognition. Southern Baptists, in particular, were fiercely opposed to an established "C of E", and these were a vital constituency for Thomas Jefferson. The establishment clause could therefore refer to nothing more than the formal status as the "established" church. But if it is indeed about religious liberty, this needs to be distinguished between individual and collective rights. If religious liberty is an individual right it is hard to see how it could be construed to support the power of religious authority over its membership, as it is being used these days to suppress abortion rights. And if we do accept a collective or corporate right, as the corporeality of a congregation, the we also open it to interpretation as the corporeal right of a business or political association, which tends to corrupt and undermine any individual application. A case in point is the 14th Amendment.
The exemption to taxation granted churches is a dangerous aspect of the issue. The Reformation was largely the result of secular authorities frustrated by the accumulation of valuable properties in the hands of the prelates. That accumulation is entropic. That is, it has no reason to reverse, so that any trend to accumulate property has no countervailing pressure, and publicly taxed properties tend to dwindle over time, making taxes higher and higher on secular owners. Some cities in this country are plagued by this dilemma. But if religious liberty is individual and not corporate, there is no reason why any church should be able to operate a profit making enterprise without paying taxes, or to simply hold on to property it does not put to any use at all, not even for charitable purposes. Only specifically religious or charitable enterprises should get the exemption.
宗教在很多方面都不受质疑。但是，即使我们坚持继续免除他们的暴行，不把他们的义理要求提交给批判性的调查，我们仍然没有理由给他们的诚实，甚至体面，他们的动机。我们确实有保证信仰和意见自由的动机。如果我们不承认他人有表达自己意见的权利，我们还能如何进行民主?但这种权利并不一定要有礼貌的保证。如果信徒和他们的教会当局认为宗教自由意味着劝诫他人或向他人施加压力让他们像他们一样信仰的权利，那么我认为这不仅没有宗教自由，而且有粗鲁回应的权利。仅仅因为你宣扬“善良”并不意味着你就是善良的，或者你所宣扬的就是善良的。